CHAPTER II.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXXVII. MAY, 1851. VOL. LXIX.

CONTENTS.

SOME AMERICAN POETS, 513

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART IX., 531

TRANSATLANTIC TOURISTS, 545

ONWARD TENDENCIES, 564

THE PAPAL AGGRESSION BILL, 573

THE BOOK OF THE FARM, 588

AN EVENING WALK. BY THOMAS AIRD, 603

MODERN STATE TRIALS. PART V., 605

THE DINNER TO LORD STANLEY, 635

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW,

LONDON.

_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXXVII. MAY, 1851. VOL. LXIX.

SOME AMERICAN POETS.[1]

[1]

LONGFELLOW'S _Poetical Works_.

BRYANT'S _Poetical Works_.

WHITTIER'S _Poetical Works_.

_Poems._ By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

_Poems._ By O. W. HOLMES.

It is probable that there has been written much excellent poetry on

the other side of the Atlantic with which we are unacquainted, which

perhaps has never crossed the water at all. We should therefore be

very unwise if we professed to give here, even if such a plan could

be executed within the compass of a few pages, a general review

of American poetry. All that we propose is, to make some critical

observations on the writers before us, accompanied by such extracts as

shall not unworthily occupy the attention of our readers. Even the list

of names which we have set down at the head of this paper is the result

more of accident than design: the works of these authors lay upon our

table. The two first names will be recognised directly as the fittest

representatives of American poetry; they rise immediately to the lips

of every one who speaks upon the subject. The two last will probably

be new to our readers, and if so, it will be our pleasant task to

introduce them. One name only, familiar to all ears, has been purposely

omitted. We have elsewhere spoken, and with no stinted measure of

praise, of the writings of Mr Emerson. That writer has found in prose

so much better a vehicle of thought than verse has proved to him, (and

that even when the thought is of a poetic cast,) that to summon him to

receive judgment here amongst the poets, would be only to detract from

the commendation we have bestowed upon him.

We say it is not improbable that there is much poetry published in

America which does not reach us, because there is much, and of a very

meritorious character, published here at home in England, which fails

of obtaining any notoriety. Its circulation is more of a private than

a public nature, depending perhaps upon the social position of the

author, or following, for a short distance, in the wake of a literary

reputation obtained by a different species of writing. Not that our

critics are reluctant to praise. On the contrary, they might be

accused of rendering their praise of no avail by an indiscriminate

liberality, if it were not the true history of the matter that a

growing indifference of the public to this species of literature led

the way to this very diffuse and indiscriminate commendation. If no

one reads the book to test his criticism, the critic himself loses his

motive for watchfulness and accuracy: he passes judgment with supreme

indifference on a matter the world is careless about; and saves himself

any further trouble by bestowing on all alike that safe, moderate,

diluted eulogy, which always has the appearance of being fair and

equitable. Much meritorious poetry may therefore, for aught we know,

both in England and America, exist and give pleasure amongst an almost

private circle of admirers. And why not sing for a small audience as

well as for a great? It is not every Colin that can pipe, that can now

expect to draw the whole countryside to listen to him. What if he can

please only a quite domestic gathering, his neighbours or his clan? We

are not of those who would tell Colin to lay down his pipe: we might

whisper in his ear to mind his sheep as well, and not to break his

heart, or to disturb his peace, because some sixty persons, and not six

thousand, are grateful for his minstrelsy.

One fine summer's day we stood upon a little bridge thrown over the

deep cutting of a newly constructed railway. It was an open country

around us, a common English landscape--fields with their hedgerows,

and their thin elm-trees stripped of their branches, with here and

there a slight undulation of the soil, giving relief to, or partially

concealing, the red and white cottage or the red-tiled barn. We were

looking, however, into the deep cutting beneath us. Here the iron rails

glistened in the sun, and still, as the eye pursued their track, four

threads of glittering steel ran their parallel course, but apparently

approximating in the far perspective, till they were lost by mere

failure of the power of vision to follow them: the road itself was

straight as an arrow. On the steep banks, fresh from the spade and

pick-axe, not a shrub was seen, not a blade of grass. On the road

itself there was nothing but clods of earth, or loose gravel, which

lay in heaps by the side of the rails, or in hollows between them: it

was enough that the iron bars lay there clear of all obstruction. No

human foot, no foot of man or of beast, was ever intended to tread that

road. It was for the engine only. From time to time the shrill whistle

is heard--the train, upon its hundred iron wheels, shoots through the

little bridge, and rolls like thunder along these level grooves. It is

soon out of sight, and the country is not only again calm and solitary,

but appears for the moment to be utterly abandoned and deserted. It has

its old life, however, in it still.

Well, as we were standing thus upon the little bridge, in the open

country, and looking down into this deep ravine of the engineer's

making, we noticed, fluttering beneath us, a yellow butterfly,

sometimes beating its wings against the barren sides, and sometimes

perching on the glistering rails themselves. Clearly, most

preposterously out of place was this same beautiful insect. What had

it to do there? What food, what fragrance, what shelter could it find?

Or who was to see and to admire? There was not a shrub, nor an herb,

nor a flower, nor a playmate of any description. It is manifest, most

beautiful butterfly, that you cannot live here. From these new highways

of ours, from these iron thoroughfares, you must certainly depart. But

it follows not that you must depart the world altogether. In yonder

hollow at a distance there is a cottage, surrounded by its trees and

its flowers, and there are little children whom you may sport with, and

tease, and delight, taking care they do not catch you napping. There is

still _garden-ground_ in the world for you, and such as you.

Sometimes, when we have seen pretty little gilded volumes of song and

poetry lying about in the great highways of our industrial world, we

have recalled this scene to mind. There is garden-ground left for them

also, and many a private haunt, solitary or domestic, where they will

be welcome.

We have heard it objected against American poets, but chiefly by their

own countrymen, that they are not sufficiently _national_. This surely

is a most unreasonable complaint. The Americans inhabit what was once,

and is still sometimes called, the New World, but they are children

of the Old. Their religion grew, like ours, in Asia; they receive it,

as we do, through the nations of the west of Europe; they are, like

us, descendants of the Goth and the Roman, and are compounded of

those elements which Rome and Palestine, and the forests of Germany,

severally contributed towards the formation of what we call the Middle

Ages. They have the same intellectual pedigree as ourselves. No Tintern

Abbey, or Warwick Castle, stands on their rivers, to mark the lapse of

time; but they must ever look back upon the days of the monk and of

the knight, as the true era of romance. Proud as they may be of their

Pilgrim Fathers, one would not limit them to this honourable paternity.

It is very little poetry they would get out of the _Mayflower_--or

philosophy either.

There are, it is true, subjects for poetry native to America--new

aspects of nature and of humanity--the aboriginal forest, the

aboriginal man, the prairie, the settler, and the savage. But even

in these the American poet cannot keep a monopoly. Englishmen and

Frenchmen have visited his forests; they have stolen his Red Indian;

and have made the more interesting picture of him in proportion as they

knew less of the original. Moreover, many of the peculiar aspects of

human life which America presents may require the mellowing effect of

time, the half obscurity of the past, to render them poetic. The savage

is not the only person who requires to be viewed at a distance: there

is much in the rude, adventurous, exciting life of the first settlers

which to posterity may appear singularly attractive. They often seem to

share the power and the skill of the civilised man, with the passions

of the barbarian. What a scene--when viewed at a distance--must be one

of their _revivals_! A camp-meeting is generally described by those

who have witnessed it, in the language of ridicule or reproof. But

let us ask ourselves this question--When St Francis assembled _five

thousand_ of his followers on the plains of Assisi, and held what has

been called, in the history of the Franciscan order, "the Chapter of

Mats," because the men had no other shelter than rude tents made of

mats--on which occasion St Francis himself was obliged to moderate the

excesses of fanaticism and fanatical penance in which his disciples

indulged--what was this but a camp-meeting? In some future age, a

revival in the "Far West," or a company of Millerites expecting their

translation into heaven, will be quite as poetical as this Chapter of

Mats. For ourselves, we think that any genuine exhibition of sentiment,

by great numbers of our fellow-men, is a subject worthy of study, and

demands a certain respect. Those, however, who can see nothing but

absurdity and madness in a camp-meeting, would have walked through

the five thousand followers of St Francis with the feeling only of

intolerable disgust. Yet so it is, that merely from the lapse of time,

or the obscurity it throws over certain parts of the picture, there are

many who find something very affecting and sublime in the fanaticism

of the thirteenth century, who treat the same fanaticism with pity or

disdain when exhibited in the nineteenth.

