I have had an opportunity lately of attending a Kafir _lit de

justice_, and I can only say that if we civilized people managed our

legal difficulties in the same way it would be an uncommonly good

thing for everybody except the lawyers. Cows are at the bottom of

nearly all the native disputes, and the Kafirs always take their

grievance soberly to the nearest magistrate, who arbitrates to

the best of his ability between the disputants. They are generally

satisfied with his award, but if the case is an intricate one, or they

consider that the question is not really solved, then they have the

right of appeal, and it is this court of appeal which I have been

attending lately. It is held in the newly-built office of the minister

for native affairs--the prettiest and most respectable-looking

public office which I have seen in Maritzburg, by the way. Before the

erection of this modest but comfortable building the court used to be

held out in the open air under the shade of some large trees--a

more picturesque method of doing business, certainly, but subject to

inconveniences on account of the weather. It is altogether the most

primitive and patriarchal style of business one ever saw, but all the

more delightful on that account.

It is inexpressibly touching to see with one's own eyes the

wonderfully deep personal devotion and affection of the Kafirs for the

kindly English gentleman who for thirty years and more has been their

real ruler and their wise and judicious friend. Not a friend to pamper

their vices and give way to their great fault of idleness, but a true

friend to protect their interests, and yet to labor incessantly for

their social advancement and for their admission into the great field

of civilized workers. The Kafirs know little and care less for all

the imposing and elaborate machinery of British rule; the queen on

her throne is but a fair and distant dream-woman to them; Sir Garnet

himself, that great inkosi, was as nobody in their eyes compared to

their own chieftain, their king of hearts, the one white man to whom

of their own free will and accord they give the royal salute whenever

they see him. I have stood in magnificent halls and seen king and

kaiser pass through crowds of bowing courtiers, but I never saw

anything which impressed me so strongly as the simultaneous springing

to the feet, the loud shout of _Bayete!_ given with the right hand

upraised (a higher form of salutation than _Inkosi!_ and only accorded

to Kafir royalty), the look, of love and rapture and satisfied

expectation in all those keen black faces, as the minister, quite

unattended, without pomp or circumstance of any sort or kind, quietly

walked into the large room and sat himself down at his desk with some

papers before him. There was no clerk, no official of any sort: no

one stood between the people and the fountain of justice. The

extraordinary simplicity of the trial which commenced was only to be

equaled by the decorum and dignity with which it was conducted. First

of all, everybody sat down upon the floor, the plaintiff and defendant

amicably side by side opposite to the minister's desk, and the other

natives, about a hundred in number, squatted in various groups. Then,

as there was evidently a slight feeling of surprise at my sitting

myself down in the only other chair--they probably considered me a

new--fashioned clerk--the minister explained that I was the wife of

another inkosi, and that I wanted to see and hear how Kafirmen

stated their case when anything went wrong with their affairs. This

explanation was perfectly satisfactory to all parties, and they

regarded me no more, but immediately set to work on the subject in

hand. A sort of _prècis_ of each case had been previously prepared

from the magistrate's report for Mr. S----'s information by his clerk,

and these documents greatly helped me to understand what was going on.

No language can be more beautiful to listen to than either the Kafir

or Zulu tongue: it is soft and liquid as Italian, with just the same

gentle accentuation on the penultimate and antepenultimate syllables.

The clicks which are made with the tongue every now and then, and

are part of the language, give it a very quaint sound, and the proper

names are excessively harmonious.

In the first cause which was taken the plaintiff, as I said before,

was not quite satisfied with the decision of his own local magistrate,

and had therefore come here to restate his case. The story was

slightly complicated by the plaintiff having two distinct names by

which he had been known at different times of his life. "Tevula," he

averred, was the name of his boyhood, and the other, "Mazumba," the

name of his manhood. The natives have an unconquerable aversion

to giving their real names, and will offer half a dozen different

aliases, making it very difficult to trace them if they are "wanted,"

and still more difficult to get at the rights of any story they may

have to tell. However, if they are ever frank and open to anybody, it

is to their own minister, who speaks their language as well as they

do themselves, and who fully understands their mode of reasoning and

their habits of mind.

Tevula told his story extremely well, I must say--quietly, but

earnestly, and with, the most perfectly respectful though manly

bearing. He sometimes used graceful and natural gesticulation, but not

a bit more than was needed to give emphasis to his oratory. He was a

strongly-built, tall man, about thirty-five years of age, dressed in

a soldier's great-coat--for it was a damp and drizzling day--had bare

legs and feet, and wore nothing on his head except the curious ring

into which the men weave their hair. So soon as a youth is considered

old enough to assume the duties and responsibilities of manhood

he begins to weave his short crisp hair over a ring of grass which

exactly fits the head, keeping the woolly hair in its place by means

of wax. In time the hair grows perfectly smooth and shining and

regular over this firm foundation, and the effect is as though it were

a ring of jet or polished ebony worn round the brows. Different tribes

slightly vary the size and form of the ring; and in this case it was

easy to see that the defendant belonged to a different tribe, for

his ring was half the size, and worn at the summit of a cone of

combed-back hair which was as thick and close as a cap, and indeed

looked very like a grizzled fez. Anybody in court may ask any

questions he pleases, and in fact what we should call "cross-examine"

a witness, but no one did so whilst I was present. Every one listened

attentively, giving a grunt of interest whenever Tevula made a point;

and this manifestation and sympathy always seemed to gratify him

immensely. But it was plain that, whatever might be the decision of

the minister, who listened closely to every word, asking now and then

a short question--which evidently hit some logical nail right on the

head--they would abide by it, and be satisfied that it was the fairest

and most equitable solution of the subject.

Here is a _résumé_ of the first case, and it is a fair sample of the

intricacies of a Kafir lawsuit: Our friend Tevula possesses an aged

relative, a certain aunt, called Mamusa, who at the present time

appears to be in her dotage, and consequently her evidence is of very

little value. But once upon a time--long, long ago--Mamusa was young

and generous: Mamusa had cows, and she _gave_ or _lent_--there was the

difficulty--a couple of heifers to the defendant, whose name I can't

possibly spell on account of the clicks. Nobody denies that of her

own free will these heifers had been bestowed by Mamusa on the

withered-looking little old man squatting opposite, but the question

is, Were they a loan or a gift? For many years nothing was done about

these heifers, but one fine day Tevula gets wind of the story, is

immediately seized with a fit of affection for his aged relative, and

takes her to live in his kraal, proclaiming himself her protector and

heir. So far so good: all this was in accordance with Kafir custom,

and the narration of this part of the story was received with grunts

of asseveration and approval by the audience. Indeed, Kafirs are as

a rule to be depended upon, and their minds, though full of odd

prejudices and quirks, have a natural bias toward truth. Two or three

years ago Tevula began by claiming, as heir-at-law, though the old

woman still lives, twenty cows from the defendant as the increase of

these heifers: _now_ he demands between thirty and forty. When asked

why he only claimed twenty, as nobody denies that the produce of the

heifers has increased to double that number, he says naively, but

without hesitation, that there is a fee to be paid of a shilling

a head on such a claim if established, and that he only had twenty

shillings in the world; so, as he remarked with a knowing twinkle in

his eye, "What was the use of my claiming more cows than I had money

to pay the fee for?" But times have improved with Tevula since then,

and he is now in a position to claim the poor defendant's whole herd,

though he generously says he will not insist on his refunding those

cows which do not resemble the original heifers, and are not, as they

were, dun and red and white. This sounded magnanimous, and met

with grunts of approval until the blear-eyed defendant remarked,

hopelessly, "They are all of those colors," which changed the

sympathies of the audience once more. Tevula saw this at a glance, and

hastened to improve his position by narrating an anecdote. No words

of mine could reproduce the dramatic talent that man displayed in his

narration. I did not understand a syllable of his language, and yet I

could gather from his gestures, his intonation, and above all from

the expression of his hearers' faces, the sort of story he was telling

them. After he had finished, Mr. S---- turned to me and briefly

translated the episode with which Tevula had sought to rivet the

attention and sympathy of the court. Tevula's tale, much condensed,

was this: Years ago, when his attention had first been directed to

the matter, he went with the defendant out on the veldt to look at the

herd. No sooner did the cattle see them approaching than a beautiful

little dun-colored heifer, the exact counterpart of her grandmother

(Mamusa's cow), left the others and ran up to him, Tevula, lowing and

rubbing her head against his shoulder, and following him all about

like a dog. In vain did her reputed owner try to drive her away: she

persisted in following Tevula all the way back to his kraal, right up

to the entrance of his hut. "I was her master, and the inkomokazi knew

it," cried Tevula triumphantly, looking round at the defendant with a

knowing nod, as much as to say, "Beat that, if you can!" Not knowing

what answer to make, the defendant took his snuff-box out of his left

ear and solaced himself with three or four huge pinches. I started the

hypothesis that Mamusa might once have had a _tendresse_ for the old

gentleman, and might have bestowed these cows upon him as a love-gift;

but this idea was scouted, even by the defendant, who said gravely,

"Kafir women don't buy lovers or husbands: we buy the wife we want."

A Kafir girl is exceedingly proud of being bought, and the more she

costs the prouder she is. She pities English women, whose bride-grooms

expect to receive money instead of paying it, and considers a dowry as

a most humiliating arrangement.

I wish I could tell you how Mamusa's cows have finally been disposed

of, but, although it has occupied three days, the case is by no

means over yet. I envy and admire Mr. S----'s untiring patience and

unfailing good-temper, but it is just these qualities which make

his Kafir subjects (for they really consider him as their ruler) so

certain that their affairs will not be neglected or their interests

suffer in his hands.

