Without deigning a word of reply, Mirza-Schaffy clapped his hands, a

sign at which the servant usually brought him a fresh pipe, but

this time he demanded his thick-soled slippers. With one of these he

proceeded to so unmercifully belabor the wise man of Bagdad that the

latter besought mercy with the most appealing words and gestures. But

the chastiser was inexorable. "What?" said he. "I cannot sing, dost

thou say? Wait, I will make music for thee! And I cannot write,

either? Let it be, then, on thy head!" Whimpering and writhing beneath

the blows accompanying these words, the wise man of Bagdad staggered

toward the door and vanished from sight.

More calmly than might have been anticipated did Mirza-Schaffy return

from the contest of wisdom, and promptly taking his usual seat on the

divan, he began to exhort his German disciple to lend no ear to such

false teachers as Jussuf and his fellows, whose name, he said, was

legion, whose avarice was greater than their wisdom, and whose aim was

to plunder, not teach, their pupils.

Later, Jussuf strove to win Bodenstedt by repeated messages,

accompanied by songs in the most exquisite handwriting.

Mirza-Schaffy's opinion concerning these compositions is embodied in

quite a number of songs, of which space must be found for one:

Forsooth! is Mirza-Jussuf a very well-read man!

Now searcheth he Hafiz, now searcheth the Koran,

Now Dshamy and Chakany, and now the _Gülistan_.

Here stealeth he a symbol, and there doth steal a flower,

Here robbeth precious thoughts, and there a true word's power.

He giveth as his own what has been said before,

Transplanted! the whole world into his tedious lore;

And proudly decketh he his prey with borrowed plumes,

Then flauntingly that this is poetry assumes.

How differently lives and sings Mirza-Schaffy!

A glowing star his heart to lighten paths of gloom,

His mind a blooming garden, filled with sweet perfume,

And in his rich creations no plagiarist is he:

His songs are full of beauty, and perfect as can be.

Mirza-Schaffy himself was a miracle of skill in chirography: none

could equal him in wielding the _kalem_. His aim was not to impart a

precise regularity to the characters, but to indicate by the writing

the matter and style. Proverbs or utterances of wisdom were indited

by him in a firm, bold hand with unadorned simplicity; love-songs with

delicate, clear-cut lines, attractive capricious curves, enigmatical,

almost illegible minuteness, designed to set forth the type of female

character. The chirography of the songs to wine and earthly pleasure

is full of fire and flourish--that of the songs of lamentation neat,

legible and unadorned. To impart this skill to his pupil was one of

his most earnest endeavors.

One day, when inspired by choice wine and soothed by the fragrant

fumes of his _tschibuq_, Mirza-Schaffy was moved to tell of the love

his heart had cherished--love such as man had never before known. The

object of his adoration was Zuléikha, daughter of Ibrahim, the chan of

Gjändsha. Her eyes, darker than the night, shone with a brighter

glow than the stars of heaven: passing description were the graceful

loveliness of her form, the dainty perfection of hands and feet, her

soft hair long as eternity, and the sweet mouth whose breath was more

fragrant than the roses of Schiraz. He who was destined to be her

slave had watched her daily for six months--as she sat on the housetop

at midday with her companions, or on moonlight evenings when she

amused herself with the dancing of her slaves--before he received so

much as a sign that she deemed him worthy of her regard. He rejoiced

in the splendor of her countenance, but dared no more approach her

than the sun in whose warm rays he might bask. By day he was compelled

to exercise the utmost caution, as his life would have been in

jeopardy had Ibrahim Chan descried him casting loving looks at

Zuléikha, but in the evening he was safe to draw attention to himself,

as after eight o'clock the old man never crossed his threshold. Then

the flames of the lover's heart burst into song, and he gave

utterance to a _ghazel_ now of Hafiz, now of Firdusa, while still more

frequently he sang his own songs.

Finally, Ibrahim Chan set forth on an expedition against the enemies

of Moscow, and thus was afforded a rare opportunity for the enamored

Mirza to present himself and his songs to the fair one's notice. One

dark evening, when the ladies had failed to appear on the housetop,

as Mirza-Schaffy was turning disappointed away he was accosted by a

closely-veiled female, who, bidding him follow her, led the way to

a secluded spot where interruption would be improbable, and thus

addressed him: "I am Fatima, the confidential attendant of Zuléikha.

My mistress hath gazed on thee with the eye of satisfaction. The

resonance of thy voice hath delighted her ear, the purport of thy

songs touched her heart. I am come of my own accord, without my lady's

bidding, to let thee drink hope from the fountain of my words, because

I wish thee well."

"Has, then, Zuléikha not closed her ear to the poorest of her slaves?"

exclaimed the overjoyed Mirza. "And will my heart not be lacerated

by the thorn of her displeasure? Allah min! Allah bir! The God of

thousands is one only God! Great is His goodness and wonderful are His

ways! What have I done that He hath guided the stream of my songs to

the sea of beauty?"

Fatima told him he did well to prize the merciful goodness of Allah

and the loveliness of her mistress, who was a "jewel in the ring of

beauty, a pearl in the shell of fortune." Her noble lady, she said,

would have given token of her favor before had not her virtuous

modesty exceeded her beauty, and had she not feared the displeasure

of her father, who tenderly loved her and would never consent to her

stooping to a poor mirza. Then she proceeded to tell how Achmed

Chan of Avaria, who was at the war with Ibrahim Chan, was suing for

Zuléikha's hand, which was promised by the father should he return

triumphant from the campaign. This would render prompt action

desirable, and Fatima suggested that Mirza-Schaffy should appear on

the following evening, when the call to prayer resounded from the

minaret, before the garden with his choicest offering of song, to

which, the messenger was ready to wager, would be accorded a rosebud.

Intoxicated with joy, Mirza-Schaffy bestowed on the friendly Fatima

his purse, his watch and all the valuables about him, also promising a

talisman to cure a black spot on her left cheek; and they parted

with the understanding that they should meet, again for further

communication.

And here, in exemplification of the learned scribe's rejoinders to

his pupil's queries concerning the significance of the thorn of

displeasure and the rosebud, is introduced the song:

The thorn is token of rejection,

Of disapproval and of scorn:

If she to union hath objection,

She giveth me as sign a thorn.

Yet if, instead, the maiden throws me

A tender rosebud as a token,

That fate propitious is it shows me,

And bids me wait with faith unbroken.

But if a full-blown rose she tenders,

Its open chalice is a token

Which boldest hope in me engenders;

Through it her love is clearly spoken.

On the ensuing evening Mirza-Schaffy presented himself promptly at

the appointed place, prepared with a love-song which he knew none of

womankind could resist. The evening was calm and clear, and on the

housetop, alone with Fatima, was plainly discernible Zuléikha, her

veil slightly drawn aside in token of favor. Taking courage, the

enamored Mirza pushed back his cap in order to display his freshly

shaven head, of whose whiteness he was excessively proud, and which he

felt to be irresistible to maidens' eyes, and began to sing his song,

having first cast a written copy folded about a double almond-kernel,

as a keepsake at the feet of beauty. The song given at this point is

excessively flowery, and declares the maiden's eyes to be brighter

than those of the wild gazelle, her form more ethereal than the

slender pine, and pronounces the wooer, his heart and his tuneful lay

to be but slaves of her loveliness. This by way of preparation, the

highest point of the offering being the concluding stanzas:

With faithful heart and hopefully

Approach I now Love's sacred bower,

And cast this wistful song at thee,

This fragrant song, as question-flower.

Accept with joy or scornfully,

Give my heart death or consolation,

Cast rosebud, rose, or thorn at me,

I humbly wait thy revelation.

Smilingly the maiden cast a rosebud at her waiting suitor, and for the

first time fully displayed to him her beauteous face. From this moment

new life dawned on our Mirza, and for six weeks he basked in the

sunshine of felicity ere threatening clouds loomed up in his horizon.

Then Ibrahim Chan returned from the war, and with him came his

daughter's suitor. A troop of horsemen had been despatched to Avaria

for the bridal gift, and on their return they were to conduct Achmed

Chan and his chosen lady home. Prize combats and festivities were

planned to celebrate the return of the heroes, and at Zuléikha's

request a singing festival was likewise to take place. All the singers

of the land were invited and bidden to prepare their choicest lays

extolling the sovereign lady of the fête: to the victorious competitor

would be accorded the right to break the instruments of his opponents.

Now was the time for Mirza-Schaffy to gather all his courage, for he

knew the crisis of his destiny to be at hand. He arranged with Fatima

that the day of the singing festival should be likewise that of his

flight with Zuléikha, for he was troubled with no doubt concerning

the success of his lyrical efforts. An Armenian who was about setting

forth with a caravan was confided in, and engaged to reserve camels

for and accord protection to the fugitives.

The minutes seemed like days, the hours like years, until the

announcement was heralded that Ibrahim Chan had sallied forth with his

guests to the prize combat, and that the ladies awaited the minstrels.