"Miltons and Shakspeares," says an editor of one of the volumes before

us, "have not yet sprung from the only half-tilled soil of the mighty

continent; giants have not yet burst from its forests, with a grandeur

equal to their own; but," &c. &c. Doubtless the giant will make his

appearance in due course of time. But what if he should never manifest

himself in the epic of twelve, or twenty-four books, or in any long

poem whatever? A number of small poems, beautiful and perfect of their

kind, will constitute as assuredly a great work, and found as great a

reputation. We are far from thinking that the materials for poetry are

exhausted or diminished in these latter days. As a general rule, in

proportion as men _think_, do they _feel_,--more variously, if not more

deeply, themselves--and more habitually through sympathy with others.

Love and devotion, and all the more refined sentiments, are heightened

in the cultivated mind; and speculative thought itself becomes a great

and general source of emotion. As almost every man has felt, at one

period of his life, the passion of love, so almost every cultivated

mind has felt, at one period of his career, what Wordsworth describes

as--

"The burden and the mystery

Of all this unintelligible world."

We are persuaded that both the materials and the readers of poetry

will increase and multiply with the spread of education. But there is

apparently a revolution of taste in favour of the lyric, and at the

expense of the epic poet. A long narrative, in verse of any kind, is

felt to be irksome and monotonous: it could be told so much better

in prose. We do not speak of such narrations as _The Paradise Lost_,

where religious feeling presides over every part, and where, in fact,

the narrative is absorbed in the sentiment. If Milton were living at

this day, there is no reason why he should not choose the same theme

for his poem. But Tasso and Ariosto would think long before they would

now select for their flowing stanzas the _Jerusalem Delivered_, or the

_Orlando Furioso_. Such themes, they would probably conclude, might be

far more effectively dealt with in prose.

Fiction, told as Sir Walter Scott tells it--history, as Macaulay

narrates--such examples as these put the reading world, we think, quite

out of patience with verse, when applied to the purpose of a lengthy

narrative. They and others have shown that prose is so much the better

vehicle. It may be rendered almost equally harmonious, and admits of

far greater variety of cadence; it may be polished and refined, and yet

adapt itself, in turns, to every topic that arises. No need here to

omit the most curious incident, or the most descriptive detail, because

it will not comport with the dignified march of the verse, or of the

versified style. The language here rises and falls naturally with the

subject, or may be made to do so; nor is it ever necessary to obscure

the meaning, for the sake of sustaining a wearisome rhythm. If you have

a long story to tell, by all means tell it in prose.

But the short poem--need we say it?--is not ephemeral because it is

brief. The most enduring reputation may be built upon a few lyrics.

They should, however, not only contain some beautiful verses--they

should be beautiful throughout. And this brings us to the only real

complaint which we, in our critical capacity, have to allege against

the tuneful brethren in America. We find too much haste, far too

much negligence, and a willingness to be content with what has first

presented itself. Instead of recognising that the short poem ought to

be almost perfect, they seem to proceed on the quite contrary idea,

that because it is brief, it should therefore be hastily written, and

that it would be a waste of time to bestow much revision upon it. We

often, meet with a poem where the sentiment is natural and poetic, but

where the effect is marred by this negligent and unequal execution.

A verse of four lines shall have three that are good, and the fourth

shall limp. Or a piece shall consist but of five verses, and two out

of the number must be absolutely effaced if you would re-peruse the

composition with any pleasure. Meanwhile there is sufficient merit in

what remains to make us regret this haste and inequality. To our own

countrymen, as well as to the American, we would suggest that the small

poem may be a great work; but that, to become so, it should not only

be informed by noble thought, it should exhibit no baser metal, no

glaring inequalities of style, and, above all, no conflicting, obscure,

or half-extricated meanings. We believe that it would be generally

found, if we could penetrate the secret history of really beautiful

compositions, that, however brief, and although they were written at

first during some happy hour of inspiration, they had received again

and again new touches, and the "fortunate erasures" of the poet.

By this process only did they grow to be the completely beautiful

productions which they are. Such exquisite lyrics are very rare, and

we may depend upon it they are not produced without much thought and

labour, joined, as we say, to that happy hour of inspiration.

_Mr Longfellow_ occupies, and most worthily, the first place on our

list. He has obtained, as well by his prose as his poetry, a certain

recognised place in that literature of the English language which

is common to both countries. His _Hyperion_ has been for some time

an established favourite amongst a class of readers with whom to be

popular implies a merit of no vulgar description. Mr Longfellow has

relied too much, for an independent and permanent reputation, on his

German and his Spanish friends. An elegant and accomplished writer, a

cultivated mind--a critic would be justified in praising his works,

more than the author of them. He has studied foreign literature with

somewhat too much profit. We have no critical balance so fine as

would enable us to weigh out the two distinct portions of merit which

may be due to an author, first as an original writer, and then as a

tasteful and skilful artist, who has known how and where to gather

and transplant, to translate, or to appropriate. It is a distinction

which, as readers, we should be little disposed to make, but which, as

critics, we are compelled to take notice of. We should not impute to Mr

Longfellow any flagrant want of originality; but a fine appreciation

of thoughts presented to him by other minds, and the skill and tact of

the cultivated artist, are qualities very conspicuous in his writings.

Having once taken notice of this, we have no wish to press it further;

still less would we allow his successful study, and his bold and

felicitous imitations of the writings of others, to detract from the

merit of what is really original in his own.

What a noble lyric is this, "The Building of the Ship!" It is full of

the spirit of Schiller. A little more of the file--something more of

harmony--and it would have been quite worthy of the name of Schiller.

The interweaving of the two subjects, the building and launching of

the vessel, with the marriage of the shipbuilder's daughter, and

the launching of that _other bride_ on the waters of life, is very

skilfully managed; whilst the name of the ship, The Union, gives the

poet a fair opportunity of introducing a third topic in some patriotic

allusions to the great vessel of the state:--

"Build me straight, O worthy Master!

Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,

That shall laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"

Such is the merchant's injunction to the master-builder, who forthwith

proceeds to fulfil it.

"Beside the master, when he spoke,

A youth, against an anchor leaning,

Listened to catch the slightest meaning.

Only the long waves, as they broke

In ripples on the pebbly beach,

Interrupted the old man's speech.

Beautiful they were in sooth,

The old man and the fiery youth!

The old man, in whose busy brain

Many a ship that sailed the main

Was modelled o'er and o'er again;--

The fiery youth, who was to be

The heir of his dexterity,

The heir of his house and his daughter's hand,

When he had built and launched from land

What the elder head had planned.

'Thus,' said he, 'will we build this ship!

Lay square the blocks upon the slip,

And follow well this plan of mine:

Choose the timbers with greatest care,

Of all that is unsound beware;

For only what is sound and strong

To this vessel shall belong.

Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine

Here together shall combine.

A goodly frame and a goodly fame,

And the UNION be her name!

For the day that gives her to the sea

Shall give my daughter unto thee!'"

Under such auspices the vessel grows day by day. The mention of the

tall masts, and the slender spars, carry the imagination of the poet

to the forest where the pine-trees grew. We cannot follow him in this

excursion, but here is a noble description of some part of the process

of the building of the ship:--

"With oaken brace and copper band

Lay the rudder on the sand,

That, like a thought, should have control

Over the movement of the whole;

And near it the anchor, whose giant hand

Should reach down and grapple with the land,

And immovable, and fast

Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!"

At length all is finished--the vessel is built:--

"There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Decked with flags and streamers gay,

In honour of her marriage-day;

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,

Round her like a veil descending,

Ready to be

The bride of the grey old sea.

On the deck another bride

Is standing by her lover's side,

Shadows from the flags and shrouds,

Like the shadows cast by clouds,

Broken by many a sunny fleck,

Fall around them on the deck.

* * * * *

Then the master

With a gesture of command,

Waved his hand.

And at the word,

Loud and sudden there was heard,

All around them and below,

The sound of hammers, blow on blow,

Knocking away the shores and spurs.

And see! she stirs!

She starts--she moves--she seems to feel

The thrill of life along her keel,

And spurning with her foot the ground,

With one exulting joyous bound

She leaps into the ocean's arms!