Whilst I was listening to Tevula's oratory my eyes and my mind

sometimes wandered to the eager and silent audience, and I amused

myself by studying their strange head-dresses. In most instances the

men wore their hair in the woven rings to which I have alluded, but

there were several young men present who indulged in purely fancy

head-dresses. One stalwart youth had got hold of the round cardboard

lid of a collar-box, to which he had affixed two bits of string, and

tied it firmly but jauntily on one side of his head. Another lad had

invented a most extraordinary decoration for his wool-covered pate,

and one which it is exceedingly difficult to describe in delicate

language. He had procured the intestines of some small animal, a lamb

or a kid, and had cleaned and scraped them and tied them tightly, at

intervals of an inch or two, with string. This series of small clear

bladders he had then inflated, and arranged them in a sort of bouquet

on the top of his head, skewering tufts of his crisp hair between, so

that the effect resembled a bunch of bubbles, if there could be such

a thing. Another very favorite adornment for the head consisted of a

strip of gay cloth or ribbon, or of even a few bright threads,

bound tightly like a fillet across the brows and confining a tuft of

feathers over one ear; but I suspect all these fanciful arrangements

were only worn by the gilded youth of a lower class, because I noticed

that the chieftains and _indunas_, or headmen of the villages, never

wore such frivolities. They wore indeed numerous slender rings

of brass or silver wire on their straight, shapely legs, and also

necklaces of lions' or tigers' claws and teeth round their throats,

but these were trophies of the chase as well as personal ornaments.

THE LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR.[5]

[Footnote 5: _Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor._ Boston:

James R. Osgood & Co.]

It is a long time since a more interesting biography has been

published than this of Mr. Ticknor. No American book of the same kind

can be compared with it, and very few have appeared in England that

give the reader as varied glimpses of society and as many details in

regard to interesting people as may be found in these two entertaining

volumes. Its fullness in this respect is what makes the charm of the

book. Mr. Ticknor's life was a long one: from his youth he saw a great

deal of the best society both of this country and of Europe, and he

always had the custom of recording the impressions made upon him by

the people he met. Hence this _Life_, which is for the most part

made up of extracts from his letters and journals, is almost an

autobiography, but an autobiography, one might almost say, without a

hero, in which the writer keeps himself in the background and gives

his main attention to other people. The editors have, however, given a

full account of those parts of his life of which his own record is but

brief.

He was born in Boston in 1791. His father, to judge from his letters,

which are full of sensible advice, was a man of more than common

ability, and he very carefully trained his son to put his talents to

their best use. He had no stubborn material for his hands, for even in

his youth Mr. Ticknor showed many of those traits which most clearly

marked him in after life; among others, an intelligent, unimaginative,

but also unmalicious observation of his kind for his relaxation, and

for his work in life warm devotion to the study of letters. How scanty

were the opportunities in this way at that period may be seen from his

difficulties in getting any knowledge of German after his graduation

from Dartmouth College, and when he had just given up his brief

practice of the law. His teacher was an Alsatian, who knew his own

pronunciation was bad; he was able to borrow a grammar from Mr.

Everett, but he had to send to New Hampshire for a dictionary; and

the only book he had to read was a copy of _Werther_ belonging to

John Quincy Adams, then in Europe, which he managed to borrow from the

gentleman who had Mr. Adams's books under his care at the Athenæeum.

This was in 1814, and already he had made up his mind to go to Germany

and profit by the advantages offered by the universities of that

country. With regard to the education he had already acquired, it is

evident that he had learned more by private study than by following

the courses of the college which had given him a degree. But before

visiting other countries he determined to make himself familiar with

his own, and for that purpose he made a journey to Washington and

Virginia, seeing on his way, at New York, one of the earliest ships of

war moved by steam, and in Philadelphia meeting John Randolph, whom he

describes carefully in one of his letters to his father. At Washington

he dined with President Madison, who was in considerable anxiety at

the time (January 21, 1815) about the fate of New Orleans. He gives

a dreary picture of the state festivities. The President, he says,

"sometimes laughed, and I was glad to hear it, but his face was always

grave. He talked of religious sects and parties, and was curious to

know how the cause of liberal Christianity stood with us, and if the

Athanasian creed was well received by our Episcopalians.... He talked

of education and its prospects, of the progress of improvement among

us, and once or twice he gave it a political aspect, though with great

caution." In Virginia he visited Thomas Jefferson at Monticello,

and this eminent man seems to have taken a great fancy to his young

visitor, who gave his father a full account of his host and his ways.

The details are too long to quote, but those who turn to the book

will find that Mr. Ticknor began early to observe people, and

that, although his descriptions, even in his youth, show a lack of

imagination, they are yet made lifelike by his patient, unwearying

elaboration of details. How full, for instance, is his account of Lord

Jeffrey, written to one of his friends in 1814. Such letters have gone

out of fashion now, when it is more frequent to sum up the characters

of our visitors in epigrams than in long essays, as Mr. Ticknor

has here done. This first star, who in comparison with many of Mr.

Ticknor's later acquaintances was one of very modest magnitude, made

his unexpected, comet-like appearance in Boston on his way to New York

to marry an American woman. It is easy to believe what Mr. Ticknor

says in his long account of him, that "while he flatters by his

civility those who are little accustomed to attention from his

superiors, he disappoints the reasonable expectations of those who

have received the homage of all around them until it has become a part

of their just expectations and claims."

In April, 1815, Mr. Ticknor set sail for England in company with his

friend Edward Everett, and at the end of four weeks they arrived at

Liverpool, just in time to hear of Napoleon's escape from Elba. There

was at least one man in England who was pleased with that turn of

fate, and that was Dr. Parr, whom Mr. Ticknor stopped to see on his

way to London, and who told his young guest, "I should not think I

had done my duty if I went to bed any night without praying for the

success of Napoleon Bonaparte." Lord Byron, it should be added, on

hearing the news of Waterloo, said, "I am d----d sorry for it.... I

didn't know but I might live to see Lord Castlereagh's head on a pole.

But I suppose I sha'n't now." Of this last-named admirer of Bonaparte,

Mr. Ticknor saw a good deal during his stay in England. Byron was then

a newly-married man, and on better terms with the world at large than

he was at other times of his life. His American visitor recorded that

he "found his manners affable and gentle, the tones of his voice low

and conciliating, his conversation gay, pleasant and interesting in an

uncommon degree."

Of the older men, he saw Dr. Rees, editor of the _Encyclopædia_, who

had dined with Dr. Johnson and John Wilkes at Dilly's--not at the

first dinner probably, for Boswell gives a list of the guests which

does not include his name, but doubtless at the second, in 1781. Dr.

Rees said that Wilkes won his way to Johnson's heart not, as Boswell

reports, by his wit, but by the grossest flattery; and he added that

Johnson always courted Boswell more than any one else, that he might

be exhibited to posterity in a favorable light. A mere list of the

names of the people he saw during this short stay in England will show

how full of interest this part of his diary is. Campbell, Gifford,

West, Sir Humphry Davy he saw most frequently, but no one so often as

he did Byron. His penchant for "lions" always led him to prefer the

lordliest among them.

It was a great change from the excitement and succession of novelties

of London to the monotonous routine of Göttingen, where he arrived,

after a journey of about five weeks, early in August, 1815. Göttingen

at that time was the seat of the leading German university. It has

never been full of distracting temptations: indeed, it is a town which

seems to have been so arranged that the student should find in

study alone relief from its manifold discomforts. The advantages it

possessed were very great, and they were fully appreciated by the

young American, who came from what in comparison was almost an

intellectual wilderness to the rich stores of learning this university

contained. It was at this time that he fairly began serious literary

study and laid the foundation of his extensive knowledge of books.

In one of his vacations he made a little tour in Germany, visiting

Goethe, who made a characteristic speech about Byron's recent

separation from his wife--namely, that in its circumstances and the

mystery involving it it was so poetical that if Byron had invented it

he could hardly have found a more fortunate subject for his genius.

After another winter in Göttingen he set out for Paris, which city he

reached early in April, 1817. One of the first things he did was to

go to the theatre, where he saw Talma and Mademoiselle Mars play

together. But stronger tastes drew him more frequently into the best

society that capital afforded him. One of the persons he was most

anxious to meet was Madame de Staël, but although he presented his

letters, her illness prevented her seeing him for some time, and her

daughter, the Duchesse de Broglie, received him in her mother's stead.

It was there that he met Humboldt, of whom he has recorded that he

"sleeps only when he is weary and has leisure, and if he wakes at

midnight he rises and begins his work as he would in the morning. He

eats when he is hungry, and if he is invited to dine at six o'clock,

this does not prevent him from going at five to a restaurant, because

he considers a great dinner only as a party of pleasure and amusement.

But all the rest of the time, when he is not in society, he locks his

door and gives himself up to study, rarely receiving visits but those

which have been announced the day previous, and never, I believe,

refusing these." These habits are not commonly supposed to promote

longevity. Before he left Paris Madame de Staël was able to see him,

and with her he had an interesting conversation in which she said of

America, "_Vous êtes l'avant garde du genre humain, vous êtes l'avenir

du monde_," and made two or three brilliant speeches, at which

he noticed her glow of animation. At the same place he also met

Chateaubriand and Madame Récamier, between whom he sat at dinner. The

romantic reader will be disappointed with his meagre statements here,

which hardly bring these two people more distinctly before us than are

Solomon and the queen of Sheba. We read that Madame Récamier's figure

was fine, her mild eyes full of expression, and her arm and hand

beautiful, her complexion fair, her expression cheerful and her

conversation vivacious; of Chateaubriand, that he was a short man with

a dark complexion, black hair and eyes, and a marked countenance;

but exacter details of their characteristics or mutual relations are

wholly wanting. While it is to be remembered that we who read Mr.

Ticknor's diary and letters have also read a great many other letters

that have given us much more knowledge about Madame Récamier than her

companion at that dinner could have had, it is yet fair to say that

in general the book contains no traces of acute observation or quick

social sensibility, but is rather marked by the faithfulness of his

report of the more obvious incidents that occurred when he met these

interesting people. This does not diminish the value of the book: it

should only prepare the reader to find the anecdotes constituting

the really important part of it, with but little sign of any study

of character, and of little sympathetic insight into the feelings of

others.