They were assembled on the housetop, lovely matrons and maidens, and

there was spread a large carpet on which set two players on the _sass_

and _tshengir_, between whom each singer in turn took his place to

sing his offering to the sound of strings. The handsomest boy

in Gjändsha was appointed to hand to each singer a silver plate,

wherewith to conceal from the eye of beauty the emotions depicted in

his countenance while singing. Twenty singers stood in a circle and

stepped forth one after the other, Mirza-Schaffy, as the youngest

of the number, coming last. All other emanations he felt to be

faint sparks in comparison with the fire of his own. How could it be

otherwise, considering the source of his inspiration? As he sang his

heart swelled with ecstasy, and when he concluded there lay at his

feet a full-blown rose. He was victor of the festival, yet so filled

was he with thoughts of his beloved that he remembered not to break

the instruments of the vanquished.

The flight was effected; the bride, although awaiting the coming of

the bridegroom in bridal array, offering all due resistance as he led

her from her home; indeed, so zealous was she to be faithful to the

customs of her country that her cries would have roused the household

had not the prudent Fatima interposed. On reaching the caravan a

double security seemed to arise from the Armenian proving to be

the accepted lover of Fatima; and Zuléikha, although deeming it a

degradation for a daughter of Ali to unite her destinies with an

unbeliever, was herself too strongly in the bondage of love to

withhold her consent. Then how happy were they all! and what

precautions were taken for their safety! Nevertheless, they were

overtaken by the angry father and the outraged suitor of his choice.

Zuléikha and Fatima were rudely snatched from the protection of their

lovers, and the learned scribe--we blush to write it--received on the

very soles which had borne him to the summit of bliss the ignominious

blows of the bastinado.

From that day Mirza-Schaffy had felt indisposed to bestow his

affections on mortal woman, and since the sun of his hopes had set

dwelt serenely in the moonlight of remembrance. As Zuléikha, the

embodiment of all virtue and beauty, had loved him, he believed

himself to be an object of adoration to all feminine hearts, and

grimly resolved that all womankind must suffer in expiation of his own

sufferings.

During the winter there arrived another student from Germany, who,

becoming acquainted with Bodenstedt, arranged to share with him the

lessons in Tartar and Persian, which Mirza-Schaffy was pleased to call

"hours of wisdom." In course of time other friends joined the circle,

so that finally arose a formal divan, where the wise man of Gjändsha

discoursed less on personalities, dwelling chiefly on general

effusions of wisdom, interspersed with many a song. One of the latter

reads as though designed by Bodenstedt to indicate the relation borne

by Mirza-Schaffy to his own productions:

Thou art of my song the begetter;

Its drapery putteth my wand on;

Thou yieldest the purest of marble,

And I lay the sculpturing hand on.

Thou givest the spirit, the essence:

Me for utt'rance alone mak'st demand on--

Oft my power's deficient, and madly

Thy crude thoughts I haste to expand on.

Sundry songs extolling the beneficence of wine and earthly pleasure

arose at this period. Of these we find none more attractive than that

which owed its origin to a conversation held in the divan of wisdom

concerning certain Russians and Georgians who drank wine more freely

than the camels drank water, yet had gained no inspiration therefrom:

From wine's fiery fascination

From the goblet's mystic pleasure,

Poison foams, and sweet refreshment,

Beauty flows, and degradation,

As the drinker's worth may measure,

According to his brain's assessment.

In debasement deeply sunken

Lies the fool, through wine's might captur'd:

When _he_ drinks becomes he drunken;

When _we_ drink we are enraptured.

Sparkling gleams of wit, worth dreaming,

Flash from tongues like angel's seeming,

And with ardor we are teeming,

And alone with beauty drunken.

Well resembles wine the shower

Which to mire fresh mire amasses,

But to fair fields brings a dower

Rich in blessing as it passes.

One evening Bodenstedt discovered his worthy teacher singing before

a house on whose roof sat a graceful maiden, and from the man's whole

manner then and thereafter concluded that in the long-faithful heart

had been at last replaced the image of Zuléikha. And so it proved. On

the very evening when he was returning home with softened heart after

the recital of the joys and sorrows of his first love, Mirza-Schaffy's

attention had been arrested by a lovely maiden who, as he pushed

back his cap--solely, of course, to cool his heated brow--gave

incontestable evidences of being smitten with him. When he went to

his couch that night sleep refused to visit his eyelids, and as he

restlessly tossed to and fro, the image of Zuléikha haunting him with

reproachful mien, his thoughts turned ever to the peerless maiden who

menaced further fidelity to the old love. Ere morning dawned he had

resolved to break the spell, and for several days avoided the locality

of the fair enticer. But the attraction became finally too strong to

resist. He went, he saw the maiden, and she bestowed on him a glance

which rendered him her slave for life;

A wond'rous glance hath met my eyes:

The magic of this moment rare

Worketh for aye a fresh surprise,

A miracle beyond compare.

A question, therefore, ask I thee--

Pay heed, sweet life whom I adore--

Was that fond glance bestowed on me?

A token give, then, I implore.

And round thee could my strong arm cling,

Might I to thee life consecrate,

Loud jubilees my heart would sing,

And these to thee I'd dedicate.

The first interview presents decidedly a comical side. By a

confidential attendant Mirza-Schaffy was introduced on the roof

disguised in female costume, his face and flowing beard modestly

covered with a long veil. Luckily, he was not doomed long to such

undignified concealment, for he soon managed, through his beauty

and genius, to win favor in the eyes of the lady's mother, and she

promised to intercede in his behalf with the stern old father. The

latter, however, having eyes neither for beauty nor poetry, thought

only to demand what means of support the bold intruder had to offer

his daughter, and when he learned how small these were, withheld

his consent until the suitor could secure a professorship in some

institution of learning. Although loath to renounce his freedom,

Mirza-Schaffy determined for Hafisa's sake to make application, as he

had often been advised to do, at the Tiflis Gymnasium for the position

of teacher of Tartaric. But, alas! there was prepared for our poor

Mirza a humiliation second only to the bastinado. His reply was a

portentous document in the Russian language, of which he could not

read a word. Hafisa's father demanded sight of it, had it interpreted

by a learned mullah, and it proved to be a summons for the applicant

to appear at an appointed hour for examination. This was too much.

Mirza-Schaffy, the first wise man of the East, the pride of his race,

the pearl in the shell of poetry, to be examined in his own language!

Hafisa's father declared his belief that the mirza's wisdom was as

doubtful as his fortune, and the wise man himself began to wonder

whether his wisdom had not gone "pleasuring in the dusk of the

evening." Moreover, during the conference with the mullah certain

revelations came to light concerning the lack of orthodoxy in the

mirza's belief and the frequent slurs it was his wont to cast on the

powerful mullahs; and this set the old father hopelessly against him,

causing him to revoke all promise of possible consent. Such being

the case, Mirza-Schaffy had no heart to brave the humiliation of an

examination. Shortly after, however, he was honored with a call to the

new school at Gjändsha, and Hafisa's father dying about the same time,

all obstacles were removed to a union with the maiden of his choice.

And so with his bride he returned to his native place, and felt that

the summit of earthly bliss was attained.

Friedrich Bodenstedt has been a very prolific author, having published

several volumes of poetry, besides numerous romances, tales and

miscellaneous works. He is one of a committee of poets and men

of learning appointed not long since to retranslate the works of

Shakespeare. At present he is adding to his well-earned laurels

through his volume _Aus dem Nachlasse Mirza-Schaffys_. The book is

divided into seven parts, the first of which is dedicated to love.

Then there are songs of earthly pleasure, songs of consolation,

sayings of wisdom, stories in rhyme of Eastern romance, a series of

problems and a "bouquet of cypresses and roses."

AUBER FORESTIER.

TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam

Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,

Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem

Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;

So in this night of art thy soul doth show

Her excellent double in the steadfast flow

Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go:

At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below.

E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky

(Each star must round an arduous orbit fly),

Full calm thine image in our love doth lie,

A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity.

So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene--

Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good queen!

SIDNEY LANIER.

CHARLES KINGSLEY: A REMINISCENCE.

The heat of London in the midsummer of 1857, even to my American

apprehension, was intense. The noise of the streets oppressed me,

and perhaps the sight now and again of freshly-watered flowers which

beautify so many of the window-ledges, and which seem to flourish and

bloom whatever the weather, filled me the more with a desire for the

quiet of green fields and the refreshing shade of trees. I had just

returned from Switzerland, and the friends with whom I had been

journeying in that land of all perfections had gone back to their home

among the wealds and woods of Essex. I began to feel that sense of

solitude which weighs heavily on a stranger in the throng of a great

city; so that it was with keen pleasure I looked forward to a visit to

Mr. Kingsley. A most kind invitation had come from him, offering me "a

bed and all hospitality in their plain country fashion."

At four in the afternoon of a hot July day I started for Winchfield,

which is the station on the London and Southampton Railway nearest to

Eversley--a journey of an hour and a half. I took a fly at Winchfield

for Eversley, a distance of six miles. My way lay over wide silent

moors: now and then a quiet farmstead came in view--_moated granges_

they might have been--but these were few and far between, this part of

Hampshire being owned in large tracts. It was a little after six when

I drew near to the church and antique brick dwelling-house adjoining

it which were the church and rectory of Eversley. There were no other

houses near, so that it was evidently a wide and scattered parish.

Old trees shaded the venerable irregularly-shaped parsonage, ivy

and creeping plants covered the walls, and roses peeped out here and

there. Mr. Kingsley himself met me at the open hall-door, and there

was something in his clear and cheerful tone that gave a peculiar

sense of welcome to his greeting. "Very glad to see you," said he.