And lo! from the assembled crowd

There rose a shout prolonged and loud,

That to the ocean seemed to say--

'Take her, O bridegroom old and grey,

Take her to thy protecting arms,

With all her youth and all her charms!'

How beautiful she is! How fair

She lies within those arms that press

Her form with many a soft caress

Of tenderness and watchful care!

Sail forth into the sea, O ship!

Through wind and wave right onward steer!

The moistened eye, the trembling lip,

Are not the signs of doubt or fear!

Sail forth into the sea of life,

O gentle, loving, trusting wife,

And safe from all adversity

Upon the bosom of that sea

Thy comings and thy goings be!

For gentleness, and love, and trust,

Prevail o'er angry wave and gust.

Thou too, sail on, O ship of state!

Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!

Humanity, with all its fears,

With all its hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

We know what master laid thy keel,

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,

Who made each mast and sail and rope,

What anvils rang, what hammers beat,

In what a forge, and what a heat

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

Fear not each sudden sound and shock!

'Tis of the wave, and not the rock;

'Tis but the flapping of the sail

And not a rent made by the gale!

In spite of rock and tempest roar,

In spite of false lights on the shore,

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee--are all with thee!"

This noble ode leads the van of a small collection of poems called, "By

the Seaside." A series of companion-pictures bear the name of, "By the

Fireside." We may as well proceed with a few extracts from these. The

following are from some verses on "The Lighthouse."

"The mariner remembers when a child

On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;

And, when returning from adventures wild,

He saw it rise again on ocean's brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same

Year after year, thro'all the silent night

Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,

Shines on that inextinguishable light!

The startled waves leap over it; _the storm

Smotes it with all the scourges of the rain_,

And steadily against its solid form

Press the great shoulders of the hurricane."

This is bold and felicitous: the following, to "The Twilight," is in a

more tender strain. The first verse we cannot quote: we suspect there

is some misprint in our copy. Mr Longfellow could not have written

these lines--

"And like the wings of sea-birds

Flash the _white caps_ of the sea."

Whether women's caps or men's nightcaps are alluded to, the image would

be equally grotesque. The poem continues--

"But in the fisherman's cottage

There shines a ruddier light,

And a little face at the window

Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,

As if these childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness

To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow

Is passing to and fro,

Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, bleak and wild,

As they beat at the crazy casement,

Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak,

As they beat at the heart of the mother,

Drive the colour from her cheek?"

Mr Longfellow understands how to _leave off_--how to treat a subject

so that all is really said, yet the ear is left listening for more.

"By the Fireside" is a series, of course, of mere domestic sketches.

The subjects, however, do not always bear any distinct reference or

relation to this title. That from which we feel most disposed to quote

is written on some "Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass." It has been

always a favourite mode of composition to let some present object carry

the imagination, by links of associated thought, whithersoever it

pleased. This sort of reverie is natural and pleasing, but must not be

often indulged in. It is too easy; and we soon discover that any topic

thus treated becomes endless, and will lead us, if we please, over

half the world. At length it becomes indifferent where we start from.

Without witchcraft, one may ride on any broomstick into Norway. But

the present poem, we think, is a very allowable specimen of this mode

of composition. The poet surveys this sand of the desert, now confined

within an hour-glass; he thinks how many centuries it may have blown

about in Arabia, what feet may have trodden on it--perhaps the feet of

Moses, perhaps of the pilgrims to Mecca; then he continues--

"These have passed over it, or may have passed!

Now in this crystal tower,

Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,

It counts the passing hour.

And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;

Before my dreamy eye

Stretches the desert, with its shifting sand,

Its unimpeded sky.

And, borne aloft by the sustaining blast,

This little golden thread

Dilates into a column high and vast,

A form of fear and dread.

And onward and across the setting sun,

Across the boundless plain,

The column and its broader shadow run,

Till thought pursues in vain.

The vision vanishes! These walls again

Shut out the lurid sun,

Shut out the hot immeasurable plain;

The half-hour's sand is run!"

We notice in Mr Longfellow an occasional fondness for what is _quaint_,

as if Quarles' _Emblems_, or some such book, had been at one time a

favourite with him. In the lines entitled "Suspiria," solemn as the

subject is, the thought trembles on the verge of the ridiculous. But,

leaving these poems, "By the Seaside," and "By the Fireside," we shall

find a better instance of this tendency to a certain quaintness in

another part of the volume before us. The "Old Clock on the Stairs" is

a piece which invites a few critical observations. It is good enough to

be quoted almost entirely, and yet affords an example of those faults

of haste and negligence and incompleteness which even Mr Longfellow has

not escaped.

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.

"_L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit

sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des

tombeaux. 'Toujours! Jamais!--Jamais! Toujours!'_"--JACQUES

BRIDAINE.

"Somewhat back from the village street

Stands the old-fashioned country-seat:

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;

And from its station in the hall

An ancient time-piece say to all--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'

Half-way up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands,

From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk who, under his cloak,

Crosses himself, and sighs, 'Alas!'

With sorrowful voice to all who pass--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'

By day its voice is low and light,

But in the silent dead of night,

Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,

It echoes along the vacant hall,

Along the ceiling, along the floor,

And seems to say at each chamber door--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'

* * * * *

In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared,

The stranger feasted at his board;

But, like the skeletons at the feast,

That warning timepiece never ceased--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'

There groups of merry children played,

There youths and maidens dreaming strayed:

O precious hours! O golden prime,

And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours, the ancient timepiece told--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'

* * * * *

All are scattered now and fled,

Some are married, some are dead;

And when I ask, with throbs of pain,

'Ah, when shall they all meet again!'

As in the days long since gone by,

The ancient timepiece makes reply--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'

Never here, for ever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,

And death and time shall disappear--

For ever there, but never here!

The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'"

Mr Longfellow has not treated Jacques Bridaine fairly--certainly not

happily. The pious writer intended that his clock, which represents

the voice of Eternity, or the Eternal Destiny of each man, should, by

the solemn ticking of its pendulum, utter to the ear of every mortal,

according to his conscience, the happy "Toujours!" or the mournful

"Jamais!" for the joys of Heaven are either "Always" or "Never." But

no clock could utter to the conscience of any man a word of _three_

syllables, and by translating the "Tou-jours!--Ja-mais!" into "For

ever!--Never!" we lose the voice of the pendulum. The point of the

passage is the same, in this respect, as that of the well-known story

of the Dutch widow who consulted her pastor whether she should marry

again or not. Her pastor, knowing well that, in these cases, there is

but one advice which has the least chance of being followed, referred

her to the bells of the church, and bade her listen to them, and mark

what they said upon the subject. They said very distinctly, "Kempt

ein mann!"--"Take a husband!" Thereupon the pastor re-echoed the same

advice. Jacques Bridaine intended that, according to the conscience

which the listener brought, the swinging pendulum of his eternal clock

would welcome him with the "Toujours!" or utter the knell of "Jamais!"

This _conceit_ Mr Longfellow does not preserve. But, what is of far

more importance, he preserves no one distinct sentiment in his piece;

nor is it possible to detect, in all cases, what _his_ clock means by

the solemn refrain, "For ever--never! Never--for ever!" When at the

last verse the pendulum explains itself distinctly, the sentiment is

diluted into what Jacques Bridaine would have thought, and what we

think too, a very tame commentary on human life. At the fifth verse, as

it stands in our quotation, the old clock quite forgets his character

of monitor, and occupies himself with registering the happy hours of

infancy. Very amiable on its part; but, if endowed with this variety

of sentiment, it should be allowed to repeat something else than its

"ever--never."

"Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient time-piece told--

'For ever--never!

Never--for ever!'"

These remarks may seem very gravely analytical for the occasion that

calls them forth. But if it were worth while to adopt a _conceit_ of

this description as the text of his poem, it was worth the author's

pains to carry it out with a certain distinctness and unity.

Considering the tact and judgment which Mr Longfellow generally

displays, we were surprised to find that the longest poem in the

volume, with the exception, perhaps, of "The Spanish Student, a play

in three acts," has been written in Latin hexameters--is, in fact,

one of those painful unlucky metrical experiments which poets will

every now and then make upon our ears. They have a perfect right to

do so: happily there is no statute which compels us to read. A man

may, if he pleases, dance all the way from London to Norwich: one

gentleman is said to have performed this feat. We would not travel in

that man's company. We should grow giddy with only looking upon his

perpetual shuffle and _cinq-a-pace_. The tripping dactyle, followed

by the grave spondee, closing each line with a sort of _curtsey_, may

have a charming effect in Latin. It pleased a Roman ear, and a scholar

learns to be pleased with it. We cannot say that we have been ever

reconciled by any specimen we have seen, however skilfully executed,

to the imitation of it in English; and we honestly confess that, under

other circumstances, we should have passed over _Evangeline_ unread.