He remained in Paris until September, working hard at the languages

and literatures of France and Italy, and neglecting no opportunity

to improve himself. At that date he started for Geneva on his way to

Italy, crossing the Alps by the Simplon. At Venice he again saw

Byron, who was busy, or professed to be, with a plan of visiting this

country. Thence he made his way south to Rome and Naples, spending

most of the winter in the former city among very interesting people,

such as Bunsen, Niebuhr and Madame de Humboldt. In the spring of

1818 he went to Spain, and it is interesting to notice how much more

vivacious his journal becomes with his entrance into that country. It

seems to have been with real enjoyment that he changed the ease of his

earlier journeyings for the hardships of traveling in this comfortless

land; and although the inns were miserable, the fare uncertain and

meagre at the best, and there were many other afflictions to vex the

tourist, he evidently enjoyed this expedition to the full. On his way

from Barcelona to Madrid he had for companions a painter of repute and

two officers, and to these he used to read aloud _Don Quixote_, and,

he says, "I assure you this was a pleasure to me such as I have seldom

enjoyed, to witness the effect this extraordinary book produces on the

people from whose very blood and character it is drawn.... All of

them used to beg me to read it to them every time we got into our

cart--like children for toys and sugar-plums." In Madrid he studied

carefully the language and literature, his tastes and opportunities

leading him to lay the solid foundation of what was to be the main

work of his life. The society that he met here was mainly that of the

foreign diplomatists, but, agreeable as it was, it did not distract

him from his studies or from his observation of the people among whom

he was placed. In a letter to this country he said, "What seems mere

fiction and romance in other countries is matter of observation

here, and in all that relates to manners Cervantes and Le Sage are

historians; for when you have crossed the Pyrenees you have not only

passed from one country and climate to another, but you have gone back

a couple of centuries in your chronology, and find the people still

in that kind of poetical existence which we have not only long since

lost, but which we have long since ceased to credit on the reports of

our ancestors."

Although it would be interesting to linger over the passages dealing

with Spain, it is perhaps better to turn to his account of leaving it,

which he did under the most singular circumstances--namely, as one

of a band of contrabandistas. Not that he wore a mask and filled his

purse by robbing unoffending travelers; instead, he joined this

party of accomplished smugglers, who used to carry on the business of

smuggling dollars from Seville to Lisbon and bring back English goods

in the same way. For eight days he was in their company, and he says,

"I have seldom passed eight more interesting days, for by the very

novelty and strangeness of everything--sleeping out every night but

one, and then in the house of the chief of our band; dining

under trees at noon; living on a footing of perfect equality and

good-fellowship with people who are liable every day to be shot or

hanged by the laws of their country; indeed, leading for a week as

much of a vagabond life as if I were an Arab or a Mameluke,--I came

soon to have some of the gay recklessness that marked the character of

my companions." This certainly would be a curious episode in the

life of any law-abiding citizen, and in Mr. Ticknor's case it was

peculiarly astonishing, for his life, this week excepted, could

certainly never be called, with any show of justice, "vagabond."

Before returning to America he revisited London and Paris, in this

last-named city seeing Talleyrand, of whom an interesting anecdote is

recorded. In London he met Sydney Smith, Brougham, Frere; in Scotland,

where he made a short tour, he visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford;

on his way back to London he visited Southey and Wordsworth; and

once again in that city he saw Hazlitt, living in Milton's house, and

Godwin, who, he said, "is as far removed from everything feverish

and exciting as if his head had never been filled with anything but

geometry,... When I looked at [him], and saw with what cool obstinacy

he adhered to everything he had once assumed, and what a cold

selfishness lay at the bottom of his character, I felt a satisfaction

in the thought that he had a wife who must sometimes give a start to

his blood and a stir to his nervous system." The feeling which betrays

itself in this passage makes a still bolder and more amusing exhibit

in one that follows: "The true way to see these people was to meet

them all together, as I did once at dinner at Godwin's, and once at

a convocation or 'Saturday Night Club' at Hunt's, when they felt

themselves bound to show off and produce an effect; for there Lamb's

gentle humor, Hunt's passion and Curran's volubility, Hazlitt's

sharpness and point and Godwin's great head full of cold brains, all

coming into contact and agreeing in nothing but their common hatred

of everything that has been more successful than their own works, made

one of the most curious and amusing _olla podridas_ I ever met. The

contrast between these persons ... and the class I was at the same

time in the habit of meeting at Sir Joseph Banks's on Sunday evening,

at Gifford's, at Murray's Literary Exchange, and especially at Lord

Holland's, was striking enough." In regard to the last statement we

can feel no doubt, nor is it surprising that Mr. Ticknor found

the society of Gifford and his friends more congenial than that of

"persons" like Lamb and Hunt.

He reached home June 6, 1819, after an absence of four years, during

which time he had seen many "cities and manners," had accomplished

himself in the modern languages and literatures, and become well

fitted for the position which was awaiting him--that of professor of

the French and Spanish languages and of the belles-lettres at Harvard

College. These chairs were held by Mr. Ticknor until 1835, during the

most active years of his mature life, and the record of what he did is

not without importance in the history of education in this country. He

had himself profited by the liberal system of the German universities,

and he was naturally anxious to introduce such changes into the rather

narrow curriculum of Harvard College as should give its students real

zeal in their work and greater opportunities for improvement. At

the beginning he found himself much hampered by old traditions and

a general lack of sympathy with new methods; but he devoted himself

earnestly to the task of introducing a course of instruction which

should take the place of the dull routine of recitation. To accomplish

this he set the example of giving a series of lectures on the

literatures and literary histories of France and Spain, and he

struggled hard to drive away the old routine from the rest of the

college. He wrote a pamphlet containing most urgent and powerful

arguments in defence of these amendments, which he proved to be

possible by the example of his own success; but he was opposed by the

most stubborn conservatism, and his efforts remained almost without

apparent result. What he wanted was the abolition of the system of

classes; the division of the college into _departments_; the election

of studies by the students; the separation of the students into

divisions according to their proficiency; and the opening of the

college to those who cared to follow only certain courses without

applying for a degree. The first of these changes he forebore

to press, but all the others he urged most warmly. He was so far

successful that the experiment was tried, but it was considered

impracticable for the classes to be divided into sections, and by

a vote of the faculty it was determined that the law requiring

such division should be repealed: permission was given Mr. Ticknor,

however, to continue in the new method if he cared so to do.

Naturally, he persisted in his plan, and in his own department he was

perfectly successful. When he left the college, although he had not

accomplished all he had hoped when he accepted his professorship, he

was able to look back upon an honorable and gratifying record so far

as the management of his own department was concerned.

After resigning his position in Cambridge he again went abroad in

1835, accompanied by his wife and family. It would take many pages to

give the reader an exact account, in however brief a form, of all

the interest of this journey. A few notes taken almost at random must

suffice. Of Southey, Mr. Ticknor notes: "His conversation was very

various, sometimes quite remarkable, but never rich or copious like

Wordsworth's, and never humorous or witty. It was rather abundant in

matters of fact, and often in that way quite striking and effective."

The first winter he spent in Dresden, meeting Tieck frequently, and

enjoying the agreeable and highly-cultivated society of the court.

The next summer, during a visit to Vienna, he had some interesting

conversations with Prince Metternich, which are given in full.

The winter of 1836-37 he passed in Rome, finding there Bunsen and

Thorwaldsen, whom he had seen on his first visit. The next winter

found him in Paris, where he saw Thierry, Lamartine, Thiers, Mignet,

Guizot and others. Of Lamartine he says: "Only two things struck

me--his complete ignorance of the present English literature, and the

strong expression of his poetical faith that the recent improvements

in material life, like steam and railroads, have their poetical sides,

and will be used for poetical purposes with success." In the spring

he crossed to England, where he roamed from one interesting spot to

another, seeing every one of whom one cares to hear, and putting down

in his journal faithful accounts of all that he saw and heard.

He returned to this country in June, 1838, and began at once to

occupy himself busily with the preparation of his _History of Spanish

Literature_. After this book had been published he began to busy

himself with a very important scheme--namely, preparing the Public

Library of his native city. As soon as Mr. Bates had made his generous

gift, which secured the establishment of the library, Mr. Ticknor,

with the aid of experts in the different professions, prepared a list

of forty thousand books which were needed as the foundation. He was

absent in Europe for fifteen months in 1856-57 busy with choosing and

buying books for this institution. The debt which the city of Boston

owes him is a great one: thanks to his care and energy, the Public

Library already has become a most valuable aid to study, and perhaps

the best library in the country, besides promising to be one of the

few great ones of the world. During his lifetime Mr. Ticknor gave many

valuable collections to the library, and in his will he left it his

own unique Spanish library and a generous bequest for the further

purchase of books. From the first he was quite as generous with his

time and knowledge. The diary he kept during his last stay abroad is

full of references to his interest in the library and to the constant

attention he gave to its affairs. He returned to Boston in September,

1857. The remaining years of his life he spent at home, enjoying

the company of his friends, corresponding with those abroad, and

encouraging interest in letters in every way. He died in the full

possession of his faculties, in his eightieth year, January 26, 1871.

The editors of these memoirs appear to have performed their task with

great discretion and good taste. It has probably not been a difficult

one, consisting mainly in selecting from abundant and well-ordered

material, while suppressing what was too private or too trivial for

publication. What they have had to say of Mr. Ticknor's character

is expressed with a proper warmth of feeling, but without any

extravagance of eulogy. His life, as they justly remark, was

distinguished by "an unusual consistency in the framework of mind and

character" and "an unusually steady development of certain elements

and principles." What he from the first set himself to attain lay

within the compass of his capacity as well as of his means and

opportunities. Thus he had no external hinderances to contend against,

and no inward misgivings to struggle with. No man, we imagine, was

ever less troubled with self-dissatisfaction. He felt the limits of

his faculties and qualities, if he felt them at all, only as useful

and secure defences. Within them there was all the completeness that

could be gained by persevering exercise and culture. There is not a

page of his journals and letters that does not bear testimony to his

earnest, careful and profitable study of men and books, while we doubt

if a remark can be found in them that shows either sympathetic insight

or subtle discrimination. His intellect had all its resources at

command, but it had more of rigor than of vigor, more of formal

precision in its methods than of well-directed force in its

performances. Hence the semblance exceeded the reality, and it might

have been said of him, as it was said of Guizot, "Il impose et il en

impose." This biography of him makes, consequently, no appeal to the

deeper feelings and awakens no train of higher thought. But it has an

interest which, though of an ordinary kind, is scarcely surpassed in

degree by that of any similar work; and it forms a worthy memorial

of a man whose wide attainments, strict integrity and warm affections

endeared him to his intimates and made him respected by all.