Then taking my bag from the fly, "Let me show you your room at once,

that you may make yourself comfortable." So, leading the way, he

conducted me up stairs and along a somewhat intricate passage to a

room in the oldest part of the house. It was a quaint apartment, with

leaden casements, a low ceiling, an uneven floor--a room four hundred

years old, as Mr. Kingsley told me, but having withal a very habitable

look. "I hope you'll be comfortable here," said my host as he turned

to go--"as comfortable as one can be in a cottage. Have you everything

you want? There will be a tea-dinner or a dinner-tea in about half

an hour." Then, as he lingered, he asked, "When did you see Forster

last?"

"Six weeks ago," I said--"in London. He had just received news of

the vacancy at Leeds, and at once determined to offer himself as the

Liberal candidate. He went to Leeds for this purpose, but subsequently

withdrew his name. I gather from his speech at the banquet his

supporters gave him afterward that this was a mistake, and that if he

had stood he would have been elected."

"Ah," said Kingsley, "I should like to see Forster in Parliament. He

is not the man, however, to make head against the _tracasseries_ of an

election contest."

Some other talk we had, and then he left me, coming back before long

to conduct me to the drawing-room. Two gentlemen were there--one a

visitor who soon took leave; the other, the tutor to Mr. Kingsley's

son. Mrs. Kingsley came in now and shook hands with me cordially, and

I had very soon the sense of being at one with them all. Our having

mutual friends did much toward this good understanding, but it was

partly that we seemed at once to have so much to talk of on the events

of the day, and on English matters in which I took keen interest.

India was naturally our first subject, and the great and absorbing

question of the mutiny. I told what the London news was in regard to

it, and how serious was the look of things. Kingsley said there must

be great blame somewhere--that as to the British rule in India, no man

could doubt that it had been a great blessing to the country, but

the individual Englishman had come very far short of his duty in

his dealings with the subject race: a reckoning was sure to come.

_Oakfield_ was mentioned--a story by William Arnold of which the scene

was laid in India, and which contained evidence of this ill-treatment

of the Hindoos by their white masters. Kingsley spoke highly of this

book. I said I thought it had hardly been appreciated in England.

Kingsley thought the reason was it was too didactic--there was too

much moralizing. Only the few could appreciate this: the many did not

care for it in a novel.

Our tea-dinner was announced: it was served in the hall. Mrs.

Kingsley spoke laughingly of their being obliged to make this their

dining-room. The talk at the table fell on American affairs. Sumner's

name was mentioned. I said he was in London, and that I had had a

long conversation with him a few days before. Would I give them his

address? they asked: they must have a visit from him. I said he would

be glad to visit them, I was sure, for when I told him I was coming

here he said he envied me. He was at present engaged in a round

of dinners--expected to go to France in August to stay with De

Tocqueville, but would be again in England in the autumn. Kingsley

spoke of Brooks's death--of the suddenness of it seeming almost a

judgment. I said Brooks, as I happened to know, was thought a good

fellow before the assault--that he really had good qualities, and

was liked even by Northern men. "So we have heard from others," said

Kingsley, "and one can well believe it. The man who suffers for a bad

system is often the best man--one with attractive qualities." Charles

I. and Louis XVI. were instances he gave to illustrate this. A recent

article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on slavery was spoken of. I said

it had attracted a good deal of attention with us, because we saw

immediately it could only have been written by an American. Of

slavery Mr. Kingsley spoke in calm and moderate words. I told him his

introductory chapter to _Two Years Ago_ showed that he appreciated the

difficulties with which the question was encumbered. He said it would

be strange if he did not see these difficulties, considering that he

was of West Indian descent (his grandfather had married a West Indian

heiress). He admitted that the result of emancipation in the West

Indies was not encouraging as it regarded the material condition

of the islands, especially of Jamaica, and he was quite able to

understand how powerfully this fact would weigh on our Southern

planters, and how it tended to close their ears to all anti-slavery

argument. They could hardly be expected to look beyond this test of

sugar-production to the moral progress of the black race which freedom

alone could ensure.

Our pleasant meal being over, we strolled out on the lawn and sat down

under one of the fine old trees, where we continued our talk about

slavery. Mr. Kingsley said he could quite believe any story he might

hear of cruelty practiced upon slaves. He knew too well his own

nature, and felt that under the influence of sudden anger he would be

capable of deeds as violent as any of which we read. This, of course,

was putting out of view the restraints which religion would impose;

but it was safe for no man to have the absolute control of others.

He left us to go into the house, and Mrs. Kingsley then spoke of his

parochial labors. She wished I could spend a Sunday with them--"I

should so like you to see the congregation he has. The common

farm-laborers come morning and afternoon: the reason is, he preaches

so that they can understand him. I wish you could have been with us

last Sunday, we had such an interesting person here--Max Müller, the

great linguist and Orientalist. But we can't have pleasant _meets_

here: we have only one spare room."

"How old is Max Müller?" I asked.

"Twenty-eight, and he scarcely looks to be twenty-two."

"How long has Mr. Kingsley been here?" I asked.

"Fifteen years--two years as curate, and then the living becoming

vacant, it was given to him."

She told me a funeral was to take place directly--that of a poor woman

who had been a great sufferer. "Ah, here it comes," she said.

There was the bier borne on men's shoulders and a little company

of mourners, the peasantry of the neighborhood, the men wearing

smock-frocks. They were awaiting the clergyman at the lichgate. Mr.

Kingsley appeared at the moment in his surplice, and the procession

entered the churchyard, he saying as he walked in front the solemn

sentences with which the service begins. It was the scene which I had

witnessed in another part of Hampshire some years before, when the

author of _The Christian Year_ was the officiating clergyman. Mrs.

Kingsley and I joined the procession and entered the church. It was a

small, oddly-arranged interior--brick pavements, high-backed pews,

the clerk's desk adjoining the reading-desk, but a little lower. Mr.

Kingsley read the service in a measured tone, which enabled him to

overcome the defect in his utterance noticeable in conversation. At

the grave the rest of the office was said, and here the grief of the

poor mourners overcame them. The family group consisted of the husband

of the deceased, a grown-up daughter and a son, a boy of fifteen. All

were much moved, but the boy the most. He cried bitterly--a long wail,

as if he could not be comforted. Mr. Kingsley tried to console him,

putting his arm over his shoulders. He said words of sympathy to the

others also. They went their way over the heath to their desolate

home. Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley spoke of the life of toil which had thus

ended, and of the patience with which long-continued bodily pain had

been borne. It was clear that the popular author was first of all a

parish priest.

We now went into his study, where he lighted a long pipe, and we then

returned to a part of the lawn which he called his quarter-deck, and

where we walked up and down for near an hour. What an English summer

evening it was!--dewy and still. Now and then a slight breeze stirred

in the leaves and brought with it wafts of delicate odors from the

flowers somewhere hidden in the deep shadows, though as yet it was not

night and the sweet twilight lay about us like a charm. He asked if

I knew Maurice. I did slightly--had breakfasted with him six weeks

before, and had seen enough of him to understand the strong personal

influence he exerted. "I owe all that I am to Maurice," said Kingsley,

"I aim only to teach to others what I get from him. Whatever facility

of expression I have is God's gift, but the views I endeavor to

enforce are those which I learn from Maurice. I live to interpret him

to the people of England."

A talk about the influence of the Oxford writers came next: on

this subject I knew we should not agree, though of course it was

interesting to me to hear Mr. Kingsley's opinion. He spoke with some

asperity of one or two of the leaders, though his chief objection was

to certain young men who had put themselves forward as champions of

the movement. Of Mr. Keble he spoke very kindly. He said he had at

one time been much under the influence of these writings. I mentioned

Alexander Knox as being perhaps the forerunner of the Oxford men.

"Ah," he said, "I owe my knowledge of that good man to Mrs. Kingsley:

you must talk with her about him." We joined the party in the

drawing-room, and there was some further conversation on this subject.

At about ten o'clock the bell was rung, the servants came in,

prayers were said, and the ladies (Mrs. Kingsley and their daughter's

governess) bid us good-night. Then to Mr. Kingsley's study, where

the rest of the evening was spent--from half-past ten to half-past

twelve--the pipe went on, and the talk--a continuous flow. Quakerism

was a subject. George Fox, Kingsley said, was his admiration: he read

his _Journal_ constantly--thought him one of the most remarkable men

that age produced. He liked his hostility to Calvinism. "How little

that fellow Macaulay," he said, "could understand Quakerism! A man

needs to have been in Inferno himself to know what the Quakers meant

in what they said and did." He referred me to an article of his on

Jacob Boehme and the mystic writers, in which he had given his views

in regard to Fox.

We talked about his parish work: he found it, he said, a great help to

him, adding emphatically that his other labor was secondary to this.

He had trained himself not to be annoyed by his people calling on him

when he was writing. If he was to be their priest, he must see them

when it suited them to come; and he had become able if called off from

his writing to go on again the moment he was alone. I asked him when

he wrote. He said in the morning almost always: sometimes, when much

pushed, he had written for an hour in the evening, but he always had

to correct largely the next morning work thus done. Daily exercise,

riding, hunting, together with parish work, were necessary to keep him

in a condition for writing: he aimed to keep himself in rude health.

I asked whether _Alton Locke_ had been written in that room. "Yes," he

said--"from four to eight in the mornings; and a young man was staying

with me at the time with whom every day I used to ride, or perhaps

hunt, when my task of writing was done."