If, however, the rule _de gustibus_, &c., be ever quite applicable, it

is to a case of this kind. With those who assert that the imitation

hexameter does please them, and that they like, moreover, the idea of

_scanning_ their English, no controversy can possibly be raised.

But although _Evangeline_ has not reconciled us to this experiment,

there is so much sweetness in the poetry itself, that, as we read on,

we forget the metre. The story is a melancholy one, and forms a painful

chapter in the colonial history of Great Britain. Whether the rigour

of our Government was justified by the necessity of the case, we will

not stop to inquire; but a French settlement, which had been ceded to

us, was accused of favouring our enemies. The part of the coast they

occupied was one which could not be left with safety in unfriendly

hands; and it was determined to remove them to other districts. The

village of Grand Pré was suddenly swept of its inhabitants. Evangeline,

in this dispersion of the little colony, is separated from her lover;

and the constancy of the tender and true-hearted girl forms the subject

of the poem.

Our readers will be curious, perhaps, to see a specimen of Mr

Longfellow's hexameters. _Evangeline_ is one of those poems which leave

an agreeable impression as a whole, but afford few striking passages

for quotation. The following is the description of evening in the yet

happy village of Grand Pré:--

"Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and stillness.

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the

homestead.

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,

And, with their nostrils distended, inhaling the freshness of

evening.

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer,

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her

collar,

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from

the sea-side,

Where was their favourite pasture. Behind them followed the

watch-dog,

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,

Walking from side to side with a lordly air."----

All this quiet happiness was to cease. The village itself was to be

depopulated.

"_There_ o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession,

Came from the neighbouring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,

Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,

Pausing, and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,

Ere they were shut from sight by the winding roads and the woodlands.

Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen,

_While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of

playthings_."

If in "Evangeline," Mr Longfellow has hazarded a trial upon our

patience, in the "Spanish Student," on the contrary--which, being in

the dramatic form, had a certain privilege to be tedious--he has been

both indulgent and considerate to his reader. It is properly called

a play, for it does not attempt the deep passion of tragedy. It is

spirited and vivacious, and does not exceed three acts. Hypolito, a

student who is not in love, and therefore can jest at those who are,

and Chispa, the roguish valet of Victorian, the student who is in

love, support the comic portion of the drama. Chispa, by his Spanish

proverbs, proves himself to be a true countryman of Sancho Panza. We

must give a specimen of Chispa; he is first introduced giving some very

excellent advice to the musicians whom he is leading to the serenade:--

"_Chispa._--Now, look you, you are gentlemen that lead the life

of crickets; you enjoy hunger by day, and noise by night. Yet

I beseech you, for this once, be not loud, but pathetic; for

it is a serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to the Man in the

Moon. Your object is not to arouse and terrify, but to soothe

and bring lulling dreams. Therefore each shall not play upon

his instrument as if it were the only one in the universe, but

gently, and with a certain modesty, according with the others.

What instrument is that?

_1st Mus._--An Arragonese bagpipe.

_Chispa._--Pray, art thou related to the bagpiper of Bujalance,

who asked a maravedi for playing, and ten for leaving off?

_1st Mus._--No, your honour.

_Chispa._--I am glad of it. What other instruments have we?

_2d and 3d Mus._--We play the bandurria.

_Chispa._--A pleasing instrument. And thou?

_4th Mus._--The fife.

_Chispa._--I like it; it has a cheerful, soul-stirring sound,

that soars up to my lady's window like the song of a swallow.

And you others?

_Other Mus._--We are the singers, please your honour.

_Chispa._--You are too many. Do you think we are going to sing

mass in the cathedral of Cordova? _Four men can make little use

of one shoe, and I see not how you can all sing in one song._

But follow me along the garden-wall. That is the way my master

climbs to the lady's window. It is by the vicar's skirts the

devil climbs into the belfry. Come, follow me, and make no

noise.

[_Exeunt._"

Chispa is travelling with his master, Victorian. When they come to

an inn, the latter regales himself with a walk in the moonlight,

meditating on his mistress. Not so Chispa.

"_Chispa._--Hola! ancient Baltasar! Bring a light and let me

have supper.

_Bal._--Where is your master?

_Chispa._--Do not trouble yourself about him. We have stopped a

moment to breathe our horses; and if he chooses to walk up and

down in the open air, looking into the sky _as one who hears it

rain_, that does not satisfy my hunger, you know. But be quick,

for I am in a hurry, and every one stretches his legs according

to the length of his coverlet. What have we here?

_Bal._ (_setting a light on the table._)--Stewed rabbit.

_Chispa_ (_eating._)--Conscience of Portalegre! Stewed kitten,

you mean!

_Bal._--And a pitcher of Pedro Ximenes with a roasted pear in

it.

_Chispa_ (_drinking._)--Ancient Baltasar amigo! You know how

to cry wine and sell vinegar.--Moreover, your supper is like

the hidalgo's dinner, _very little meat, and a great deal of

table-cloth_.

_Bal._--Ha! ha! ha!

_Chispa._--And more noise than nuts.

_Bal._--Ha! ha! ha! You must have your jest, Master Chispa. But

shall not I ask Don Victorian in to take a draught of the Pedro

Ximenes?

_Chispa._--No; you might as well say, 'Don't you want some?' to

a dead man.

_Bal._--Why does he go so often to Madrid?

_Chispa._--For the same reason that he eats no supper. He is in

love. Were you ever in love, Baltasar?

_Bal._--I was never out of it, good Chispa.

_Chispa._--What! you on fire too, old haystack? Why, we shall

never be able to put you out.

_Vict._ (_without._)--Chispa!

_Chispa._--Go to bed--the cocks are crowing."

This Chispa changes masters in course of the piece, and enters into the

service of Don Carlos; but the change does not seem to have advanced

his fortunes, for we find him thus moralising to himself at the close

of the play--

"Alas! and alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain.

I neither win nor lose. Thus I wag through the world half the

time on foot, and the other half walking.... And so we plough

along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may happen?

Patience, and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald that you

can see my brains."

It would not be difficult to select other favourable specimens both of

the graver and lighter manner of Mr Longfellow; but we must now proceed

to the second name upon our list.

Mr Bryant is a poet who not unfrequently reminds us of Mrs Hemans.

Perhaps we could not better, in a few words, convey our impression

of his poetical _status_. His verse is generally pleasing--not often

powerful. His good taste rarely deserts him; but he has neither very

strong passions, nor those indications of profounder thought which

constitute so much of the charm of modern poetry. For he who would take

a high rank amongst our lyric poets should, at one time or other, have

dwelt and thought with the philosophers. He should be seen as stepping

from the Porch; he should have wandered, with his harp concealed

beneath his robe, in the gardens of the Academy.

Short as Mr Bryant's poems generally are, they still want concentration

of thought--energy--unity. In quoting from him, we should often

be disposed to make omissions for the very sake of _preserving_ a

connection of ideas. The omission of several verses, even in a short

poem, so far from occasioning what the doctors would call a "solution

of continuity," would often assist in giving to the piece a greater

distinctness, and unity of thought and purpose. This ought not to be.

Mr Bryant's poems, we believe, are by this time familiar to most

readers of poetry; we must, therefore, be sparing of our quotations.

In the few we make, we shall be anxious to give the most favourable

specimens of his genius: the faults we have hinted at will sufficiently

betray themselves without seeking for especial illustration of them.

Our first extract shall be from some very elegant verses on a subject

peculiarly American--"The Prairie." We quote the commencement and the

conclusion. The last strikes us as singularly happy. Mr Bryant starts

with rather an unfortunate expression; he calls the Prairie "the garden

of the desert;" he rather meant "the garden-desert." He may describe

the Prairie, if he pleases, as one green and blooming desert; but the

garden _of the_ desert implies a desert to which it belongs--would be

an oasis, in short:--

THE PRAIRIES.

"These are the gardens of the desert, these

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,

For which the speech of England has no name--

The Prairies. I behold them for the first,

And my heart swells while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch

In airy undulations far away,

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,

And motionless forever. Motionless?