T.S. PERRY.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A REMINISCENCE OF MACAULAY.

It was in June, 1857, that I had the good fortune to meet Macaulay

at dinner at the house of my dear friend, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge,

then principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea. The brilliant career

of the great talker and essayist was drawing to its close, and it is

partly on this account that I make now what record I can of my single

meeting with him. He was beginning to give up society, so that only at

the houses of his oldest friends was there any chance of seeing him.

Besides the especial attraction of Macaulay's presence it was an

interesting company that was gathered that evening around my friend's

hospitable board. One felt that the English dinner, that choicest of

all opportunities for exchange of thought, was here to be enjoyed

in high perfection. Among the guests were Mr. Blore, an elderly

gentleman, one of whose distinctions was that he had been a friend

of Sir Walter Scott and the architect of Abbotsford; Mr. Helmore, the

well-known writer on choral music; Mr. Tremenheere, who had traveled

in America and had written on the subject of education in our country;

and Mr. Herbert Coleridge, the gifted son of Sara Coleridge--young man

of the highest promise, who had taken a double first-class at Oxford.

Alas! that his mother, herself of such brilliant powers, had not

lived to know of this high achievement of her son!--she whose love and

thought for her children, and unwearied efforts for their intellectual

advancement, are so abundantly shown in the _Memoir and Letters_ which

her daughter has lately published! Alas! too, that the son for whom

such high hopes had been cherished, and whose opening manhood was of

such promise, was himself cut off three years after the time of which

I now write! Miss Edith Coleridge, the other child of Sara Coleridge,

was also present. She was even then meditating the memoir of

her mother, that work of filial duty which three years ago she

accomplished with a grace and propriety beyond all praise.

Of my host, Mr. Derwent Coleridge, and of Mrs. Coleridge, my dear and

honored friends of so many years, I must not permit myself to speak. I

may note only the brilliant conversational power of Mr. Coleridge, and

the fact that as I listen to him I perfectly understand the marvelous

gifts in this way of his father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Again and

again I have been held as if under a spell by the flowing stream

of his delightful monologue. He had been the friend in boyhood of

Macaulay, and almost the first published words of the afterward famous

writer had appeared in conjunction with a like youthful effort of

Derwent Coleridge. Mr. Coleridge has been the biographer of Winthrop

Praed and the editor of his poems, and only a year ago he published

a touching tribute to John Moultrie. These two poets were also the

companions in youth of Macaulay, and each was in a way a stimulus to

the others in their first intellectual efforts. My place at the table

was just opposite to Macaulay, and I need not say with what keen

interest I looked at him and watched his countenance as he became

animated in conversation. His face was round, and his complexion was

colorless, one might almost say pallid: his hair, which appeared to

have been of a brownish hue, had become almost white. He was no doubt

then beginning to break in health, and perhaps this, which could only

be called a premature decay, was the penalty he was at length paying

for the years he had spent in India. His neck was short, and his

figure was short and ungainly. His eye had a quick flash, and his

change of expression was rapid; his head, too, had a quick movement;

and altogether there was a look of vivacity which showed that his

intellect was as keen as ever. He was always ready to speak, whatever

the subject, but he showed no disposition to take all the talk. There

was no moment of pause in the flowing after-dinner discussions, for

our host, as well as several of his guests, was abundantly able to

hold his own with this marvelous and every way delightful talker--this

prince in the domain of London social life.

There was some conversation about Nollekens the sculptor, whose

inordinate love of money was such a curious blemish in his character.

Macaulay told one or two stories illustrating his parsimony. Then he

came to speak of art in general, and said he did not think the faculty

for it a high gift of mind. This opinion was strongly combated by Mr.

Blore the architect and others, but I remember Macaulay gave, as

in some sort an illustration of his theory, a story of Grant the

portrait-painter, then of chief eminence in London. Cornewall Lewis

was to sit to him, and Grant, knowing he had written books, desired to

get at least a smattering of them before the sittings began. But some

one, perhaps mischievously, told him Lewis was the author of _The

Monk_, and this book he accordingly read. He took an early opportunity

to refer to it to his sitter, who to his no small discomfiture

disclaimed it. As conclusive proof of the truth of this denial, Lewis

stated further that the book was written before he was born. Everybody

was amused that Cornewall Lewis, so famous for abstruse learning,

should have deemed it necessary to appeal thus to dates to show he was

not the author of a novel.

Macaulay persisted in his theory that artistic power was not an

intellectual faculty, but I could not quite determine whether he was

not putting it forth as mere paradox. One could fancy the paroxysm of

rage into which Haydon would have been thrown had such a theory

been advanced in his presence; or Fuseli, who, as Haydon reports,

exclaimed, on first seeing the Elgin Marbles, with his strange accent,

"Those Greeks, they were _godes_." But the thought of Michel Angelo

and of Lionardo was a sufficient answer to the theory.

Macaulay, in further support of his general proposition, maintained

that a man might be a great musical composer and yet not in the true

sense a man of genius. He instanced Mozart, who, he said, was not

claimed to have been of high intellectual ability. Mr. Herbert

Coleridge said he thought this a mistake, but he urged that full

details were wanting in regard to his mental capacity as shown in

other ways than in music. Macaulay replied that Mozart was the Raphael

of music, and was both a composer and a wonderful performer at the age

of six. "Now," said he, "we cannot conceive of any one being a great

poet at the age of six: we hear nothing of Shakespeare or Milton at

the age of six."

The conversation turned to Homer and the question whether the Homeric

poems were the product of one mind. Macaulay maintained they were. It

was inconceivable, he said, that there could have been at the Homeric

period five or six poets equal to the production of the _Iliad_ and

the _Odyssey_. Great poets appeared at long intervals. As he reckoned

them, there had been but six given to the world--Homer, Shakespeare,

Dante, Milton, Sophocles and Æschylus. With the exception of the last

two, there had been great spaces of time between these. Could it be

supposed that at the very dawn of history there was a group, as it

were, of men each in the highest degree gifted with "the vision and

the faculty divine"? Then as to the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ being both

the production of Homer: if we admitted one to be, that the other was

would follow as a matter of course. It was the old test of Paley over

again--the finding the watch, and the presumption from it of a maker;

and in this case there was the watchmaker's shop close by. He urged,

too, that Homer was the only great poet who did not in narrating past

events use the present tense--speak of them as if happening at the

moment. He quoted long passages from _Paradise Lost_ to show how

Milton would fall into the present tense, though he might have begun

in the past. The fact that throughout the many thousand lines of Homer

no instance of the sort could be found seemed to make it clear that

but one mind produced them. It was very interesting to hear Macaulay

recite Milton, for whom he had such passionate admiration. He made

quotations also from Burns and from old ballads in illustration of

some theory which I do not recall, but showing his wonderful memory.

He had, indeed, an altogether marvelous facility in producing

passages as he might need them for whatever subject he was discussing.

Greville, writing of him in 1836, says that he displayed feats of

memory unequaled by any other human being, and that he could repeat

all Milton and all Demosthenes and a great part of the Bible. "But

his great _forte_," Greville adds, "is history, especially English

history. Here his superhuman memory, which appears to have the faculty

of digesting and arranging, as well as of retaining, has converted

his mind into a mighty magazine of knowledge, from which, with the

precision and correctness of a kind of intellectual machine, he pours

forth stores of learning, information, precept, example, anecdote and

illustration with a familiarity and facility not less astonishing than

delightful."

Our evening was all too short. The talk had never flagged, and so the

time had gone quickly by. I may note that in the discussions about

Homer, Mr. Herbert Coleridge had shown the utmost familiarity with

the subject, making him seem in this respect quite on a level with

Macaulay.

The time came for us to join the ladies in the drawing-room, but

Macaulay's carriage was announced, and he declined going up stairs

again, saying that his shortness of breath warned him it was dangerous

to do so. This symptom was doubtless due to that affection of the

heart which two years and a half later ended his life. As I have

said, he was beginning to give up dining out on account of his failing

health. But his delight was as great as ever in the society of his

near friends among men of letters, and these he continued to gather at

the breakfasts he had long been in the habit of giving--Dean Milman,

Lord Stanhope, the bishop of St. Davids (Thirlwall), our host, Mr.

Coleridge, and others. Occasionally he gave dinners to two persons.

His apartments were in Piccadilly, at what is known as the Albany.

His emoluments from his Indian appointment were ten thousand pounds a

year, and though he held the position little more than three years,

it was understood that his savings from it gave him an income of a

thousand pounds. This was before his English _History_ brought him in

its great returns. His Parliamentary life, Mr. Coleridge said, had not

been a success: he did good to neither party--indeed, was dangerous to

both. I may note a characteristic remark of his which was mentioned to

me by Mr. Coleridge: it was to the effect that what troubled us most

in life were the lesser worries and vexations: great perplexities and

calamities we somehow nerved ourselves to contend with. "If a thousand

megatheriums were let loose upon the world, in twenty-four hours they

would all be in museums."

E.Y.

UNVEILING KEATS'S MEDALLION.

I have just returned from a little ceremony of which I think that

the readers of these pages will be pleased to have some permanent

record--the uncovering of the medallion portrait of Keats, which Mr.