A fine copy of St. Augustine attracted my attention on his

shelves--five volumes folio bound in vellum. "Ah," he said, "that _is_

a treasure I must show you;" and taking down a volume he turned to the

fly-leaf, where were the words "Charles Kingsley from Thomas Carlyle,"

and above them "Thomas Carlyle from John Sterling." One could

understand that Carlyle had thus handed on the book, notwithstanding

its sacred associations, knowing that to Kingsley it would have a

threefold value. My eye caught also a relic of curious interest--a

fragment from one of the vessels of the Spanish Armada. It lay on the

mantelpiece: I could well understand Kingsley's pleasure in possessing

it.

At the breakfast-table the next morning we had much talk in regard to

American writers. Kingsley admitted Emerson's high merit, but thought

him too fragmentary a writer and thinker to have enduring fame. He had

meant that this should be implied as his opinion in the title he gave

to _Phaethon_--"Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers"--a book he had

written in direct opposition to what he understood to be the general

teaching of Emerson. I remarked upon the great beauty of some of

Emerson's later writings and the marvelous clearness of insight which

was shown in his _English Traits_. Kingsley acquiesced in this, but

referred to some American poetry, so called, which Emerson had lately

edited, and in his preface had out-Heroded Herod. Kingsley said the

poems were the production of a coarse, sensual mind. His reference, of

course, was to Walt Whitman, and I had no defence to make. Of Lowell,

Mr. Kingsley spoke very highly: his _Fable for Critics_ was worthy of

Rabelais. Mr. Froude, who is Kingsley's brother-in-law, had first made

him acquainted with Lowell's poetry. Hawthorne's style he thought was

exquisite: there was scarcely any modern writing equal to it. Of all

his books he preferred the _Blithedale Romance_.

We talked of Mr. Froude, whom Kingsley spoke of as his dearest friend:

he thought Froude sincerely regretted ever having written the _Nemesis

of Faith_. Mr. Helps, author of _Friends in Council_, he spoke of as

his near neighbor there in Hampshire, and his intimate friend. Mr.

Charles Reade he knew, and I think he said he was also a neighbor:

his _Christie Johnston_ he thought showed high original power. Mrs.

Gaskell we talked of, whose _Life of Charlotte Bronté_ had just then

been published: Mr. Kingsley thought it extremely interesting and

"slightly slanderous." He told me of the author of _Tom Brown's

School-days_, a copy of which, fresh from the publishers, was lying on

his table. Mr. Hughes is now so well known to us I need only mention

that Mr. Kingsley spoke of him as an old pupil of Arnold's and a

spiritual child of Maurice. He spoke most warmly of him, and offered

me a letter of introduction to him. I could not avail myself of this,

having so little time to remain in London.

I must mention, as showing further Mr. Kingsley's state of mind toward

Maurice, that he had named his son after him. He spoke of the boy as

being intended for the army: the family, he said, had been soldiers

for generations. "That is the profession England will need for the

next five-and-twenty years." Of Forster he said, "What a pity he had

not been put in the army at the age of eighteen!--he would have been a

general now. England has need of such men." I note this as showing

the curious apprehension of war which he, an Englishman, felt eighteen

years ago, and which he expressed to me, an American. How little

either of us thought of the struggle which men of English blood were

to engage in in three years from that time! How little I could dream

that one of the decisive battles of the world was so soon to be fought

in my own State, Pennsylvania!

Our morning was spent in all this varied talk, walking partly on the

lawn, partly in the study. His pipe was still his companion. He

seemed to need to walk incessantly, such was his nervous activity of

temperament. He asked me if it annoyed me for him to walk so much up

and down his study. The slight impediment in his speech one forgot as

one listened to the flow of his discourse. He talked a volume while

I was with him, and what he said often rose to eloquence. There was

humor too in it, of which I can give no example, for it was fine and

delicate. But what most impressed me was his perfect simplicity of

character. He talked of his wife with the strongest affection--wished

I could remain longer with them, if only to know her better. Nothing

could be more tender than his manner toward her. He went for her when

we were in the study, and the last half hour of my stay she sat with

us. She is one of five sisters who are all married to eminent men.

It occurs to me to note, as among my last recollections of our talk,

that I spoke of Spurgeon, whom I had heard in London a short time

before, and was very favorably impressed with. I could not but commend

his simple, strong Saxon speech, the charm of his rich full voice,

and above all the earnest aim which I thought was manifest in all he

uttered. Mr. Kingsley said he was glad to hear this, for he had been

told of occasional irreverences of Spurgeon's, and of his giving way

now and then to a disposition to make a joke of things. Not that he

objected altogether to humor in sermons: he had his own temptations

in this way. "One must either weep at the follies of men or laugh

at them," he added. I told him Mr. Maurice had spoken to me of Mr.

Spurgeon as no doubt an important influence for good in the land, and

he said this was on the whole his own opinion. He told me, however,

of teaching of quite another character, addressed to people of

cultivation mainly, and to him peculiarly acceptable. His reference

was to Robertson's _Sermons_: he showed me the volume--the first

series--just then published. The mention of this book perhaps led to

a reference by Mr. Kingsley to the Unitarians of New England, of whom

he spoke very kindly, adding, in effect, that their error was but

a natural rebound from Calvinism, that dreary perversion of God's

boundless love.

But I had now to say good-bye to these new friends, who had come to

seem old friends, so full and cordial had been their hospitality, and

so much had we found to talk of in the quickly-passing hours of my

visit. Mr. Kingsley drove me three miles on my way to Winchfield. His

talk with me was interspersed with cheery and friendly words to his

horse, with whom he seemed to be on very intimate terms. "Come and

see us again," he said as we parted: "the second visit, you know, is

always the best."

ELLIS YARNALL.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A WOMAN'S OPINION OF PARIS AND THE PARISIANS.

I have now lived in Paris two consecutive years, and during this time

the question has often been put to me, "How do you like Paris and the

Parisians?" That question I will now try to answer.

Like Paris? Of course I do--heartily and truly. Cold indeed must the

heart be that does not find space in its depths for a true affection

for the fair queen-city which welcomes all strangers so kindly and

hospitably, which has a smile for all, and which at the wide banquet

of her bounty sets forth food for every phase of mental hunger. Do you

wish to study? Her libraries lie open to your research--her monuments,

her galleries, her public institutions are given to your inspection,

freely and without price. Do you seek amusement? Paris, in that

respect, is like the rollicking heroine of _Barbe-Bleu:_ there is none

like Boulotte, "quand il s'agit de batifoler." Do you wish to hide

yourself in depths of unbroken quiet? There are in her very heart

lonely streets where scarce a cart ever penetrates, and in her suburbs

green shaded nooks where the spirit of Solitude reigns supreme.

Life runs on such smooth and well-oiled wheels for all humanity in

Paris that half the cares that torture us are cast aside as soon as

we enter her precincts. Take, for instance, the grand question of

housekeeping. Fancy living in a land where all the servants

are skilled and civil, if not all trustworthy and honest; where

washing-days and ironing-days and baking-days are unknown; where there

are no staircases to sweep down and no front-door steps to scour;

where rents and eating and all other household expenses may be gauged

in accordance with one's purse. If you wish to entertain, you may give

a soirée that will cost ten dollars if you cannot afford to give a

ball that costs five thousand. Nothing is _de rigueur_ in Paris. It

is neither incumbent upon you to be housed splendidly nor to feast

sumptuously--to drive your own carriage nor to entertain an army of

servants. "Do the best you can" is the motto of Parisian life. And

so it often happens that in a small room, up half a dozen flights

of stairs, with a cup of tea for sole refreshment and music or

conversation for sole amusement, one will find some of the pleasantest

society in Paris. You do not get champagne and boned turkey and the

German, but you hear sometimes a little music, such as one pays untold

gold to hear at the opera, or a fragment of declamation by some noted

elocutionist, or a new poem fresh from the pen of some celebrated

writer. And you have always conversation; that is to say, the wit and

sparkle of the wittiest and brightest nation on the face of the earth.

In a world that is becoming more and more a Paradise of Fools the

charm of sheer brain and brightness is irresistible. To live in such

an intellectual centre is in itself delightful. Paris is a veritable

_Foire aux Idées_. Its criticism, keen as the sword of Saladin,

overwhelming as the battle-axe of Coeur de Lion, is in itself a

study. It is not so much the intellectual productions of Paris as the

comments they call forth that are at once instructive and fascinating.

When we turn from the world of intellect to that of ordinary life

the same charm haunts our footsteps. Everything is so well done,

so gracefully and so winningly presented! The exquisite perfume of

refinement hangs about every trivial detail. Your washerwoman is a

lady, and your coalman a Chesterfield. If a Frenchman is ever rude, he

is rude with malice prepense and aforethought. He knows better, we may

be sure. Patrick may err on the score of politeness from ignorance,

but Alphonse is a beast only because he chooses to be bestial. All the

traditions of his race run counter to his conduct when he forgets the

supreme suavity that should characterize a Gaul.