No!--they are all unchained again. The clouds

Sweep over with the shadows, and beneath

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;

Dark hollows seem to glide along, and chase

The sunny ridges....

* * * * *

Still this great solitude is quick with life.

Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers

They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,

And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man,

Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground

Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer

Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,

A more adventurous colonist than man,

With whom he came across the Eastern deep,

Fills the savannas with his murmurings,

And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,

Within the hollow oak. I listen long

To his domestic hum, and think I hear

The sound of that advancing multitude

Which soon shall fill these deserts. _From the ground

Comes up the laugh of children_, the soft voice

Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn

Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds

Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain

Over the dark brown furrows. All at once

A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,

And I am in the wilderness alone."

It is a natural sentiment, though somewhat difficult to justify, which

poets, and others than poets, entertain when they look about for some

calm and beautiful spot, some green and sunny slope, for their final

resting-place. Imagination still attributes something of sensation, or

of consciousness, to what was once the warm abode of life. Mr Bryant,

in a poem called "June," after indulging in this sentiment, gives us

one of the best apologies for it we remember to have met with. There is

much grace and pathos in the following verses:--

"I know, I know I should not see

The seasons' glorious show,

Nor would its brightness shine for me,

Nor its wild music flow;

But if around my place of sleep,

The friends I love should come to weep,

_They might not haste to go_.

Soft airs, and song, and light and bloom

Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their softened hearts should bear

The thought of what has been,

And speak of one who _cannot share_

The gladness of the scene;

Whose part, in all the pomp that fills

The circuit of the summer hills,

_Is--that his grave is green_;

And deeply would their hearts rejoice

To hear again his living voice."

"The Lapse of Time" is a piece which might be quoted as a favourable

specimen of Mr Bryant's poetry. It might also serve as an instance of

its _shortcoming_--of its want of concentration--of a distinct, firm

tone of thought. As it is not long, we will quote the whole of it. Our

complaint of a certain weakness--the want of a steady and strong grasp

of his subject--could not be less disagreeably illustrated, nor brought

to a more rigid test. Our italics here are not complimentary, but

simply serve the purpose of drawing attention to the train of thought

or sentiment:--

THE LAPSE OF TIME.

"Lament who will, in fruitless tears,

The speed with which our moments fly;

I sigh not over vanished years,

But watch _the years that hasten by_.

_Look how they come_--a mingled crowd

Of bright and dark, but rapid days;

Beneath them, like a summer cloud,

The wide world changes as I gaze.

What! grieve that time _has brought so soon

The sober age of manhood on_!

As idly might I weep, at noon,

To see the blush of morning gone.

Could I give up the hopes that glow

In prospect like Elysian isles,

And let the cheerful future go,

With all her promises and smiles?

_The Future! cruel were the power_

_Whose doom would tear thee from my heart,_

_Thou sweetener of the present hour!_

_We cannot--no--we will not part._

Oh, leave me still the rapid flight

That makes the changing seasons gay--

The grateful speed that brings the night,

The swift and glad return of day;

The months that touch with added grace

This little prattler at my knee,

In whose arch eye and speaking face

New meaning every hour I see.

The years that o'er each sister land

Shall lift the country of my birth,

And nurse her strength till she shall stand

The pride and pattern of the earth:

Till younger commonwealths, for aid,

Shall cling about her ample robe,

And from her frown shall shrink afraid

The crowned oppressors of the globe.

_True--time will seam and blanch my brow_;

Well--I shall sit with aged men,

And my good glass shall tell me how

A grizzly beard becomes me then.

And then should no dishonour lie

Upon my head when I am grey,

Love yet shall watch my fading eye,

And smooth the path of my decay.

Then, haste thee, Time--'tis kindness all

That speeds thy wingèd feet so fast;

Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,

And all thy pains are quickly past.

Thou fliest and bearest away our woes,

_And, as thy shadowy train depart_,

The memory of sorrow grows

A lighter burden on the heart."

Brief as the poem is, it should have been divided into two; for it is

a song of resignation and a song of hope mingled together. It must

strike the least reflective reader that no man needs consolation for

the lapse of time, who is occupied with hopeful anticipations of the

future. It is because Time carries away our hopes with it, and leaves

us the very tranquil pleasures of age, that we "sigh over vanished

years." Every sentiment which Mr Bryant expresses in this poem is

natural and reasonable; but it follows not that they should have been

brought together within the compass of a few verses. At one moment we

are looking at _the past_, or we are told not to grieve

"That time has brought so soon

The sober age of manhood on!"

the next, we are called upon to sympathise in some unexpected rapture,

by no means happily expressed, about _the future_--"The future!"

&c.,--as if some one had been threatening to cut us off from our golden

anticipations. The only result we are left in unquestioned possession

of is, that if the present time did not move on, the future could

not advance. But it is not such an abstraction or truism as this, we

presume, that the poet intended to teach; he intended to portray the

natural sentiments which arise as we reflect on human life, whether

passing or past, or as seen in the hopeful future; and these he should

not have mingled confusedly together. It would be tedious to carry on

the analysis any farther; but we may add, that it is hardly wise, in

the same short poem, to speak rapturously of the Elysian glories of the

future, and mournfully of "Time's shadowy train," which can be no other

than these Elysian glories _seen from behind_.

Like Mr Longfellow, Mr Bryant is both a German and a Spanish scholar;

and he has enriched his own collection of poems with some very pleasing

translations. We are tempted to conclude our extracts from this poet by

two brief specimens of these translations--the one from the Spanish,

the other from the German:--

"Alexis calls me cruel--

* * * * *

I would that I could utter

My feelings without shame,

And tell him how I love him,

Nor wrong my virgin fame.

Alas! to seize the moment

When heart inclines to heart,

And press a suit with passion,

Is not a woman's part.

If man comes not to gather

The roses where they stand,

They fade among their foliage;

They cannot seek his hand."

Here the maiden is very maidenly. Our next is far more piquant. We

often hear of young ladies angling; they catch, and they are caught;

and they are sometimes not a little frightened at their own success in

this perilous species of angling. Uhland has put all this before us in

a very pictorial manner, and Mr Bryant has very happily translated him--

"There sits a lovely maiden

The ocean murmuring nigh;

She throws the hook and watches

The fishes pass it by.

A ring with a ring jewel,

Is sparkling on her hand;

Upon the hook she binds it,

And flings it from the land.

Uprises from the water

A hand like ivory fair.

What gleams upon its finger?

The golden ring is there.

Uprises from the bottom

A young and handsome knight;

In golden scales he rises,

That glitter in the light.

The maid is pale with terror--

'Nay, knight of ocean, nay,

It was not thee I wanted;

Let go the ring, I pray.'

'Ah, maiden, not to fishes

The bait of gold is thrown;

The ring shall never leave me,

And thou must be my own.'"

It cannot be complained of _Mr Whittier's_ poems that they are not

sufficiently national; but they are national in a very disagreeable

point of view--they introduce us into the controversies of the day. Mr

Whittier appears to be one of those who write verses, hymns, or odes,

instead of, or perhaps in addition to, sundry speeches at popular

assemblies in favour of some popular cause. His rhymes have the same

relation to poetry that the harangues delivered at such meetings

bear to eloquence. We were at a loss to understand on what wings

(certainly not those of his poetic genius) he had flown hither, till

we discovered that his intemperate zeal against slavery, as it exists

in the southern States of America, had procured for him a welcome

amongst a certain class of readers in England. If we insert his name

here, it is simply to protest against the adoption by any party, but

especially by any English party, of such blind, absurd, ungovernable

zeal, upon a question as difficult and intricate as it is momentous.

Both Mr Longfellow and Mr Bryant write upon slavery; and both have

produced some very touching poems on the subject; but they treat the

topic as poets. Mr Whittier treats the subject with the rabid fury of

a fierce partisan. No story so preposterous or ridiculous but he can

bend it to his purpose. He throws contumely upon the ministers of the

gospel in the Southern States, because instead of attempting, every

moment of their lives, to overthrow the unfortunate organisation of

society that is there established, they endeavour to make the slave

contented with his lot, and the master lenient in the exercise of his

authority. Sentence of death was passed, it seems, on a man of the name

of Brown, for assisting a slave to escape. The sentence was commuted,

but this does not prevent Mr Whittier from hanging the man in his own

imagination, and then, _à propos_ of this imaginary execution, thus

addressing the clergy of South Carolina:--

"Ho! thou who seekest late and long

A license from the Holy Book

For brutal lust and hell's red wrong,

_Man of the pulpit, look!