Warrington Wood, the well-known sculptor, has generously given for the

purpose of adorning his tomb. I have recorded in a previous number

of this Magazine the steps which were taken last year for putting the

poet's celebrated grave and gravestone in a proper state of repair,

and the singular circumstances that showed how on both sides of the

Atlantic a similar thought had with truly curious simultaneousness

occurred to the lovers of the poet's memory. The very striking scene

which took place to-day marked the completion of the purposes which

were then inaugurated.

A printed notice had invited all English and Americans in Rome,

interested in the subject, to attend at the English cemetery at

three o'clock, the day having been fixed by the fact that it was the

anniversary of the day of Keats's death. It was also, as it happened,

the second day of our boisterous and rollicking Carnival, and those

who attended had to absent themselves from the attractions of the

Corso. Nevertheless, the gathering was a large one, and the contrast

between the scene passing in that remote and quiet corner of old Rome

under the cypresses and in the shade of the pyramid of Caius Cestius,

and that which was at the same time being enacted in the Corso, was

about as great as can well be conceived. We had it all to ourselves.

With the exception of the coachmen, who remained lazily dozing on the

boxes of the carriages which had brought us from the living Rome of

to-day to this far-away spot, there was not a soul on the ground save

English and Americans.

It must be quite needless to remind those who have ever seen it of

the features of that most poetically suggestive spot, and I can hardly

hope to enable any who have not seen it to form an adequate idea of

its exceeding beauty. It is just within the city wall, niched in an

angle of it, in the immediate vicinity of the Porta San Sebastiano,

but it is difficult to imagine that one is within the limits of a

great city; and it was especially so when the noise and racket of a

city in Carnival time had just been left behind one. But the fact is,

that large tracts of space, utterly uninhabited and unoccupied save

by scattered masses of the ruins of ancient Rome, lie between the

inhabited parts of the modern city and this far corner. The most

marked characteristic of the spot is its perfect quietude. The

ivy-grown city-wall, a group of fine cypresses, a few stone-pines

with their lovely velvet-like verdure, the gray old pyramid of

Caius Cestius immediately behind the cemetery, and a glimpse of the

dreamy-looking Alban Hills on the farther side of the Campagna, make

up a landscape which no artistic eye can rest on without being deeply

penetrated by the charm of it. February as it was, the day might have

been deemed a summer day anywhere to the northward of the Alps. It was

the very perfection of weather--warm, genial, still, and breathing the

sweet breath of a thousand wild flowers. The violets which abundantly

covered the grave were in full blossom, even as they had bloomed

beneath those old walls when the sight of them there had induced the

poet, prescient of his coming end, to wish that he might sleep his

long sleep beneath them.

When we had all taken our places, and a eucalyptus plant, sent for the

purpose by Mr. Marsh, the American minister, had been planted on the

turf just behind the grave, the sheet which covered the medallion was

withdrawn, and a murmur of pleasure and admiration ran through

the crowd as they looked on the strikingly characteristic and

individualized presentment of the young poet's very remarkable and

striking features. I had seen the medallion before, and was therefore

at liberty to watch the effect which it produced on others; and I was

struck by the evidences in the faces of those around me that it spoke

very clearly to the hearts and imaginations of the spectators.

General Sir Vincent Eyre, who had chiefly undertaken the trouble

of directing all that had been done for putting the gravestone into

perfect repair, adorning it with flowers and plants, and putting up

the medallion, was on the ground together with Miss Clarke, who had

been entrusted with a similar labor of love from America, and who had

co-operated "heart and hand," as Sir Vincent said, with him throughout

the whole business. As soon as the pleased murmur of the crowd had

subsided he stepped in front of the persons assembled and gave

a succinct account of what had been done, and a narrative of the

singular coincidence which had led to our co-heirs in the legacy

bequeathed to us by the poet being co-operators in the work. He

concluded a very neat and appropriate address by stating that the

subscriptions sent in for the restoration of the grave had left a sum

of about sixty pounds sterling in his hands, and that he proposed that

this should be augmented by about as much more, which would suffice to

place a bust of the poet in Westminster Abbey. The proposal met with

the warm approval of the assembly, and it was determined that Dr.

Stanley, the dean of Westminster, should at once be communicated with

on the subject.

An interesting and affecting letter from Mr. Severn, the loving and

faithful friend of Keats, was read by Sir Vincent Eyre with much

feeling. It contained a few simple words to the effect that the writer

would much have wished to be present on the occasion of the unveiling

of the medallion, but that he feared to be overcome by the pathos of

the circumstances, strong emotions not being easily borne at the age

of eighty-two years. There were many moistened eyes in the assembly

as Sir Vincent read the communication from the poet's venerable friend

and survivor.

T.A.T.

GINO CAPPONI.

GINO CAPPONI, whose death, on the 3d of February last, has been

noticed in all the principal journals of Europe and America, belonged

to a family that has been honored in Florence for more than five

hundred years, and whose name occurs on almost every page of its

history. He was born in that city on the 14th of September, 1792. His

name in full was Gino Alessandro Giuseppe Gaspero, but no one ever

heard of him save as Gino. At seven years of age he shared the

exile of his parents, who followed their sovereign, the grand duke

Ferdinand, when he was driven from his dominions by the victorious

arms of France. He was little more than twenty when he went as a

member of the embassy sent to Napoleon I. immediately after the

battle of Leipsic, on which occasion he is recorded to have had a long

conversation with the emperor. After the restoration of the Tuscan

sovereign at the fall of Napoleon he traveled extensively in England,

Germany and France. Returning to his country, he was continually eager

in using his large hereditary wealth for the promotion of education

among all classes of his countrymen. He was one of the principal

founders and supporters of the celebrated periodical, the _Antologia_,

which played so large and conspicuous a part in preparing the public

mind for the awakening which finally issued in that resuscitation of

Italy which we have all witnessed.

In 1841 he mainly contributed to the foundation of the _Archivio

Storico Italiano_, the fruitful parent of various other publications

of the same kind which have within the last thirty years done

infinitely more for students of Italian history than all the three

centuries which preceded them. The famous bookseller Vieusseux, who

himself did much and suffered much in the cause of the nascent Italian

liberties, undertook the material portion of this enterprise, which

was rewarded by a large measure of literary success, and by the fear

and enmity of the oppressors of Italy throughout the Peninsula.

Capponi, however, would fain have avoided _revolution_ could it have

been avoided without sacrificing liberty. In July, 1847, when the

general state of Europe was bringing home to the minds of rulers the

cogent necessity of becoming reformers or of vanishing, Capponi was

made a councillor of state, and at the close of that year was employed

by the grand duke to draw up a scheme of representative institutions

for Tuscany. To give anything approaching to a complete account of

Capponi's activity during the troubled period which followed would

be to write the history of Tuscany during that period. The general

progress of affairs was precisely that which history has had so often

to recount. The sovereign, frightened, obstinate, and little able to

appreciate the forces opposed to him, was wavering, fickle, timid,

yet stubborn, and, above all, untrustworthy. The people were bent on

pushing matters to extremes to which those who had so far been their

leaders were unwilling to go, and, as usual, the best of those leaders

were shunted from the road, happy if they were able, as Capponi was,

to retire in safety to the tranquil seclusion of studious life.

When, after the flight of the grand duke from his dominions and his

subsequent restoration by Austrian bayonets, a regular government was

once more established in Florence, Capponi was constant, though wholly

unconnected with public life officially, in tendering counsel to the

grand duke which, had it been listened to, might have saved his throne

and changed all the future of Italy. But he was disregarded, and even

suspected; and, as we all know, the end came in the memorable 1859.

After the union of Italy under Victor Emmanuel, Capponi was at once

named a senator and decorated with all the honors the sovereign had

to bestow. But, alas! they were bestowed on a blind old man, whose

misfortune incapacitated him from taking any part in public life. From

the time when the Italian revolution was consummated the life of Gino

Capponi was that of a retired and laborious student. The loss of his

sight by no means involved in his case the abandonment of literary

labor; and his last great work, published but a year or two ago,

the _History of the Republic of Florence_, is the _second_ great

historical work which in our own time has been produced by an author

deprived of eyesight.

Capponi began his literary life at twenty by the publication in 1812

of _Observations on a Critical Examination of Amerigo Vespucci's

First Voyage to the New World_: he ended it, as has been said, by the

publication at eighty of his Florentine _History_. To give even the

titles of all the works he published in the interim would occupy more

than two of these columns. He has left in manuscript a _History of the

Church during the First Centuries_ and _Records of the Years_ 1814-16,

1821, 1831, 1847-49. It is to be hoped that the latter of these

works will see the light: Capponi's account of the memorable years in

question would be no small boon to the historian.

It is needless to say that the funeral, and obsequies of this great

citizen were surrounded by every observance that could help to mark

the nation's sense of the greatness of the loss it had sustained. It

would be hardly possible to name a corner of Italy that has not by

deputation or special official message sought to associate itself with

the task of doing him honor.

T.A.T.

A DINNER WITH ROSSI.

"Come and dine with us next Thursday," said an American literary lady

now residing in Paris to a friend or two recently. "We expect Rossi on

that day, and I think you would like to meet him."

The company was but a small one, the intention of the hostess being

not to show off her distinguished guest, but to bring together a few

congenial spirits to pass a pleasant hour in his society. Punctual to

the minute, the hero of the occasion entered, his superb physique

and majestic presence showing to even greater advantage in the

irreproachable evening garb of a finished gentleman than in the velvet

and tinsel of his stage attire. As is the case with almost all really

handsome actors or actresses, Rossi is finer-looking off the stage

than on it. The simplicity and refinement of his manners, totally

free from anything like affectation or posing for effect, are very

noticeable. His head is noble, both in form and carriage, and he has

a way, when eager in conversation, of pushing back the masses of his

profuse chestnut hair which gives a sort of leonine look to the broad

massive brow and intelligent features.

Once seated at table, the conversation naturally turned upon the

dramatic art and upon Shakespeare. Every person present except the

king of the feast was an American, and a Shakespeare fanatic as well.