And yet it is possible for an American--or rather an Anglo-Saxon--to

live for years in the midst of this brilliant, polished, fascinating

people, and never to feel specially interested in them, either

individually or nationally. What is the reason? Why is it that, loving

Paris like a second home, we do not take the Parisians to our hearts

as brothers and sisters, or at least as dear first cousins? The causes

are many and various. In the first place, the Parisians do not like

us. The popularity which Americans were said to possess in Paris has

vanished with the Empire--that is, if it really existed. It probably

was nothing more at any time than the courtesy shown by an astute

sovereign of a nation of shopkeepers to a nation of purchasers. To-day

Americans are not popular in Parisian society. It is almost impossible

that they should be. Our ideas, our social customs, our notions of

right and wrong, are diametrically opposed to all the social theories

of France. Our girls, with their free frank ways and their liberty of

speech and action, are so many disreputable horrors in Parisian eyes.

Madame la Comtesse de St. Germain would as soon think of taking her

daughters to see Schneider as of permitting them to associate with

young ladies who are allowed to receive morning calls from gentlemen

without the presence of their parents--who call the male friends of

their childhood by their first names--and who are suffered to witness

_Faust_ at the opera and _La Haine_ at La Gaîté. Americans, especially

wealthy ones, usually draw around them a vast circle of French

acquaintances, it is true, but these are mostly sponges and

adventurers, well born and well bred, it may be, but decidedly, to use

a vulgar but expressive American idiom, "on the make." Of the pure

and inner sanctuary of French society scarce a glimpse is afforded to

these alien eyes. It would not amuse them very much if it were,

for, by all accounts, this hallowed inner circle is as dull as it is

exclusive. The charm of French society is to be found in those salons

which are frequented by the kings of Parisian Bohemia--journalists,

poets, dramatists, artists--wherein the Republic is queen and Victor

Hugo a god.

Two great and ineradicable defects underlie the brightness and

fascination of the external part of French character--namely,

selfishness and insincerity. Perfect in manner, in dress, in grace,

in suavity, in sweetness it may be, the French are utterly and wholly

unreliable. They resemble the phantom woman in the story told by Leigh

Hunt, that was only a suit of clothes, with no face beneath the hood

and no body inside of the robes; or rather those malignant spirits

that look like fair women when seen in front, but when seen from

behind show only as hollow shells.

And the tradespeople, the bourgeoisie--your dressmaker, your milliner,

your tailor, your butcher and baker and candlestick-maker--skilled and

suave and generally charming--O heaven and earth! how they do lie!

Not occasionally, not when hard-pressed, not when truth will not do as

well, but persistently, calmly, eternally. "I swear to you, monsieur,"

will your Parisian say, "that your work shall be done in two hours,"

Esteem yourself fortunate if it is finished in two days: very probably

two weeks will see it still uncompleted. Send for a workman to execute

some little job about your house. "He will come at once--yes, at

once." Days roll round, and he never comes at all. Your dressmaker

agrees to make you a dress for a certain price: your bill comes

home for half as much again. An American in Paris ordered an extra

door-key, giving the original key as a pattern. The key was to cost

four francs. Here is a copy of the bill as presented:

Francs.

For taking off lock (a process wholly unnecessary,

by the by), 1-1/2

For putting it on again, 1-1/2

Workman's time, 1

Journey from shop (about half a square), 1

Key, 4

____

Total 9

Another American sent for a bell-hanger to inspect an electric bell

which was thought to be out of order, but which proved on inspection

to be all right. He got a bill of five francs, whereof one item ran

thus: "_For looking at the bell_, 2 francs." He had not touched the

thing, be it borne in mind.

I cannot refrain from here making answer to a remark too often

heard from American lips, that America is as immoral as France--that

American society is every whit as depraved as the French. It is _not_.

The immorality of America is as a festering wound on an otherwise

healthy body: the immorality of France is like a scrofulous taint that

poisons the whole life-current. One gets weary and heartsick with the

old eternal song, the everlasting theme, which is sung and told and

dramatized and written about and painted--that flies in your face at

every corner and stares up at you from every inch of printed paper,

every square of colored canvas, in the whole nationality. And to sum

up at last this, "a woman's opinion," I will freely state that the

longer I live in France the more I admire the Parisians and the less I

like them.

L.H.H.

THE COLLEGIO ROMANO.

The Collegio Romano was always worth a visit, because it contained the

celebrated Kircherian Museum and the admirable observatory presided

over by Father Secchi, the world-celebrated astronomer. But these are

matters sufficiently treated of by the guide-books, and may be left

to them. Of the story of the enormous building they have less to tell,

though there is much of curious interest to be told. But neither is

that my object on the present occasion. My purpose is to speak of the

strangely-changed fortunes and destinies of the old historic pile, and

of what it now is and is to be. But little in Rome, as we all

know, has remained unchanged in these strange latter days. But few

things--at least few material things--have experienced such a change

as the Collegio Romano. The "Collegio Romano" was in fact nothing

more than the principal convent of the Jesuits. The establishment was

founded immediately after the institution of the order, and mainly by

the care and energy of Saint Francisco Borgia, the third general

of the order. The present building, however, was raised in the

pontificate of Gregory XIII. by the Florentine architect Ammanati,

the first stone having been laid in 1582. It is an enormous mass of

building--enormous even among the huge structures for which Rome above

all other cities is remarkable--situated near the church of the Gesù

and not far from the Piazza di Venezia. There is nothing remarkable in

its outward appearance save the vast size, the object of the builders

having evidently been only to adapt it in a business-like way to

the purposes to which it was destined. These included not only the

provision of a residence for the fathers of the order resident

in Rome, and for the all-but all-powerful general of the terrible

order--the "Black Pope," as the Romans were wont to call him--but also

all the _locale_ necessary for a very large educational establishment,

whence the building took its name.

The Jesuits, like all other members of the almost innumerable monastic

establishments in Rome, have, as we all know, been turned out of their

homes, their property has been--or rather is being--sold, and the

convents have become national property. Many of these are vast

buildings, but no one of them is to be compared with the great Jesuit

convent, which was the central home and head-quarters of the "Company

of Jesus." And a memorable day it was in Rome, and a very singular

sight, when, the dreaded fathers of the terrible "Company" having

taken their departure, the few remaining goods and chattels in the

convent were sold by public auction. Few and not of much value were

the articles to be sold; for the fathers are not men to take no heed

of those shadows which coming events cast before them, and they had

long foreseen that their day in Rome was at an end, and had contrived

to leave as little as might be to the spoiler. None the less was it a

strange sight, as I say, to see the _profanum vulgus_ of the buyers

of old furniture, and the still more numerous herd of the curious,

looking on with very diversified feelings--some with bitterness enough

in their hearts--pushing and tramping through those noble corridors

and vast halls and secret cells, on which no profane gaze had rested

for more than three hundred years.

There has been abundance of doubt, but no difficulty, in disposing of

the great number of buildings which have thus come into the possession

of the nation. Many of the smaller convents have been sold in the same

manner as the other property of the ousted communities. But this has

not been done--and indeed could hardly have been done--in the case of

the larger buildings; and there has been a competition very much in

the nature of a scramble for the appropriation of them by the heads of

the several governmental departments. That of Public Instruction, now

worthily represented by Signor Bonghi, has succeeded in laying hands

on perhaps the grandest prize of all, the great Jesuit establishment

of the Collegio Romano; and, looking to the uses to which it is being

put by Signor Bonghi, it may, I think, be said that it could not have

been better bestowed. Under his auspices it is intended to assume, and

is indeed rapidly assuming, the functions of the still vaster pile of

building in Great Russell street, London, known to all the world as

the British Museum, as will be seen from the following statement of

the purposes it is intended to serve and of the various matters to be

housed in it.

On the ground-floor there is already established a "Museo

Scolastico-Pedagogico"--a museum of all the means and appurtenances

that are used, or have been used, in different countries for the ends

and purposes of instruction. This is the idea and the creation of

Signor Bonghi; and it will, I think, be admitted that it is a very

happy one and likely to be fruitful in good results. A visit to it is

more interesting than might perhaps at first sight be imagined. I may

mention that on asking the very competent and enlightened director of

the establishment what people he considered to have done most and as

foremost in the work of educating the masses, he said that the

Germans had done most theoretically and in the way of thinking on

the philosophy of the matter, but that the Americans had done most

practically in the way of improving the material means for popular

education.

On the first and second floors the great national library, the

"Biblioteca Vittorio Emmanuele," is--or, it would perhaps be more

accurate to say, will be--placed and made accessible to the public.

At Florence there exists the celebrated Magliabecchian Library, which

when Florence became the capital of Italy was called the National

Library--somewhat ungratefully, it will probably be thought, to the

learned and indefatigable collector who gave his life and his means to

the formation of it, and then bequeathed it to his native city. And I

am inclined to believe that this library is still, for all the general

working purposes of a nineteenth-century student, the best in Italy.