Lift up those cold and atheist eyes,

This ripe fruit of thy teaching see_;

And tell us how to Heaven will rise

The incense of this sacrifice--

This blossom of the gallows-tree!"

And thus he proceeds, lashing himself into frenzy, through the whole

of the piece. We dismiss Mr Whittier, and venture to express a hope

that those who appear to be looking into American literature, for

the purpose of catering for the English public, will be able to

discover and import something better than strains such as these--which

administer quite as much to the love of calumny, and an appetite for

horrors, as to any sentiment of philanthropy.

The next person whom we have to mention, and probably to introduce

for the first time to our readers, is not one whom we can commend for

his temperate opinions, or knowledge of the world, or whatever passes

under the name of strong common sense or practical sagacity. He is much

a dreamer; he has little practical skill, even in his own craft of

authorship; but there runs a true vein of poetry through his writings;

it runs zig-zag, and is mixed with much dross, and is not extracted

without some effort of patience; but there is a portion of the true

metal to be found in the works of _James Russell Lowell_.

Mr Lowell has, we think, much of the true poet in him--ardent feelings

and a fertile fancy; the last in undue proportion, or at least under

very irregular government. But he lacks taste and judgment, and the

greater part of the two small volumes before us is redolent of youth,

and we presume that those compositions which stand first in order were

really written at an early age. To the very close, however, there is

that immaturity of judgment, and that far too enthusiastic view of

things and of men, which is only excusable in youth; as witness certain

lines "To De Lamartine," towards the end of the second volume.

With one peculiarity we have been very much struck--the combination of

much original power with a tendency to imitate, to an almost ludicrous

extent, other and contemporary poets. We find, especially in the first

volume, imitations which have all the air of a theme or exercise of a

young writer, sitting down deliberately to try how far he could succeed

in copying the manner of some favourite author. Sometimes it is Keats,

sometimes it is Tennyson, who seems to have exercised this fascination

over him: he is in the condition of a bewildered musician, who can do

nothing but make perpetual _variations_ upon some original melody that

has bewitched his ear. He revels with Keats in that poetic imagery and

language which has a tendency to separate itself too widely from the

substratum of an intelligible meaning, which ought always to be kept

at least _in sight_. At other times he paints ideal portraits of women

after the manner of Tennyson. On these last he was perfectly welcome

to practise his pictorial art: he might paint as many _Irenes_ as he

pleased; but when, in his piece called "The Syrens," he recalls to mind

the beautiful poem of "The Lotus Eaters!" our patience broke down--we

gave him up--we closed the book in despair. However, at another time we

reopened it, and read on, and we are glad we did so; for we discovered

that, notwithstanding, this proneness to imitate, and often to imitate

what should have been avoided, there was a vein of genuine poetry in

the book, some specimens of which we shall proceed to give. It is a

task which we the more readily undertake because we suspect that most

readers of taste would be disposed, after a cursory perusal, to lay the

book aside: they would not have the motive which prompted us to explore

further, or to renew their examination.

Mr Lowell's faults lie on the surface; they cannot be disguised,

nor will there be the least necessity to quote for the purpose

of illustrating them. He is an egregious instance of that _half

excellence_ which we have ventured to attribute to such American

poets as have come under our notice. The genius of the poet is but

partially developed. The peach has ripened but on one side. We want

more sun, we want more culture. To speak literally, there is a haste

which leads the writer to extravagance of thought, to extravagance of

language and imagery; an impatience of study, and of the long labour

that alone produces the complete work. The social and economical

condition of America has probably something to do with this. It is a

condition more favourable to the man and the citizen than propitious

to the full development of the poet. In England, or any other old

established country, the educated class crowd every profession, and

every avenue to employment; if a youth once gives himself up to the

fascination of literature, he will probably find himself committed

to it for life, and be compelled to accept as a career, what perhaps

at first only tempted him as a pleasure. If he wishes to retrace his

steps, and resume his place in any profession, he finds that the ranks

are closed up; no opening at all presents itself--certainly none which,

if he is only wavering in his resolution, will solicit his return. He

has wandered from his place in the marching regiment; it has marched

on without him, in close order, and there is no room for the repenting

truant. Now in America there cannot yet be such over-crowding in all

the recognised pursuits of life as to render it difficult or impossible

for the truant to return. He is probably even invited, by tempting

prospects of success, to re-enter some of those avenues of life which

lead to wealth, or to civic prosperity. This must act materially upon

the young poet. He indulges his predilections, yet does not feel that

he has irrevocably committed himself by so doing. Or if he adopts

literature as the main object and serious occupation of his life, he

can at the first discouragement--he can, as soon as he has learnt the

fact that authorship is a labour, as well as a pleasure--abandon his

hasty choice, and adopt an easier and a more profitable career. He has

not burnt his ships. They lie in the offing still; they are ready to

transport him from this enchanted island to which some perverse wind

has blown him, and restore him to the stable continent. Retreat is

still open; he does not feel that he must here conquer or be utterly

lost; there is no desperate courage, nothing to induce strenuous and

indefatigable labour.

But to Mr Lowell. The first piece in his collection of poems is

entitled "A Legend of Brittany." The subject is as grotesque as

legendary lore could have supplied him with. A knight-templar, a

soldier-priest who has taken the vow of chastity at a time and place

when that vow was expected to be kept, has fallen in love with a

beautiful girl. He seduces her; then to hide his own disgrace he

murders her; and he buries the body, with the unborn infant, under the

altar of the church! One day at high mass, when the guilty templar is

there himself standing, with others, round the altar, a voice is heard,

a vision is seen--it is the spirit of the murdered girl and mother.

She appears--not to denounce the assassin--she regrets to expose

his guilt--there is so much woman in the angel that she loves him

still--she appears to claim the rite of baptism for her unborn infant,

who, till that rite is performed, wanders in darkness and in pain. The

legend must have received this turn during some _Gorham controversy_

now happily forgotten. Notwithstanding the very strange nature of the

whole story, there is a pleasing tenderness in this address of the

spirit to the wicked templar. After glancing more in sadness than in

anger at his falsehood, it continues:--

"And thou hadst never heard such words as these,

Save that in heaven I must ever be

Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this

Our unbaptisèd babe shut out from bliss.

This little spirit, with imploring eyes,

Wanders alone the dreary wild of space;

The shadow of his pain forever lies

Upon my soul in this new dwelling-place;

His loneliness makes me in paradise

More lonely; and unless I see his face,

Even here for grief could I lie down and die,

Save for my curse of immortality.

I am a mother, spirits do not shake

This much of earth from them, and I must pine,

Till I can feel his little hands, and take

His weary head upon this heart of mine.

And might it be, full gladly for his sake

Would I this solitude of bliss resign,

And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him

For ever in that silence drear and dim.

I strove to hush my soul, and would not speak

At first for thy dear sake. A woman's love

Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,

And by its weakness overcomes; I strove

To smother better thoughts with patience meek,

But still in the abyss my soul would rove,

Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim

The rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name.

I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing:

I can but long and pine the while they praise,

And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I fling

My voice to where I deem my infant stays,

Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring

Her nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace;

But still he answers not, and I but know

That heaven and earth are but alike in woe."

The sacred rite, so piteously pleaded for, was of course duly

performed. This poem seems to have been written when Keats was in the

ascendant, and predominated over the imagination of our author. Nor has

he failed to catch a portion of the finer fancy of that exuberant poet.

Such lines as the following are quite in the manner of Keats.

"The deep sky, _full-hearted with the moon_."

...."_the nunneries of silent nooks_,

_The murmured longing of the wood_."

Or this description:--

"In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway,

A Triton blowing jewels through his shell

Into the sunshine."

In the second volume we have another legend, or rather a legendary

vision, of the author's own invention, which is of a higher import,

and still more redolent of poetry. It is called "The vision of Sir

Launfal." This knight has a vision, or a dream, in which he beholds

himself going forth from his proud castle to accomplish a vow he had

made, namely, to seek "over land and sea for the Holy Grail." What the

Holy Grail is, Mr Lowell is considerate enough to inform, or remind his

readers, in a note which runs thus,--"According to the mythology of

the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which

Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought

into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object

of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his

lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it

to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having

broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it

was a favourite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in

search of it." Well, Sir Launfal, in his vision, starts forth upon this

knightly and pious enterprise. It is the month of June when he sallies

from his castle, and the poet revels in a description of the glories of

the summer:--

"Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten:

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, _grasping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers_.