Rather to the surprise of even his most ardent admirers, the great

tragedian proved to be a keen and intelligent Shakespearian scholar,

not only of the roles that he has made his own, but also of the whole

of the works of the world's greatest dramatist.

"I date my love for Shakespeare," said Rossi, "from the time that

I was a little child. My grandfather possessed a set of his plays

translated into Italian, and whenever I was restless and unable to go

to sleep he would take me into his arms and lull me to rest with tales

from these treasured volumes.

"It was I who first introduced Shakespeare in his veritable form on

the Italian stage. Up to that time the classic form had been alone

considered admissible for tragedy. The first play that I produced was

_Othello_. When in the first scene Brabantio came to the window,

the audience began to laugh. 'Is this a tragedy?' they cried--'a man

talking out of a window!' They laughed all through the first acts.

But," continued Rossi, looking round with a sudden flash from his

expressive eyes, "when the scene with Iago came they ceased to laugh;

and henceforward they laughed no more. At the present time Shakespeare

is thoroughly appreciated in Italy. Our audiences would not endure

the altered and garbled versions of the French stage. Rouvière once

undertook to play in Italy the version of _Hamlet_ constructed by the

elder Dumas and M. V----. When, in the last act, the Ghost appeared

to tell Hamlet _Tu vivras_, the audience rose _en masse_ and fairly

shouted and jeered the performers off the stage. It is in Germany,

however, that Shakespeare is best known and understood. The very

bootblacks in the street know all about him and his greatest works."

The fact now came out that Rossi is an accomplished linguist. He reads

and understands both English and German, though he speaks neither

language. French he speaks as fluently as he does Italian, and he

is also versed in Spanish. He spoke rapturously of the German

_Shakespeare_ (Schlegel's translation), declaring that he considered

it nearly equal to the original.

"Next to Shakespeare, but at a great distance below him, I would rank

Moliere," said Rossi in answer to a query from one of the guests.

"Moliere has given us real types of character and real humor. But he

was the man of his epoch, not for all time. He has painted for us

the men and manners of his day and generation: he did not take all

humanity for a study. Therefore, his works appear old-fashioned on the

modern stage, while those of Shakespeare will never seem faded or out

of date."

"What a wonder, what a marvel was Shakespeare! He was an Englishman

born and bred, yet he turns to Italy and paints for us a picture of

Italian life and love such as no Italian hand has ever drawn. His

heart throbs, his imagination glows, with all the fire and fervor of

the South. He depicts for us a Moor, an African, and the sun of Africa

scorches his brain and inflames his passions."

"And Hamlet," I remarked, "is thoroughly of the North--a German even,

rather than Englishman."

"To me," answered Rossi, "Hamlet represents no nationality and no one

type of character. He is the image of humanity. Hamlet is to me not a

man, but Man. The sufferings, the doubts, the vague mysteries of life

are incarnate in his person. He is ever checked by the Unknown. He is

tortured by the phantasm of Doubt. Is the spectre indeed his father's

shade? has it spoken truth? is it well to live? is it best to

die?--such are the problems that perplex his brain."

"To be or not to be--that is the question; but it is only one of the

questions that haunt his soul."

"A distinguished English actor who had come to Paris to see me act

once asked me why, in the first scene with the Ghost, I betray no

terror, while in the scene with the Queen I crouch in affright behind

a chair, wild with alarm, the moment the phantom appears. I answered

that in the first scene the Ghost comes before Hamlet as the image of

a beloved and lamented parent, while in the second-named instance he

appears as an embodiment of conscience. For Hamlet has disobeyed

the mandate of the spectre: he has dared to threaten and upbraid his

mother.

"The reason why the Ghost is visible to Marcellus, Bernardo and

Horatio In the first act, and not to the Queen in the third, has

always appeared to me very simple. The phantom appears only to those

who loved and mourned the dead king. Not to his false wife, not to her

who, if not cognizant of his murder, is yet wedded to his murderer,

will the pale Shape appear.

"_Hamlet_, above all tragedies, is independent of the accessories

of scenery and costume. With a slight change of surroundings the

character might be performed in modern dress without injury to its

marvelous individuality."

Rossi was much surprised when he learned that most of the

stage-business in _Hamlet_ which he had studied out for himself formed

part and parcel of the traditions of the play on the American and

English boards. Among the points that he specified as having been thus

thought out was the reference to the two miniatures in the scene with

the Queen--

Look here, upon this picture, and on this;

and he strongly deprecated the idea of two life-sized portraits

hanging against the wall, as is sometimes the usage.

Mention was made of Bulwer's _Richelieu_ by one of the guests as a

part peculiarly fitted to the powers of the great tragedian, and he

was asked if he knew the play.

"No," answered Rossi, "and I should scarcely care to add it to

my repertoire, which is already rather an extensive one. I have

personated in my time over four hundred characters, including all the

prominent personages of Alfieri, Molière and Goldoni."

"Then you play comedy as well as tragedy? Have you ever appeared as

Shakespeare's Benedick?"

"Never, but I may perhaps study the character for my approaching tour

in the United States. My other Shakespearian characters, besides those

in which I have already appeared in Paris, are Coriolanus, Shylock,

and Timon of Athens. Once I began to study Richard III., but chancing

to see Bogumil Dawison in that character, I was so delighted with

his personation that I gave up all thoughts of performing the part

myself."

At this juncture our host attempted to fill Rossi's glass with some

peculiarly choice wine, but the tragedian stopped him with a smile. "I

am very temperate in my habits," he said, "and drink nothing but light

claret. I am not one of those that think that an actor can never play

with proper fire unless he is half drunk, like Kean in _Désordre et

Genie_. I may have very little genius--"

But here a universal outcry interrupted the speaker. That proposition

was evidently wholly untenable, in that company at least.

"Well, then," added Rossi laughing, "whatever genius I may possess, I

do not believe in disorder."

This little incident turned the conversation on the modern French

drama, whereof Rossi spoke rather slightingly, stigmatizing it as

mechanical, being composed of plays written to be performed and not

to live. "In Victor Hugo's dramas," he remarked, "there are some fine

lines and noble passages, but the characters are always Victor Hugo

in a mask: they are never real personages. It is always the author

who speaks--never a new individuality. As to the classic dramatists of

France, they are intolerable. Corneille is perhaps a shade better than

Racine, but both are stiff, pompous and unnatural: their characters

are a set of wooden puppets that are pulled by wires and work in a

certain fixed manner, from which they never deviate.

"It was Voltaire that taught the French to despise Shakespeare. He

called him a barbarian, and the French believe that saying true to

the present time. Yet he did not hesitate to steal _Othello_ when he

wanted to write _Zaïre_, or, rather, he went out on the boulevards,

picked out the first good-looking barber he could find, dressed him

up in Eastern garments, and then fancied that he had created a French

Othello."

"I saw Mounet-Sully at one of the performances of your _Othello_" I

remarked. "I wonder what he thought of his own personation of Orosmane

when he witnessed the real tragedy?"

"Had Mounet-Sully been able to appreciate _Othello_" answered Rossi,

"he never could have brought himself to personate Orosmane."

Some one then asked Rossi what he thought of the Comédie Frarçaise.

"The Comédie Française," said Rossi, "like every school of acting that

is founded on art, and not on Nature, is falling into decadence. It

is ruled by tradition, not by the realities of life and passion. One

incident that I beheld at a rehearsal at that theatre in 1855 revealed

the usual process by which their great performers study their art. I

was then fulfilling an engagement in Paris with Ristori, and, though

only twenty-two years of age, I was her leading man and stage-manager

as well. The Italian troupe was requested to perform at the Comédie

Française on the occasion of the benefit of which I have spoken, and

we were to give one act of _Maria Stuart_, When we arrived at the

theatre to commence our rehearsal the company was in the act of

rehearsing a scene from _Tartuffe_ which was to form part of the

programme on the same occasion. M. Bressant was the Tartuffe, and

Madeleine Brohan was to personate Elmire. They came to the point where

Tartuffe lays his hand on the knee of Elmire. Thereupon, Mademoiselle

Brohan turned to the stage-manager and asked, 'What am I to do now?'

'Well,' said that functionary, 'Madame X---- used to bite her lips and

look sideways at the offending hand; Madame Z---- used to blush

and frown, etc.' But neither of them said, What would a woman like

Elmire--a virtuous woman--do if so insulted by a sneaking hypocrite?

They took counsel of tradition, not of Nature. In fact, the French

stage is given over to sensation dramas and the opéra bouffe, and such

theatres as the Comédie Française and the Odéon have but a forced and

artificial existence."

"Not a word against the opéra bouffe!" remarked one of the

lady-guests, laughing. "Did I not see you enjoying yourself immensely

at the second representation of _La Boulangère a des Écus?_"

Whereupon Rossi assumed an air of conscious guilt most comical to see.

Some one then asked him at what age and in what character he had

made his début. His reply was: "I was just fourteen, and I played the

soubrette characters in an amateur company--a line that I could hardly

assume with any degree of vraisemblance now." And he put his head on

one side, thrust his hands into a pair of imaginary apron-pockets and

looked around with a pert, chambermaid-like air so absurdly unsuited

to his noble features and intellectual brow--to say nothing of his

stalwart physique--that all present shrieked with laughter.

The evening was now drawing to a close, and the guests began to take

their departure. When Rossi came to say farewell his hostess asked him

if he would do her the favor of writing his autograph in her copy of

Shakespeare. He assented at once, and taking up the pen, he wrote in

Italian these lines: "O Master! would that I could comprehend thee

even as I love thee!" and then appended his name.

A peculiar brightness and geniality of temperament, a childlike

simplicity of manner, united to a keen and cultivated intellect and

to a thorough knowledge of social conventionalities,--such was the

impression left by Signor Rossi on the minds of those present. There

was a total absence of conceit or of self-assertion that was very

remarkable in a member of his profession, and one, too, of such

wide-spread celebrity. The general verdict of Europe is that he is as

great an actor as Salvini, while his répertoire is far more important

and varied: it remains to be seen whether the United States will

endorse the verdict of Italy and of Paris.