In Rome, when the Eternal City in its turn became the capital of a

New Italy, there existed nothing that deserved to be called a national

library, and the present minister of Public Instruction set about

doing what was possible to supply the want. The Company of Jesus

possessed a fine and valuable library, containing about one hundred

and seventy thousand volumes. This, when the Jesuits were turned out,

was declared national property, and it forms the nucleus of the new

Victor Emmanuel Library. While the Jesuits inhabited their old home it

was arranged in one very fine hall built in the form of a cross,

which will continue to be one of the principal receptacles, in the

new establishment. It was in the middle of 1874 that the Italian

government took possession of this collection. To this have been added

forty-eight other libraries, the former property of the suppressed

convents of the city and provinces of Rome. They were placed for the

nonce in the cells which had been inhabited by the Jesuit fathers. The

mass of books thus collected amounts to about four hundred thousand

volumes. It will be seen at once that the labor of reducing to

order, classifying and arranging such a confused mass must be truly

herculean. But the first librarian of the Victor Emmanuel Library,

Signor Carlo Castellani, well known in the literary world as a

palaeographer of great eminence, is laboring at the colossal task with

an energy and a zeal that have already accomplished much, and is daily

making sensible advances in the work. It is, however, also evident

that four hundred thousand volumes thus collected must include an

immense number of duplicates; and, worse still, that (as may be

readily supposed from the sources whence the books have come) one

special branch of general literature will be represented in very undue

proportion. Of course, the greater portion of the conventual

libraries was theological. It may be presumed that classical and (old)

historical literature will be found to exist, the former in tolerable

completeness (so far as regards old and in many cases now obsolete

editions), and the latter in considerable abundance. But of modern

literature little or nothing can be expected, even of Italian, and

still less of any other language. Among the number of volumes which

has been mentioned there are some seven or eight thousand manuscripts,

and perhaps an equal number of the editions of the fifteenth century,

which go far to make the library an interesting one to the learned and

to the student and lover of bibliography, but are of very little avail

toward rendering the collection worth much as a national _working_

library. The question then arises, What means has Italy of procuring

such a library for her capital? Something may be probably expected

from the liberality of her Parliament in furtherance of this great

national object. But for the present, in the depressed (though

improving) state of the Italian finances, this cannot be much. There

exists in Italy a law similar to that on the same subject in England,

by which every publisher is obliged to deposit one copy of every book

published in the national library. But this copy at present is sent to

the Magliabecchian Library at Florence. Signor Castellani hopes that

the privilege may be transferred, as seems but reasonable, to Rome.

But I do not see why it should be necessary thus to impoverish

Florence to enrich the capital. In England the law requires eleven

copies which are distributed to the great libraries of the three

kingdoms. It is true that this exaction has sometimes been complained

of, and it is said that in the case of very costly illustrated

works the tax is a very heavy one, and that in some instances it

has operated to make the production of certain books impossible. And

perhaps it may be reasonable to make some regulation by which such

works should be exempted from the obligation. But in ordinary cases

the tax is an almost inappreciable one, and, such as it is, must of

course fall ultimately on the writers and readers of books--mainly on

the latter--for the benefit of which classes libraries exist. It seems

to me, therefore, that a somewhat larger number of copies than one or

two might reasonably and advantageously be exacted from publishers.

And if three or four copies were delivered to the great Roman library,

there would be the means of effecting very advantageous exchanges with

other countries. I asked Signor Castellani what increase in the number

of volumes the _locale_ now at the disposal of the library would be

capable of accommodating. He said that there would be room for about

seven hundred thousand volumes, evidently a quite inadequate provision

for the future. Many years will not elapse before the measure which

is now demanded at the British Museum--viz., the removal of all

the various collections housed there to other localities, and

the dedication of the entire building to the library--will become

necessary at the old Collegio Romano. Vast as the building is, the

entirety of it is not at all too large for the Roman library of the

future. Or--since we _are_ allowing our thoughts to consider

events which cast their shadows before as if they were accomplished

facts--may it not perhaps be found better some of these days to move

the whole of the present collection to the Vatican, to be united with

the colossal and almost unknown hoards there buried in one collection?

As it is, a new reading-room, after the model of that existing at the

National Library in Paris, is about to be built in the courtyard of

the Collegio Romano. The classification, arrangement and methods

of working the library will be copied in great measure from those

introduced by Mr. Panizzi at the British Museum. Unlike the liberal

practice of the great German libraries, no volume will be on any

account permitted to leave the library. I was sorry to find that in

one all-important respect the Roman practice as regards the national

library will differ from that of London. The collection is being

catalogued in slips, to be kept, after the fashion of booksellers,

in boxes made for the purpose, and there is no present intention of

making any catalogue in volumes accessible to the public. Of course it

is impossible to allow the public to have access to the slips; and

all who have ever really used a great library know but too well that a

library the catalogue of which is not accessible to the student is at

least _half_ useless. Even putting aside the numerous cases in which

an inquirer knows of the existence of such or such a work, but is not

aware of the author's name, and cannot therefore ask for or obtain

the book in question, it happens more often than not that a person

inquiring on any given subject finds his best guide to the available

sources of information in the catalogue.

I have not left myself room, I fear, to say anything on the present

occasion of the other highly interesting collections which are

at present lodged, or in the course of being placed, under the

all-sheltering roof of the Collegio Romano. I must content myself with

simply enumerating them, with the hope of giving some account of them

at some future time. I may briefly state, then, that the celebrated

Kircherian Museum, formed toward the close of the sixteenth century

by the learned Jesuit father Kircher, still occupies the rooms on the

ground-floor, with a somewhat improved arrangement, which it occupied

when the fathers of the Company inhabited the building. The collection

of ancient Roman marbles discovered in the excavations of the buried

city of Ostia have been brought thence, and arranged in rooms also

on the third floor--a fact which strikes one as not a little to the

credit of the handiwork of Ammanati, the Florentine architect. Also

on the third floor there is an exceedingly interesting collection,

of which I hope to speak somewhat more at length another time. It

is called a palaeo-ethnographical museum, and consists of a large

collection of the implements of all sorts of the people belonging to

the pre-historic period, together with a similar gathering of articles

used by the uncivilized races of the present day. The interest of

such a comparative study as is here suggested is, as may be

readily understood, very great. On the fourth floor there is a very

considerable collection of objects illustrating Italian art of the

ante-Roman period, and also a Museum of Industrial Art, conceived on

the plan of the English School of Art at South Kensington.

T.A.T.

TRADES UNIONISM IN ITS INFANCY.

In these days of trades unionism and strikes an account of the germ of

such associations in this country is not without interest. So far

back as 1806 a remarkable trial arising out of such a combination took

place before the recorder of Philadelphia and a jury. It lasted three

days and excited extraordinary interest. Jared Ingersoll and Joseph

Hopkinson were counsel for the prosecution, and Caesar A. Rodney and

Walter Franklin for the defence.

The defendants, eight in number, were indicted for not being content

to work at the usual prices, but contriving to increase and augment

them, and for endeavoring to prevent by threats, menaces and other

unlawful means other artificers from working at the usual rate, and

uniting into a club or combination to make and ordain unlawful and

arbitrary rules to govern those engaged in their trade, and unjustly

exact great sums of money by means thereof.

The evidence went to show in the clearest manner that a system of

frightful thralldom had been put in force. A witness named Harrison

stated that when he reached the United States in 1794 he found this

system of terrorism prevalent. He went to work for a Mr. Bedford,

and presently got a hint that if he did not join the association of

journeymen shoemakers he was liable to be "scabbed," which meant that

men would not work in the same shop, nor board or lodge in the same

house, nor would they work at all for the same employer. The case of

this man seemed exceptionally hard. He made shoes exclusively, and

when "a turn-out came to raise the wages on boots" he remonstrated,

pleading that shoes did not enter into the question, and urging that

he had a sick wife and a large family. But it was all to no

purpose. He then resolved that he would turn a "scab" unknown to the

association, and continue his work; but having a neighbor whom it was

impossible for him to deceive, he went to him and said that he knew

his circumstances, and that his family must perish or go to "the

bettering-house" unless he continued to work. This neighbor, Swain,

replied that he knew his condition was desperate, but that a man

had better make any sacrifice than turn a "scab" at that time. He

presently informed against him, and Mr. Bedford (his employer) was

warned that he must discharge his "scabs." He refused, saying

that, "Let the consequence be what it might, we should sink or swim

together." However, one Saturday night, when all but Harrison and a

man named Logan had left him, Bedford's resolution gave way, and he

exclaimed, "I don't know what the devil I am to do: they will ruin

me in the end. I wish you would go to the body and pay a fine, if not

very large, in order to set the shop free once more." The fine offered

was refused, and Mr. Bedford's shop remained "under scab" for a year.

Still, Mr. Bedford, who must have been a very plucky fellow, would not

give Harrison up, but removed in 1802 to Trenton. Harrison stated that

although he could not, had Mr. Bedford given him up, have got work

anywhere else, and that he might have ground him down to any terms,

yet he (Bedford) very nobly always gave him full price. At length,

by paying a fine, Harrison became reconciled to his persecutors, and

Bedford's shop was once more free.

William Forgrave said that "the name of a 'scab' is very dangerous:

men of this description have been hurt when out at night." He had been

threatened, and joined the association from fear of personal injury.

A vast deal more of evidence was given and eloquent speeches delivered

by counsel, but the foregoing gives the sum and substance of the case.

In the course of the summing up Recorder Levy said: "To make an

artificial regulation is not to regard the excellence of the work or

quality of the material, but to fix a positive and arbitrary price,

governed by no standard, but dependent on the will of the few who are

interested.... What, then, is the operation of this kind of conduct

upon the commerce of the city? It exposes it to inconveniences, if

not to ruin: therefore it is against the public welfare. How does it

operate upon the defendants? We see that those who are in indigent

circumstances, and who have families to maintain, have declared

here on oath that it was impossible for them to hold out. They were

interdicted from all employment in future if they did not continue to

persevere in the measures taken by the journeymen shoemakers. Does not

such a regulation tend to involve necessitous men in the commission

of crimes? If they are prevented working for six weeks, it might lead

them to procure support for their wives and children by burglary,

larceny or highway robbery."