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,

And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean

To be some happy creature's palace;

_The little bird sits at his door in the sun

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves_,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives.

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings--

He sings to the wide world, she to her nest.

* * * * *

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;

Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,--

'Tis the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

And the heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

And the soul partakes the season's youth."

The drawbridge of the castle is let down, and Sir Launfal, on his

charger, springs from under the archway, clothed in his glittering

mail--

"To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail."

"As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate

He was ware of a leper, crouched by the same,

Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill,

The flesh 'neath his armour did shrink and crawl,

* * * * *

For this man, so foul and bent of stature,

Rasped harshly against his dainty nature,

And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,--

So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.

The leper raised not the gold from the dust:

'Better to me the poor man's crust.

Better the blessing of the poor,

Though I turn me empty from his door;

_That is no true alms which, the hand can hold_.'"

Sir Launfal proceeds in search of the Holy Grail; but he finds it not.

He returns an old man, worn with toil, and sad at heart, and full of

tender commiseration for all the afflicted and distressed. It is winter

when he returns to his castle. There sits the same miserable leper, and

moans out the same prayer for alms; but this time it is answered in a

very different spirit.

"Straightway he

Remembered in what a haughty guise

He had flung an alms to leprosie,

When he caged his young life up in gilded mail

To set forth in search of the Holy Grail--

The heart within him was ashes and dust;

He parted in twain his single crust,

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,

And gave the leper to eat and to drink;

'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,

'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,--

Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,

A light shone round about the place;

The leper no longer crouched at his side,

But stood before him glorified,

And a voice that was calmer than silence said--

'In many climes, without avail,

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;

Behold it is here,--this cup which thou

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now!

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,

In whatso we share with another's need.'"

Such was the dream or vision of Sir Launfal. We need hardly add that,

when he awoke from it, he exclaimed that the Holy Grail was already

found--bade his servants hang up his armour on the wall, and open his

gates to the needy and the poor.

We shall venture upon one more quotation before we quit Mr Lowell.

We must premise that we do not always mark by asterisks the omission

that we make, when that omission creates no obscurity whatever in the

passage. The following poem we take the liberty of abridging, and

we print it, without any interruption of this kind, in its abridged

form. In this form it will perhaps remind our readers of some of those

tender, simple, and domestic lyrics in which German poetry is so rich.

There is no other language from which so many beautiful poems might be

collected which refer to childhood, and the love of children, as from

the German. It has sometimes occurred to us that our poetesses, or fair

translators of poetry, might contrive a charming volume of such lyrics

on childhood.

THE CHANGELING.

"I had a little daughter,

And she was given to me

To lead me gently onward

To the Heavenly Father's knee.

I know not how others saw her,

But to me she was wholly fair,

And the light of the heaven she came from

Still lingered and gleamed in her hair.

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,

And it hardly seemed a day,

When a troop of wandering angels

Stole my little daughter away.

But they left in her stead a changeling,

A little angel child,

That seems like her bud in full blossom,

And smiles as she never smiled.

This child is not mine as the first was,

I cannot sing it to rest,

I cannot lift it up fatherly,

And bless it upon my breast.

Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,

And sits in my little one's chair,

And the light of the heaven she's gone to

Transfigures its golden hair."

We have still a brief space for _Mr Holmes_. It is fit that, amongst

our list, there should be one representative of the comic muse. Mr

Holmes, however, is not always comic. Some of his serious pieces are

not without a certain manly pathos. Some, too, are of a quite didactic

character, and have the air of college exercises. But it is only a few

of his lighter pieces we should feel any disposition to quote, or refer

to. Mr Holmes portrays himself to us as a boon companion;--a physician

by profession, and one to whom poetry has been only an occasional

amusement--one of those choice spirits who can set the table in a roar,

and who can sing himself the good song that he indites. Such being the

case, we have only to lay down the critical pen to court amusement

ourselves, and conclude our paper by sharing with the reader a few

specimens of wit or humour.

Civilised life in New York, or Boston, seems to have the same

disagreeable accompaniments as with us--as witness.

THE MUSIC-GRINDERS.

"There are three ways in which men take

One's money from his purse,

And very hard it is to tell

Which of the three is worse;

But all of them are bad enough

To make a body curse.

You're riding out some pleasant day,

And counting up your gains;

A fellow jumps from out a bush,

And takes your horse's reins;

Another hints some words about

A bullet in your brains.

It's hard to meet such pressing friends

In such a lonely spot;

It's very hard to lose your cash,

But harder to be shot;

And so you take your wallet out,

Though you had rather not.

Perhaps you're going out to dine,

Some filthy creature begs

You'll hear about the cannon-ball

That carried off his pegs;

He says it is a dreadful thing

For men to lose their legs.

He tells you of his starving wife,

His children to be fed,

Poor little lovely innocents.

All clamorous for bread;

And so you kindly help to put

A bachelor to bed.

You're sitting on your window-seat,

Beneath a cloudless moon;

You hear a sound that seems to wear

The semblance of a tune,

As if a broken fife should strive

To drown a cracked basoon.

And nearer, nearer still, the tide

Of music seems to come,

There's something like a human voice

And something like a drum;

You sit in speechless agony

Until your ear is numb.

Poor 'home, sweet home,' should seem to be

A very dismal place,

Your 'auld acquaintance,' all at once

Is altered in the face--

* * * * *

* * * * *

But hark! the air again is still,

The music all is ground;

It cannot be--it is--it is--

A hat is going round!

No! Pay the dentist when he leaves

A fracture in your jaw;

And pay the owner of the bear,

That stunned you with his paw;

And buy the lobster that has had

Your knuckles in his claw;

But if you are a portly man,

Put on your fiercest frown,

And talk about a constable

To turn them out of town;

Then close your sentence with an oath,

And shut the window down!

And if you are a slender man,

Not big enough for that,

Or, if you cannot make a speech,

Because you are a flat,

_Go very quietly and drop

A button in the hat_!"

Excellent advice! How many hats there are--and not of music-grinders

only--in which we should be delighted to see the button dropped! The

next in order is very good, and equally intelligible on this side of

the Atlantic. We give the greater part of it:--

THE TREADMILL SONG.

"They've built us up a noble wall,

To keep the vulgar out;

We've nothing in the world to do,

_But just to walk about_;

So faster now, you middle men,

And try to beat the ends,

Its pleasant work to ramble round

Among one's honest friends.

Here, tread upon the long man's toes,

He shan't be lazy here--

And punch the little fellow's ribs,

And tweak that lubber's ear,

He's lost them both--don't pull his hair,

Because he wears a scratch,

But poke him in the further eye,

That isn't in the patch.

Hark! fellows, there's the supper-bell,

And so our work is done;

It's pretty sport--suppose we take

A round or two for fun!

If ever they should turn me out,

When I have better grown,

Now hang me, but I mean to have

A treadmill of my own!"

"The September Gale," "The Ballad of an Oysterman," "My Aunt," all

solicit admission, but we have no space. A few of the verses "On the

Portrait of 'A Gentleman,' in the Athenæum Gallery," we will insert.

Perhaps we may see the companion picture to it on the walls of our own

Exhibition at Trafalgar Square:--

"It may be so, perhaps thou hast

A warm and loving heart;

I will not blame thee for thy face,

Poor devil as thou art.

That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,

Unsightly though it be,

In spite of all the cold world's scorn,

It may be much to thee.

Those eyes, among thine elder friends,

Perhaps they pass for blue;

No matter--if a man can see,

What more have eyes to do?

Thy mouth--that fissure in thy face,

By something like a chin--

May be a very useful place

To put thy victual in."

Not, it seems, a thing to paint for public inspection. _Apropos_ of

the pictorial art, we cannot dismiss Mr Holmes' book without noticing

the two or three tasteful vignettes or medallions, or by whatever name

the small engravings are to be called, which are scattered through

its pages. We wish there were more of them, and that such a style of

illustration, or rather of decoration, (for they have little to do

with the subject of the text,) were more general. Here are two little

children sitting on the ground, one is reading, the other listening--a

mere outline, and the whole could be covered by a crown-piece. A simple

medallion, such as we have described, gives an exquisite and perpetual

pleasure; the blurred and blotched engraving, where much is attempted

and nothing completed, is a mere disfigurement to a book. The volume

before us, we ought perhaps to add, comes from the press of Messrs

Ticknor and Co., Boston.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

BOOK V.--INITIAL CHAPTER.