L.H.H.

"FOUNDER'S DAY" AT RAINE'S HOSPITAL.

MAY DAY in London would not seem at first sight to realize the

traditionary associations connected with its name, but in a certain

parish of the city a more solid interest attaches to this day, and

young girls look forward to the ceremony which marks it with more

anxiety than ever did village-lass to her expected royalty of a

day. Twice a year (the Fifth of November being the other occasion)

a wedding-portion of one hundred pounds is given by lot to one girl

among the many whose antecedents, as prescribed by the founder's will,

entitle them to become candidates. This endowment is connected

with what is known as Raine's Asylum in the parish of St.

George's-in-the-East, London. The parish is populous and

unfashionable, and proportionately poor and interesting. Among its

members in the last century was Henry Raine, a brewer, who in 1719

founded two schools for the free education of fifty girls and fifty

boys, respectively. In 1736 he founded and endowed a new school,

called the Asylum, for teaching, clothing and training forty girls to

domestic service, the girls to be chosen from among the children of

the lower school. In this latter school each girl stays four years,

and the system has worked so well that the scholars are greatly sought

after as servants. At the age of twenty-two any girl, educated there,

who can produce good testimonials while in service, may become a

candidate for a marriage-portion of one hundred pounds. Six girls draw

for it on May Day, and six on the Fifth of November, the unsuccessful

ones being entitled to draw again from time to time until they get it.

The drawing is preceded by a special service in the parish church,

the boys and girls from the lower schools being present, and going

in procession from the school to the church arrayed in quaint,

old-fashioned costume. The former wear a half-nautical costume, the

neighborhood being in many ways connected with sea-pursuits:

the latter are dressed in blue stuff gowns, a white apron and a

handkerchief folded over the breast, and a small white cap bound

round with a Blue ribbon. Every one, from the gorgeous beadle to the

youngest child, has also a bouquet of flowers on this occasion. The

beadle is an "institution" that has disappeared in America, but which

still looms in awful official grandeur before the mind's eye of every

London-bred child. On these occasions he is in all his glory: his

military costume and silver-headed staff are the very embodiment of

dignity, and to the less awed spectator of riper years he fills in a

niche of old-time conventionality very picturesquely. The service is

followed by the wedding of the successful candidate of the previous

occasion, so that each of the two memorable days becomes a double

festival. The bells strike a merry peal, and the procession forms once

more and goes back to the Asylum, where, in a curious apartment, the

walls of which are covered with the names of donors to the charity,

the drawing takes place. The girls of the Asylum enter the room and

begin by singing a short hymn, accompanied by an old-fashioned

organ. The treasurer of the Asylum Fund, in exact compliance with the

explicit directions of the founder's charter, takes a half sheet of

white paper and writes the words "One Hundred Pounds" on it, then five

other blank half sheets, and wraps each tight round a little roller of

wood tied with a narrow green ribbon. The knot of each is then firmly

sealed with red sealing-wax, and all the rolls formally deposited in

a large canister placed on a small table in the middle of the

room. There is nothing else on the table except a candle in a small

candlestick, to be used in sealing the rolls. The treasurer stands by

as each candidate draws, and when all the rolls are drawn the girls go

up to the chairwoman (generally the rector's wife), at the upper end

of the room. She then cuts the ribbon of each and returns the roll to

its owner. It is not long before the fortunate one is recognized. The

scene is full of interest even to a stranger, and was evidently one of

great pleasure to the founder himself, as appears from the wording of

his will, in which he exhorts his nephews to buy four thousand pounds

of stock for the permanent provision of these portions. "I doubt not,"

he says, "but my nephews would cheerfully purchase the said stock if

they had seen, as I have, six poor innocent maidens come trembling to

draw the prize, and the fortunate maiden that got it burst into tears

with excess of joy." It is likely that even before he had founded

and endowed the Asylum, Henry Raine had often given away portions to

deserving young girls. That drawn on May Day is not given until after

the wedding on November 5, and that drawn in November is given in May.

The dowry consists of gold pieces in an old-fashioned silk purse,

and is formally presented to the young couple at the committee

dinner which takes place after the drawing. Of course, the husband's

character is quite as strictly inquired into as that of the bride,

and unless this is perfectly satisfactory to the rector, treasurer

and trustees the portion is withheld--a wise provision against

fortune-hunting. A wedding-repast is also provided for the bridal

party at the same time, but in a separate room, and to neither of

these banquets are the public admitted: a few personal friends of the

trustees are sometimes asked. The dinner is a pretty sight, the girls

of the lower school waiting on the committee. The treasurer, the

rector and a few others accompany the presentation of the portion with

kind and congratulatory speeches, and the girls sing appropriate hymns

in the intervals.

The building called Raine's Asylum (or sometimes Hospital) is a

plain, ugly, square mass, as all specimens of the so-called Georgian

"architecture" are apt to be. The London atmosphere has rather

blackened than mellowed its crude tone of red brick and white

stone till the whole is of the uniform color of India ink. Over the

projecting portico stands the bust of the founder in wig and bands,

looking more like a scholar or a divine than a brewer, and leaving the

impression of a good, truthful, thoughtful face, with a long slender

nose, thin mouth and broad and massive forehead. Behind the Asylum

stretches a garden--not a small one for such a locality--and, though

London gardens are not apt to be cheery places, this one has at

least the merit of standing as evidence of the kind-hearted founder's

intention to bestow as much fresh air as possible on his _protégées_.

B.M.

NOTES.

TURKEY is the _pièce de résistance_ of European politics. It has

lasted through the sitting of a century. At intervals the assembled

gourmands would simultaneously bend their eyes upon it; and an

energetic sharpening of carving-knives and poising of forks would

spring up with a synchronous shuffling of plates. Slashing would

sometimes follow, and slices were served round with more or less

impartiality and contentment. But the choice cuts remain, and never

was the interest or anxiety of the guests more highly strung than at

present. The excitement, pleasurable in itself, has become more so

from habit. Were the dish to be finally cleared, how sadly it would be

missed! "What shall we do with it?" would have lost its perplexities

in favor of "What shall we do without it?" It may be well doubted if

the latter question will soon become troublesome. Empires are, like

the Merry Monarch, an unconsciously long time in dying. Atrophy

appears to spin out their existence. The process lasted with the

Turk's predecessor at Byzantium six or eight centuries. For barely

two, if we date from Sobieski instead of Don John of Austria, has

it been going on with him. He bids fair to live long enough to see a

great deal of change disturb, if not prostrate, his physicians before

it comes in its final shape to him.

* * * * *

This land of law, lawyers and lawmakers is badly in want of a jurist

or two. Advocates, special pleaders, log-rollers, and codes that

are recodified every twelvemonth are poor substitutes for a few men

capable of perceiving the principles of equity, systematizing their

expression and making them simple, uniform and absolute in practice.

When a judge in one of the largest and most enlightened States of the

Union grants a writ of error to a convict whom he has twice sentenced

to be hanged, it is plain to the dullest unprofessional eye that

something is radically and mischievously wrong with bench, bar,

or legislature, or with all three. It makes the administration of

justice, in its best aspect, a lottery; the goddess blindfolded, it

may be, but only for drawing from the wheel. In the worst aspect it

makes of it a hideous mockery. With the proverbial uncertainty of the

law we have been long familiar. It is measurably curable. We are now

confronted by its proverbial certainty to go wrong. Whether the cause

lie in the mode of election and tenure of judges, a tendency of the

bar to limit its responsibility by the title and the ethics of the

attorney, or the endless tinkering of forty legislatures, or in all

of these combined with other influences that might be suggested, it is

evident that we are ripe for law reform, and that our Romilly cannot

appear too soon.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Sonnets, Songs and Stories. By Cora Kennedy Aitken. London:

Hodder & Stoughton.

This little book is one of that numerous class which is the despair of

the critic. Its spirit is so much better than its letter that one is

left in doubt whether its author is incapable of more careful finish,

or is simply disdainful of it. Mrs. Aitken is apparently a lesser

Mrs. Browning, cast in a Scotch mould. She is fond of writing upon

patriotic or historic themes, and through all her poems runs a current

of strong religious feeling. Without being in any sense an imitator of

Mrs. Browning, there is a certain trick of phrase here and there which

recalls her style, while the choice of subjects continually reminds

one of Mrs. Browning's favorite themes. One of her sonnets, called

"Unless" (an awkward title enough, by the by) begins thus:

Sweetheart, I tell thee, I, a woman born

To live by music, and to soar and sing,

As stars for shining, flowers for blossoming,

Could never sit beneath the stars and mourn

With missing aught from such high destinies.

That is very suggestive of Mrs. Browning's style, and it were easy to

multiply instances; such as this, for example, from the poem called

"In York:"

The broad vaulted aisles are so still we can hear

The silences bend thro' the loneliness, listening

To the eloquent brasses that burn at our feet,

With holy signs glistening.

This is the worst form of Browningese. Exactly what Mrs. Aitken meant

by it she probably knows as little as any of us; but we would humbly

suggest to her that one does not _hear_ anything bend, unless it be

of a creaking nature, like an old tree, and that is rather opposed

to one's idea of "silences," vague as our notions of that plural

noun are. Why one "silence" could not serve her turn is one of those

Dundrearyan conundrums that no fellow can find out. And, while we are

about it, we should like to know whether it is the silences or the

loneliness or "we" that listen to the eloquent brasses, and to inquire

mildly why the poet threw away the opportunity to say the "brazen

eloquences," which would have been novel and striking, and quite

in the vein of her great original. If Mrs. Browning can talk about

"broken sentiency" and "elemental strategies," why should not Mrs.