The jury found the defendants "guilty of a combination to raise their

wages," and the court sentenced them to pay a fine of eight dollars

each, with costs of suit, and to stand committed till paid.

MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

One of our popular clergymen, in a late Sunday discourse upon the

Bible in the public schools, labored to show that the question was a

very unimportant one. because none were much interested in it except

infidels and politicians--a sufficiently absurd position for a

professed teacher of the people to assume. Doubtless it is a folly to

fan into flame the slumbering embers of a quarrel, but it is a greater

folly to pretend, in the face of the common sense of the people, that

all signs of fire are extinguished or never existed where there is

so much inflammable material about and the "wind of doctrine" running

high.

This question of secular education for our public schools is in fact

one of the most difficult of solution. Chicago has met it in a summary

manner by excluding the Bible from all her free schools, but this does

not settle the question, because both believers and unbelievers in the

various creeds of the churches admit that there should be provision

made for the training of the moral faculties of the children in

our public schools. Many of them, especially in cities and large

manufacturing centres, come out of the dark alleys where intemperance,

poverty and ignorance tend to arrest the development of their higher

sentiments. For the unfortunate children of such homes the sessions of

the public school afford the only glimpse of a better life, the

only chance for moral and æsthetic culture. Protestants, as a rule,

honestly believe that the reading of the Bible at the opening of

school tends to waken and develop the moral aspirations of the child.

Just as honestly and conscientiously do Catholics disbelieve in the

efficacy of Bible reading, while they boldly condemn secular education

as a principle. Father Muller, priest of the congregation of the Most

Holy Redeemer, in his work upon public school education, published

three years ago in Boston, says: "The language of the Vicar of Christ

in regard to godless education is very plain and unmistakable"....

"Our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., has declared that Catholics cannot

approve of a system of educating youth unconnected with the Catholic

faith and the power of the Church".... "The voice of common sense, the

voice of sad experience, the voice of Catholic bishops, and especially

the voice of the Holy Father, is raised against and condemns the

public school system as a huge humbug, injuring and not promoting

personal virtue and good citizenship, and as being most pernicious to

the Catholic faith and life and all good morals. A pastor, therefore,

cannot maintain the contrary opinion without incurring guilt before

God and the Church. He cannot allow parents to send their children to

such schools of infidelity. He cannot give them absolution and say,

_Innocens sum_."

According to the _American Annual Cyclopædia_ for 1875, the Roman

Catholic Church has in the United States 1 cardinal, 8 archbishops, 54

bishops, 4872 priests, 4731 churches, 1902 chapels, 68 colleges, 511

academies, and a lay membership numbering over 6,000,000. This shows

a great and increasing prosperity of that Church in this country; yet

our institutions have nothing to fear from that prosperity unless

the principles of Catholicity support the "one-man power" against the

doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, the foundation-principle

of republicanism. Patriotic Catholic citizens claim that there is no

conflict. They love their Church and their country, and will labor to

preserve peace and harmony. Yet how can harmony be maintained while

a large and increasing number of our tax-paying citizens, accepting

their Church and its head as infallible, are forced by their spiritual

allegiance to send their children to Catholic schools, though at

the same time paying taxes to support those "godless" public schools

condemned by the infallible Church? To take the ground that these

two powers, the Catholic Church and our government, do not conflict,

because one is a spiritual and the other a civil power, is simply

absurd. We see that they _do_ conflict. The pope interferes with the

civil rights of our citizens when--as, for example, in his encyclical

letter of December 8, 1874--he commands all Catholics to treat the

liberty of speech, of the press, of conscience and of worship, the

separation of Church and State and the secular education of youth, as

"_reprobatas, proscriptas, atque damnatas_."

THE EARLIEST PRINTED BOOKS.

A recent lecture of the Rev. Dr. Storrs in New York, before the

Society for the Advancement of Science and Art, must have been very

interesting to an ordinary audience, but for one composed of professed

promoters of learning it could hardly have been sufficiently exact to

give general satisfaction if the newspaper reports of it were at all

correct. They represent the lecturer as saying that an immense number

of books date back to 1450. Now, the first printed book bearing a date

is the _Psalter_ of Füst and Schoeffer, 1457. A _portion_ of the

Bible was printed by Gutenberg and Füst in 1450, but the work was

so expensive and so imperfect that it was abandoned. In 1452, after

Schoeffer joined the firm, another Bible is supposed to have been

printed, but no copy of it is known to exist. Of course it is well

known that many of the earliest printed books are without date, but

none could have been printed before 1450; and there is no proof, we

believe, that the Bible said to be of 1455 bore that or any date.

In that year the firm of Gutenberg, Füst and Schoeffer dissolved. L.

Grégoire in his _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique_, published in Paris in

1817, says that there are only three or four copies of the Füst

Bible known to exist. Dr. Storrs, however, says, without giving his

authority, that there are fifteen.

The sole idea of the early printers was to imitate exactly the

manuscript characters of the scribes. The initial letters of the

Bibles and the numbers of the chapters were therefore added with a pen

in blue and red ink alternately; and there is not the slightest doubt

that these first books were palmed off upon an unsuspecting public as

manuscripts. All the servants or employés of Füst and Schoeffer were

put under solemn oath to divulge nothing of the secret concerning

printing. It is to the policy which the first printers exerted to

conceal their art that we owe the tradition of the Devil and Dr.

Faustus. Füst having printed off quite a number of Bibles, and had the

large initial letters added by hand, he took them to Paris and sold

them for about fifty dollars apiece. The scribes demanded about ten

times that sum, and they earned the money, for it must have been an

herculean task to copy, as they did, every letter of the Bible with

such exquisite care, and then draw and illuminate the heads of the

chapters and the initial letters. It was a marvel how this new man

could produce these ponderous books at so low a rate. And then the

uniformity of the letters and the pages increased the wonder, until

the cry of "sorcerer" was raised: complaints before the magistrates

were made against him, his lodgings were searched and a great number

of copies were found and confiscated. The populace in their ignorance

and superstition declared that he was in league with the devil, and

that the red ink with which the books were embellished was his blood.

It is a satisfaction to know that the Parliament of Paris passed an

act to discharge the sorcerer from all prosecution in consideration of

_the usefulness of his art_.

M.H.

FLOWERS VS. FLIES.

An Irish clergyman is said to have discovered last autumn a charming

antidote to flies, which it is only a pity he could not have lighted

on rather earlier in the season. Having occasion to change his abode,

he sent on his window-plants, calceolarias and geraniums, to that

which he intended to occupy several days before he went himself, and

immediately found that he was pestered with flies, whereas previously

he had enjoyed perfect immunity from the nuisance. A more agreeable

remedy cannot be conceived. Next autumn let our windows be a blaze

of brilliancy, so that all visitors to the Centennial may say, at all

events, "There are no flies in Philadelphia."

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Shakespeare Hermeneutics; or, The Still Lion. Being an Essay towards

the Restoration of Shakespeare's Text. By C.M. Ingleby, M.A., LL.D.

London: Trübner & Co.

Setting aside those who care merely to see a play on the stage, it may

be said that of Shakespeare there are readers and readers; and both

classes have rights and privileges which should be treated with

deference. The reader who studies every line should not fleer at

him who studies not at all. Have we not a right to read a play of

Shakespeare's through in two short hours, surrendering ourselves,

unvexed by logic or grammar, to the enchantment which scenes and

phrases and words conjure up as they glide through our minds? When all

the atmosphere is tremulous with airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

must we, forsooth! stop and philosophically investigate what Hamlet

means by a "_dram of eale"_? Must we lose a scruple of the sport by

turning aside to find out what Malvolio means by the "_lady of the

Strachey_"? If Timon chooses to invite _Ullorxa_ to his feast, are we

to bar the door because no one ever heard the name before? No: let us

have our Shakespeare (is he not as much ours as yours?) free from

all notes, on a page purified from the musty cobwebs of black-letter

pedants. We want no jargon of bickering critics to drown the music

that sings at Heaven's gate. Give us those immortal plays just

as Shakespeare wrote them, that we may read them without let or

hinderance.

But, fair and softly, is not this the very point at which we are

striving? With all our twistings and turnings, our patchings and

piecings, have we aught else in view than to decipher just what

Shakespeare wrote? Where are Shakespeare's exact words to be found?

Not in the so-called Quartos; for they are said by Shakespeare's

intimate and dear friends to have been "maimed and deformed by the

frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors," and taken down perhaps

from the lips of some of the actors, bribed by stoops of liquor at

_Yaughan's_ (and from the gibberish here and there set down it is to

be feared that the potations were at times pottle deep). Nor can

we take the Folio in which all his dramas were first collected:

Shakespeare never saw a line of it; for seven years he had been hid in

death's dateless night when that volume was printed. What, then, is

to be done? The Quartos and Folios are all the authority we have,

and none of them present what can be held to have been undeniably

Shakespeare's exact words. In dealing with the text we must never

for a moment forget that there stands, and will for ever stand, as

interpreters between us and Shakespeare, a crew of dishonest actors

or of more or less ignorant compositors. Is such a text, thus

transmitted, to be held in reverence so deep that not a syllable is to

be changed for fear of the cry that we are tampering with the words of

Shakespeare? Is the curse in his epitaph on the mover of his bones to

hang over his text? Small reverence for Shakespeare does it betoken,

in our opinion, to believe this. Rather, let us regard these pages of

the Folio as what they virtually are in so many cases--namely, as but

little better than our modern proof-sheets. And they should be

dealt with accordingly by a modern critic; but only on one condition

precedent: he must be Shakespeare's peer. In default of this we can

only humbly erase here, and reverently suggest there, summoning to our

aid all possible knowledge, lest in plucking up the tares we pluck up

the wheat also.