"I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be

dull!"

"Heaven forbid, sir! what could make you ask such a question? _Intend._

No! if I am dull it is from innocence."

"A very long Discourse upon Knowledge!" said my father; "very long. I

should cut it out!"

I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a

Vandal. "Cut it out!"--

"Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically.

"Action! But a novel is not a drama."

"No, it is a great deal longer--twenty times as long, I dare say,"

replied Mr Caxton with a sigh.

"Well, sir--well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to

do with the subject--is vitally essential to the subject; does not

stop the action--only explains and elucidates the action. And I am

astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge"--

"There--there!" cried my father, deprecatingly. "I yield--I yield. What

better could I expect when I set up for a critic! What author ever

lived that did not fly into a passion--even with his own father, if his

father presumed to say--'Cut out!' _Pacem imploro_"--

MRS CAXTON.--"My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to

offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your"--

PISISTRATUS, (hastily.)--"Advice _for the future_, certainly. I will

quicken the action, and"--

"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal

account-book. "We have lost £200 by our barley!"

Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair

Shadowland."

CHAPTER II.

"Halt!" cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the

stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the chaise.

"Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh?

Take time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew

forth a book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read.

Leonard stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of

his companion, and gradually recognised a family likeness to poor

John, in whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common

share of physical beauty were still evident. And, with that quick

link in ideas which mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student

at once conjectured that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He

had the discretion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose

his own time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the new

thoughts produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr Richard read with

notable quickness--sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his

penknife, sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes

skipping whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the

volume--flung it aside--lighted his cigar, and began to talk.

He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rearing, and

especially to the mode by which he had acquired his education; and

Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he was replying to a kinsman,

answered frankly.

Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so

much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself

had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead

brethren, who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with

the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their

glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different

from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new;

to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world.

He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas--a common

mistake--and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.

Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to

Leonard, and, taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with

calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into

an absorbed train of thought--part pecuniary, part ambitious.

Leonard found the book interesting; it was one of the numerous works,

half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the

working-classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought

to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which

modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last.

"Dull stuff--theory--claptrap," said Richard, rousing himself from his

reverie at last: "it can't interest you."

"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially;

for it relates to the working-class, and I am one of them."

"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard

good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad,

that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What

the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good;

but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate

the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory--only ten

hours a-day--pooh! and so lose two to the nation! Labour is wealth: and

if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a-day, we should be just

twice as rich. If the march of civilisation is to proceed," continued

Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a-bed doing nothing

_all night_, sir." Then with a complacent tone--"We shall get to the

twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the

Europeans as we do now."

On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance

with Mr Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest

of the journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the

journey in post-chaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and

incessant orders to the postboys to make the best of the way. "Slow

country this, in spite of all its brag," said he--"very slow. Time

is money--they know that in the States; for why, they are all men of

business there. Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy idle

lords, and dukes, and baronets, seem to think 'time is pleasure.'"

Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large

town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy cavalier air was

abandoned. He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had

been luxuriously dangling; pulled down his waistcoat; buckled more

tightly his stock: it was clear that he was resuming the decorous

dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after

travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard divined

at once that they were nearing their journey's end.

Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their

hats. Richard returned the salutation with a nod--a nod less gracious

than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped

before a smart lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric

columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried

the postboy, and cracked his whip.

Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were

hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little

building.

"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As

I live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy." During this

soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the door--slapped

the children as, catching sight of the chaise, they ran towards the

house--opened the gates, and, dropping a curtsey to the ground, seemed

to wish that she could drop into it altogether, so frightened and so

trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful face which the master

now put out of the window.

"Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have these

horrid disreputable cubs of yours playing just before my lodge gates?"

"Please, sir--"

"Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time

I saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck

and crop--"

"Oh, please sir--"

"You leave my lodge next Saturday: drive on, boy. The ingratitude and

insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature,"

muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy.

The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads,

and through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of

cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the

signs of a master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered the

Squire's model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had

seen; for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the minute

scale of market-gardening than what can fairly be called husbandry.

But the Squire's farm was degraded by many old-fashioned notions,

and concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be found in

model farms now-a-days--large tangled hedgerows, which, though they

constitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make

sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn, and

harbouring the birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and

angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits, and

blocking, out the sun. These and suchlike blots on a gentleman farmer's

agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute

comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard

Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges were

clipped and narrowed into their proper destination of mere boundaries.

Not a blade of wheat withered under the cold shade of a tree; not

a yard of land lay waste; not a weed was to be seen, not a thistle

to waft its baleful seed through the air: some young plantations

were placed, not where the artist would put them, but just where the

farmer wanted a fence from the wind. Was there no beauty in this?

Yes, there was beauty of its kind--beauty at once recognisable to the

initiated--beauty of use and profit--beauty that could bear a monstrous

high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which thrilled

through the heart of Richard Avenel.

"This _is_ farming!" said the villager.

"Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humour vanishing.

"You should have seen the land when I bought it. But we new men, as

they call us--(damn their impertinence)--are the new blood of this

country."

Richard Avenel never said anything more true. Long may the new blood

circulate through the veins of the mighty giantess; but let the grand

heart be the same as it has beat for proud ages.

The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and the house came

into gradual view--a house with a portico--all the offices carefully

thrust out of sight.

The postboy dismounted, and rang the bell.

"I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," said Mr Richard,

wellnigh in the very words of Louis XIV.

But that fear was not realised--the door opened; a well-fed servant out

of livery presented himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile on his

face, but he opened the chaise-door with demure and taciturn respect.

"Where's George? why does not he come to the door?" asked Richard,

descending from the chaise slowly, and leaning on the servant's

outstretched arm with as much precaution as if he had had the gout.

Fortunately, George here came into sight, settling himself hastily into

his livery coat.

"See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he paid the postboy.

Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square white house.

"Handsome elevation--classical, I take it--eh?" said Richard, joining

him. "But you should see the offices."

He then, with familiar kindness, took Leonard by the arm, and drew

him within. He showed him the hall, with a carved mahogany stand

for hats; he showed him the drawing-room, and pointed out all its

beauties--though it was summer the drawing-room looked cold, as will

look rooms newly furnished, with walls newly papered, in houses newly

built. The furniture was handsome, and suited to the rank of a rich

trader. There was no pretence about it, and therefore no vulgarity,

which is more than can be said for the houses of many an honourable

Mrs Somebody in Mayfair, with rooms twelve feet square, chokeful of

buhl, that would have had its proper place in the Tuilleries. Then

Richard showed him the library, with mahogany bookcases and plate

glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely bound. Your new men are

much better friends to living authors than your old families who live

in the country, and at most subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took

him up-stairs, and led him through the bedrooms--all very clean and

comfortable, and with every modern convenience; and, pausing in a very

pretty single gentleman's chamber, said, "This is your den. And now,

can you guess who I am?"

"No one but my Uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard.

But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was extremely

disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped that he should be taken for

a lord at least, forgetful of all that he had said in disparagement of

lords.

"Pish!" said he at last, biting his lip--"so you don't think that I

look like a gentleman? Come, now, speak honestly."

Leonard wonderingly saw he had given pain, and, with the good breeding

which comes instinctively from good nature, replied--"I judged you

by your heart, sir, and your likeness to my grandfather--otherwise I

should never have presumed to fancy we could be relations."

"Hum!" answered Richard. "You can just wash your hands, and then come

down to dinner; you will hear the gong in ten minutes. There's the

bell--ring for what you want."

With that, he turned on his heel; and, descending the stairs, gave

a look into the dining-room, and admired the plated salver on the

sideboard, and the king's pattern spoons and forks on the table. Then

he walked to the looking-glass over the mantlepiece; and, wishing to

survey the whole effect of his form, mounted a chair. He was just

getting into an attitude which he thought imposing, when the butler

entered, and, being London bred, had the discretion to try to escape

unseen; but Richard caught sight of him in the looking-glass, and

coloured up to the temples.

"Jarvis," said he mildly--"Jarvis, put me in mind to have these

inexpressibles altered."