Aitken aspire to hear the silences bend? To do her justice, she does

not use such expressions very often--her style is usually simple and

comprehensible--but she does sometimes make the mistake of confounding

incomprehensibility and power. She has some pretty descriptions of

Nature here and there, and one or two of her ballads are very good,

especially that called "A Story of Tours;" but her sonnets are none

of them constructed after the genuine Italian model, and generally

end with a couplet. Her blank verse is the worst of all. The most

ambitious poem in the book is that called "A Day in the Life of Mary

Stuart," a dramatic poem in three scenes, dated the last of January,

1567. It contains a scene between the queen and her maidens, a scene

with the Presbyterian deputies, and a scene with Bothwell, wherein she

incites him to the murder of Darnley. It is unfortunate that the poem

should have appeared in the same year with Swinburne's _Bothwell_,

that magnificent study of the character of Mary Stuart. The characters

in Mrs. Aitken's sketch are weak and thin, and the verse intolerable.

She divides the most inseparable phrases to make out her measure,

and constantly ends the lines with a preposition. No torturing of the

voice can make verse of such sentences as these:

He bids

Your grace deny Lord Bothwell's wish to be

Made member of the council, and if so

Be you delay, he--

In the scene with Bothwell the queen declares her love to him thus:

Wait you for love? 'Tis worth the waiting for.

God put a power of closer tenderness

In mine than in most women's souls. Who thrills

The senses, holds the heart, in all inspiring

Ways sweetens and magnifies to good

Love's life, conceiving colder estimate

Of love? So will I love you, without stint.

Compare this feeble and disjointed utterance with the corresponding

speech in Swinburne's play. Mary says:

O my fair lord!

How fairer is this warrior face, and eyes

With the iron light of battle in them, left

As the after-fire of sunset left in heaven

When the sun sinks, than any fool's face made

Of smiles and courtly color! Now I feel

As I were man too, and had part myself

In your great strength; being one with you as I,

How should I not be strong?

Cartoons. By Margaret J. Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

If Mrs, Aitken's poems suggest Mrs. Browning's, these _Cartoons_ of

Mrs. Preston's have a slight flavor of Robert Browning's _Men and

Women_ in their subjects and in their mode of thought. A cartoon is

usually supposed to be a design for tapestry or mosaic, but we suppose

that Mrs. Preston has taken the significance given the word by our

illustrated papers, where it is held to mean a large outline sketch.

The title is not a very happy one, but the poems, are much better than

the title. They are strong, simple and well-written, and the subjects

are usually very well chosen. They are divided into "Cartoons from the

Life of the Old Masters," "Cartoons from the Life of the Legends" and

"Cartoons from the Life of To-day." Of these, the second division is

perhaps the weakest, the first the most interesting, while the third

makes up in religious sentiment what it lacks in poetic strength and

beauty. It contains more commonplace verses and ideas than either

of the other two. Of the stories of the old masters, "Mona Lisa's

Picture," "The Duke's Commission" and "Woman's Art" are perhaps the

best, and the last poem especially is very spirited and terse.

Mrs. Preston's style has the rare merit in these days of uniting

conciseness and directness to grace and beauty of expression. Her

greatest failing is a lack of the sense of climax. There are several

of these poems, like the two on the Venerable Bede and that called

"Bacharach Wine," that rather disappoint one by the insignificance

of their closing stanzas or the gradual dwindling of their interest

toward the end. There is a great deal of art in knowing when to stop,

and there are many stories, like some of those in this book, that are

very impressive told in a few words, but elaborated into a long poem

lose all their power to move us. At the same time, we realize that it

is not from any poverty of ideas that Mrs. Preston sometimes dwells

too long upon a subject: her poetry is not diluted with a mere

harmonious jingle of words, as destitute of any meaning as the silver

chime of sleigh-bells. "The Legend of the Woodpecker" is remarkable

for its simplicity and terseness: it is one of the best of all the

poems; only we wish that in the last verse but one she had not thought

it necessary to use the word "chode" for "chided." So in the fine

ballad called "The Reapers of Landisfarne" it is a pity to mar a good

stanza by using the queer participle "strawed" as a rhyme to _sod_ and

_abroad_, especially as the latter words do not rhyme either, save in

New England parlance. But such blemishes as these in Mrs. Preston's

work are rare, and therefore it is worth while to point them out.

Poems of so much vigor as these give fair promise for the future, and

deserve something more than merely general commendation.

Among my Books. (Second Series.) By James Russell Lowell.

Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

The essays in this volume have an advantage over the former series

published under the same title in the greater homogeneousness of the

subjects. These are all poets, and with one exception English poets.

They are poets, too, so to speak, of one family, unequal in rank, but

having that resemblance of character which marks the higher and lower

peaks of the same mountain-chain. All are epic and lyric, none in a

proper sense dramatic. All are poets _de pur sang_, endowed by nature

with the special qualities which cannot be confounded with those of a

different order, and which forbid all doubt as to a true "vocation."

Dante, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, differing as they do

in intellectual greatness and imaginative power, have all, as a

distinguishing characteristic, that magic mastery over the harmonies

of language which renders them responsive to subtle thoughts and

ethereal conceptions. We find, however, no intimation that it is from

any view of this kind that these essays have been collected, in a

single group. It seems indeed more probable that they have simply been

reprinted, in the order in which they first appeared, on being found

of sufficient bulk to fill a volume of the desired size. Nor is it to

be supposed that they indicate a particular course of study pursued

with reference to their production. Though the author has had the

works on which he comments beside him while he wrote, his long and

close familiarity with them, as well as with the range of literature

to which they belong, and with the principles and necessary details

which help to illustrate them, is apparent throughout. Seldom, indeed,

except in the case of a specialist devoting himself to some single

field, has a critical panoply been more complete than that with which

Mr. Lowell has armed himself. He discusses with equal learning and

enthusiasm the profoundest and the minutest questions, mysteries of

consciousness and niceties of metre and accent. Yet this laboriousness

is curiously conjoined with something of a sybaritic tone, as of a

taste cultivated to hyper-fastidiousness and courting a languorous

enjoyment of flavors rather than the satisfaction of a keen appetite.

There are in this book some passages in which the thought is so

attenuated in the process of elaboration and figurative adornment that

we are tempted to regard the whole as a mere effort of fancy, not as

the expression of a serious conviction. It might have been appropriate

and suggestive to characterize the poetry of Spenser by some allusions

to the splendors and bizarreries of Venetian art; but when it is

asserted as a proposition logically formulated and supported that "he

makes one think always of Venice; for not only is his style Venetian,

but as the gallery there is housed in the shell of an abandoned

convent, so his in that of a deserted allegory; and again, as at

Venice you swim in a gondola from Gian Bellini to Titian, and from

Titian to Tintoret, so in him, where other cheer is wanting, the

gentle sway of his measure, like the rhythmical impulse of the oar,

floats you lullingly along from picture to picture,"--we are rather

reminded of Venetian filigree than struck by the force and truth

of the analogy. The statement that Spenser's style is Venetian is a

puzzling one, and we are not much helped by the explanation given in

a foot note, where Mr. Lowell, citing from the _Muiopotmos_ a

description of the rape of Europa, asks, "Was not this picture painted

by Paul Veronese, for example?" and then adds, "Spenser begins a

complimentary sonnet prefixed to the 'Commonwealth and Government of

Venice' (1599) with this beautiful verse,

Fair Venice, flower of the last world's delight.

Perhaps we should read 'lost.'"

We fail to get any light from these quotations, and we should be

glad to have been spared the doubt as to Mr. Lowell's accuracy and

authority as a verbal critic suggested by his off-hand emendation of a

phrase which he has remembered for its alliterative sweetness while

he has missed its sense and forgotten the context. In the line "Fayre

Venice," etc., which occurs not at the beginning, but near the end,

of the sonnet, "lost" would be so contradictory to the sense that

any editor who had found the word thus printed and had failed to

substitute "last" would have betrayed inexcusable negligence.

Spenser, writing while Venice, though declined from the height of her

greatness, was still flourishing as well as fair, considers her as the

marvel of his own age--the "last," i.e., latest, world--as Babylon and

Rome, with which he compares her, had been the marvels of antiquity,

of worlds that were indeed lost.[6] Slips of this kind are probably

rare, but a prevailing tendency to put forward loose or fanciful

conjectures as _ex-cathedrâ_ rulings detracts from the pleasure and

instruction to be derived from these essays.

[Footnote 6: Here is the sonnet, that the reader may judge for

himself:

"The antique Babel, Empresse of the East,

Upreard her buildinges to the threatned skie;

And second Babell, Tyrant of the West,

Her ayry towers upraised much more high.

But, with the weight of their own surquedry,

They both are fallen, that all the earth did feare,

And buried now in their own ashes ly:

Yet shewing, by their heapes, how great they were.

But in their place doth now a third appeare,

Fayre Venice, flower of the last world's delight;

And next to them in beauty draweth neare,

But far exceedes in policie of right.

Yet not so fayre her buildinges to behold

As Lewkenor's stile that hath her beautie told."]

_BOOKS RECEIVED._

The Excavation of Olympia, by Ernst Curtius; and Ernst Curtius, by

Prof. Robert P. Keep, Ph. D. Republished from _International Review_.

New York: A.S. Barnes & Co.

History of the United States. By J.A. Doyle, with Maps by Francis A.

Walker. (Freeman's Historical Course for Schools.) New York: Henry

Holt & Co.

Our National Currency and the Money Problem. By Hon. Amasa Walker,

LL.D. New York: A.S. Barnes & Co.

A Hundred Years Ago, and other Poems. By Charles W.E. Siegel, A.B.

Lancaster: Daily and Weekly Examiner.

History of the United States. (Centenary Edition.) Vol.I. By George

Bancroft. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

The Christ of Paul; or, The Enigmas of Christianity. By George Reber.

New York: Charles P. Somerby.

Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer. By Charles

Sotheran. New York: Charles P. Somerby.

The Summerfield Imbroglio: A Tale. By Mortimer Collins. Boston:

Loring.

Dear Lady Disdain. By Justin McCarthy. New York: Sheldon & Co.