And this is really all that textual criticism for the last hundred

and forty years has aimed at--merely to get at what Shakespeare really

wrote. We know that he could not write sheer nonsense, and yet at

times sheer nonsense mows at us from his printed page. Those who

clamor for Shakespeare's text, pure and simple, divested of all notes

and annotations, have no idea how much thought and time have been

expended on every line,--nay, on every word, on every comma,--in the

text of any good modern edition of his dramas, and with the single

aim, be it remembered, of revealing exactly what the poet wrote.

It must not, however, be thought that since the original texts of

Shakespeare's plays are so corrupt, any criticaster has good leave to

expunge or expand at will, under a roving commission to hack and

hew wheresoever and howsoever it may please him, under the plea of

restoring the text. On the contrary, since we cannot fulfill the

condition precedent of being Shakespeare's peers, we must exercise the

greatest caution in changing a reading of the Quartos or Folios, lest

in condemning the text as corrupt we pass judgment on our own wit.

He who the sword of Heaven would bear

Must be as holy as severe.

And we must be very sure that the passage is corrupt before we set

about amending it. First and last, we must remember that primal elder

law, that of two readings the more difficult is to be preferred.

_Durior lectio preferenda 'st_ should be a frontlet between our brows.

The weaker reading or the plainer meaning is more likely to be a

printer's interpretation of what he failed to comprehend.

But to understand Shakespeare's meaning in a degree that will

authorize us to amend the text, we must understand Shakespeare's

speech; that is, we must be thoroughly familiar with the words and

usages of Elizabethan English; and not only with Elizabethan words and

phrases, but also, as far as possible, with the very pronunciation.

This fundamental principle is well enforced and illustrated in Dr.

Ingleby's book, which was originally published in one of the Annuals

of the German Shakespeare Society under the title of _The Still Lion_,

a title suggested by a passage in De Quincey, where the danger of

meddling with Milton's text is compared to that of meddling with

a still lion, which may be neither dead nor sleeping, but merely

shamming. Dr. Ingleby substitutes Shakespeare for Milton, and

maintains that the mass of Shakespearian emendations that have

been proposed during the last twenty years are needless; and that

corruptions have been assumed where none exist, owing to the limited

knowledge possessed by the critics. Thus, for instance, in the _Comedy

of Errors_ (I. i. 152) the Duke bids Aegeon to "seek thy _help_

by beneficial _help_." At once there is a chorus from all of

us, sciolists, of "Corruption!" "Sophistication!" "Cacophonous

repetition!" etc. etc. "But gently, friends," says Dr. Ingleby: "may

not 'help' have borne a different or a special meaning in Elizabethan

English?" and turning to medical writers and books on medicine of

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (among them Dr. John Hall,

Shakespeare's own son-in-law), he proves that _heal_ and _help_ having

a common origin, _help_ was used by Shakespeare's contemporaries as a

synonym for _cure, deliverance_. The text, then, is perfectly correct,

Ægeon being bid to seek his _deliverance_ from the doom of death by

the _help_ of what friends he can find. The lion's slumbers were here

of the lightest, and happy men be our dole to have escaped with whole

skins. Thus Dr. Ingleby takes up passage after passage of Shakespeare

that has been pronounced corrupt, and shows that the fault imputed to

it lies not in the text, but in the lack of requisite knowledge, be it

of language, of usage, of manners and customs, or even of Elizabethan

spelling and grammar, on the part of the critic. The mischief that

ignorance has done in the past is irrevocable, but such impressive

warnings as Dr. Ingleby gives us may help, in both senses of the

word, in the future. We may be spared, hereafter, the infliction

of numberless "felicitous" conjectures, on which the following is

scarcely a parody. It was proposed many years ago in sport by the late

deeply-lamented Chauncey Wright, and, as far as we know, has never yet

appeared in print, though it may live to be gravely noted down in

some future Variorum, being a genuine echo of many a note by Zachary

Jackson or Andrew Beckett. In _As You Like It_ occur the familiar

lines, "And thus our life ... finds ... books in the running brooks,

sermons in stones," etc. "This is stark nonsense, and must be

remedied. Who ever found a _book_ in a _rivulet_ or a _sermon_ in

a _rock?_ It is clearly an error of a most ignorant or careless

compositor, who has transposed the nouns. Read, '_stones in the

running brooks and sermons in books_.' Sense is vindicated. Stones

are frequently found in brooks. David chose smooth _pebbles from

the brook_, and sermons are quite frequently printed and sold in a

book-form. By this restoration Shakespeare's wonderful observation

is," etc., etc., etc.

Great as is the service done in particular cases, the most valuable

part of _The Still Lion_ is the moral which it points, that

"successful emendation is the fruit of severe study and research on

the one hand, and of rare sensibility and sense on the other." And in

our opinion Dr. Ingleby might have gone even farther, and demanded for

it a spark of that creative power which is genius. But it must not be

inferred that all the difficult passages in Shakespeare can be thus

explained away. Despite all learning, or acuteness, or genius, there

remains a considerable number that have never yet been solved, and

never will be, in general acceptation, till the crack of doom. These,

however, bear so small a proportion to the vast mass of perplexing

riddles that have been satisfactorily settled that, like an infinitely

small quantity in mathematics, they may be neglected. Therefore, let

not him who wishes to read his Shakespeare unalloyed by notes and

textual comment, despise the painful critic or accuse him of playing

at loggats with the words of Shakespeare. It is through the labors of

critics that the text is in such a shape that the work-a-day reader

can read it at all. In the Folios and Quartos we see Shakespeare

as through a glass darkly, but, thanks to those drudges, the

commentators, in numberless places we can now see him face to face.

The Orphan of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments and Drawings.

By William Makepeace Thackeray. With some notes by Anne Isabella

Thackeray. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co.

The artistic sense--the vivid conception of things and persons in

their external aspects and with a constant regard to their groupings

and the effect upon the spectator--made itself peculiarly prominent

in all that Thackeray wrote. It is not that he gives us elaborate

descriptions: this, indeed, is the resource of writers who are lacking

in the faculty mentioned, and are consequently obliged to reach the

result, if at all, by inferior means. His power lay in the selection

of traits which were strictly characteristic, in making every act or

phrase indicative of individuality. An astute critic, therefore--one

gifted with that keenness of vision to which the exercise of the

office unhappily implies a claim--should have been able to infer

Thackeray's dexterity with the pencil from the methods of his literary

work. There was, however, no room for conjecture on this point, as the

fact was early a matter of notoriety, and many of the illustrations

in his books were known to be from his own sketches. Recently, too, a

publication containing some of his earliest and slightest work in this

way attracted considerable attention, with the fortunate result of

calling out the volume before us, which embodies the best specimens

of his skill reproduced by a method that renders every line an exact

transcript, and accompanied by facsimiles of whatever written text or

comment appeared on the same page. Many of them partake more or less

of the nature of caricature, and if the execution alone be considered,

they show that Thackeray might, in default of talents of a different

order, have pursued this line with as much success as some of its

cleverest cultivators. But what distinguishes the drolleries in

this book is the inventiveness shown in the conception and the

characteristic ingenuity of the details. The designs for "Playing

Cards," in which the tray of spades is represented by the figures of

Johnson, Boswell and Gibbon, and a scene at "Dr. Birch's School" does

duty for the seven of hearts, are especially felicitous in this way;

while a different but not less familiar trait is exhibited in

some carefully-drawn "Initial Letters," embodying charming bits of

child-life and quaint allusions to well-known scenes in history and

romance. "Othello" in the form of "Dandy Jim of Souf Caroline," and

"The Little Assessor of Tübingen"--a mysterious personage of whom

the author refused to reveal the secret--are equally amusing and

suggestive. There are some half hundred subjects of the same or

other kinds in the volume, which, as a mere picture-book, is full of

entertainment for readers of all ages, while for those with whom the

name of Thackeray is a dear household word it will have a still higher

charm, calling up as it does so many associations connected with the

author and the man, and seeming like a fragment of the biography which

has been vainly looked for.

_BOOKS RECEIVED_.

The Illustrated Annual Register of Rural Affairs for 1876. By J.J.

Thomas. Albany: Luther Tucker & Son.

The Chevalier Casse-Cou: The Red Camellia. By Fortuné Du Boisgobey.

Translated from the French by Thos. Picton. New York: Robert M. De

Witt.

Household Elegancies. By Mrs. C.S. Jones and Henry T. Williams. New

York: Henry T. Williams.

The Children's Treasury of English Song. By Francis Turner Palgrave.

New York: Macmillan & Co.

Stories from the Lips of the Teacher. By O.B. Frothingham. New York:

G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Songs of Three Centuries. Edited by J.G. Whittier. Boston: James R.

Osgood & Co.

Roddy's Reality. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P. Putnam's

Sons.