'Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,
Meadows in which we met;'
There are the familiarity with nature and the accurate observation at
once so characteristic of English poetry and of Mr. Tennyson's muse--
'The blue woodlouse and the plump dormouse.'
'The wren with the crown of gold.'
'The fire-crowned king of the wrens from out of the pine!
Look how they tumble the blossoms, the mad little tits!
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! was ever a May so fine;'
There too the hundred links of connexion which bind the twelve songs
into one golden chain--the constant references to the 'light,' or the
'blaze,' or the 'flash,' or the 'window pane,' which form the keynote of
the whole; and lastly the human sentiment at once so deep and broad
which fuses the whole into poetry in its noblest sense--all these
proclaim the deep and abiding worth of this unpretending series of
lyrics.
The Shakspearian ring in one or two of them (especially in No. 8), is as
obvious, though in a different vein, as in any of the well-known lyrics
in the 'Idylls of the King.'
It will be obvious that we do not agree with those who regard Mr.
Tennyson's last effort as 'a trifle from beginning to end.' Slight in
texture it may be, but slightness is not triviality.
Mr. Sullivan's task in setting these charming songs to music has not
been without its difficulties. The very qualities which render verse
characteristic of its author often militate strongly against its
adaptability to music. The subtleties which form the main charm of the
poet may be mere blemishes and hindrances to the musician. Irregularity
of metre and variety of form are among his most serious difficulties.
What the composer requires is a strong pervading sentiment or idea to
inspire character to his music, with regular even verse for the vehicle.
The finest songs of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann are written to
little poems of the simplest structure, almost always in stanzas of four
lines of eight or ten feet, the syllables linked together in easy
concatenation. Such are the 'Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,' the 'Widmung,'
the 'Junge Nonne,' and the 'Sey mir gegrüsst.' Was it instinct or
calculation that led Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, and other great poets
of Germany, to throw so many of their enchanting thoughts and passionate
emotions into these simple forms? Whichever it was, the end has fully
justified the means; and the poems of these great geniuses have a double
beauty and a double gift of immortality in the strains of their
composer-brethren. Now the very charm of the songs of the 'Window' on
which we have been insisting, and so rightly insisting, are all in
opposition to those of the poems just spoken of. What is he to make of
such stanzas as
'Gone!
Gone till the end of the year,
Gone! and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here.
Gone--flitted away'?
or such unequal lines as
'Go little letter apace, apace,
Fly!'
or,
'For it's ay, ay, ay, ay, ay;'
or,
'And my thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on'?
If we want to see what can be made of them, by what adroit shifts their
difficulties can be avoided and overcome, we have only to turn to Mr.
Sullivan's music; and the examination will well repay the trouble, and
will open the eyes of anyone who was not before aware of the laws which
must govern verse that is to be married to music. No. 6 has been altered
since it was set, and we thus have the advantage of two versions.
For the music itself we must really refer our readers to the book.
Dissertations on music, unless in connection with actual performance,
or with technical study, are very much like attempts to paint a sunrise
in words. At any rate, without musical quotations, any description of
these songs would be unintelligible.
The finest of the set are indisputably the first and the last. Next,
perhaps, for depth of sorrow, comes No. 7, 'The mist and the rain.' No.
3, 'Gone,' with its persistent accompaniment, is beautiful. Of the
tender songs, Nos. 9 and 10 are especially charming, while No. 4 is a
bold air, which we venture to predict will be in the mouth of many an
amateur baritone before a month is out. We have only one word of regret
to add--if regret be not too strong a term. We wish that Mr. Sullivan
had availed himself of the chance which the words gave him to do what
Beethoven has so finely done in his 'Liederkreis,' namely, to
re-introduce the melody of the first song in the last one, and thus make
his work really a 'circle.' But this is so obvious that we do not doubt
he had some sufficient reason for not doing it.
Mr. Sullivan has written many fine songs; and indeed great as is his
genius for the orchestra, it often seems as if it were equally great for
vocal music. And it is not too much to say that in this direction at
least, his last effort has been his greatest, and that these songs
surpass all that he has written before. Of their popularity among the
best class of amateurs--that class which we delight to believe is
rapidly increasing--there can be no doubt. They will want not only good
singing, but what is rarer still, good accompanying, and we trust some
opportunity may be shortly found for their being given in public by Mr.
Reeves and Mr. Stockhausen, or Mr. Santley, accompanied by the composer
himself. After that we are bold enough to hope that he may score some of
them for the orchestra. Connected though they be, they are not
indivisible, and there are several which would not suffer by being taken
from their place in the 'cycle' and transferred singly to the
concert-room.
_The Paradise of Birds._ By WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE. Edinburgh: William
Blackwood and Sons.
Verily the young English poet who dares tread in the footsteps of the
Attic Aristophanes has a fine audacity. This does Mr. Courthope, and not
altogether without justification. He is a lover of birds; he is
disgusted at the way in which they are murdered at pigeon matches, and
for the adornment of ladies' hats. He goes to Aristophanes for
inspiration, and gives us a very charming poem as the result. Mr.
Courthope is unquestionably a poet. The fault we find _in limine_ is,
that he is not sufficiently original and varied in rhyme and rhythm, for
a professed follower of Aristophanes. All the birds of the air sing in
the pages of the mighty Greek, sing in character, with the very music
that belongs to them. We cannot say this of Mr. Courthope, yet is he
often fortunate and felicitous. Here is the Nightingale, pitying us
unfeathered bipeds:
'Man that is born of a woman,
Man, her un-web-footed drake,
Featherless, beakless, and human,
Is what he is by mistake.
For they say that a sleep fell on nature
In the midst of the making of things;
And she left him a two-legged creature,
But wanting in wings.'
Wings! ay, that is what we should all of us like. Fancy being able to
soar and tumble in mid-ether, like those pigeons that flash round our
roofs. Fancy having power to follow the summer like 'the temple-haunting
martlet,' which leaves its house under our eaves for a residence
somewhere in Central Asia! What Mr. Courthope wants, in our judgment, is
greater imaginative intensity: he plays laughingly with his theme, and
even so did Aristophanes, his master; but he does not attain as yet the
lofty poetry, the strong humour, which are born of earnestness in
Aristophanes.
_The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis; and other Poems._ By TANKERVILLE
CHAMBERLAYNE, B.A. Hurst and Blackett.
There is curious variety of style, of finish, and of theme in this
little volume. A classical epos is followed by a monody on Lord Derby,
and translations from Horace and Heine. Elegies on Napoleon, Peabody,
and Mozart, are interspersed with love ditties and theological
speculations. A discussion of the probable condition of Napoleon's soul
in the other world is terminated by the following most inappropriate
couplet:--
''Tis ours in peace to let him rest
With hope upon his Saviour's breast.'
There is some spirit and fire in the 'Song of the Rhine,' weakened,
however, by sad doggrel. The impression produced by the whole is, that
an accomplished and well-meaning graduate has favoured the public with
the contents of his college portfolio without due selection.
_Loveland, and other Poems chiefly concerning Love._ By WADE ROBINSON.
London and Dublin: Moffat and Co.
There is a charm of novelty and freshness about these poems. The
thoughts expressed are often both original and beautiful; and in this
lies the chief attraction of the book. The language in which the
thoughts are clothed is not remarkable for elegance, and the style is
occasionally rather obscure, but the reader will find it worth his while
to take the little trouble that may now and then be needed fully to
grasp the author's meaning. There is no particular arrangement in the
poems, but they all turn in some way on the subject indicated in the
title-page; one (by no means the best of them) describing an Utopian
world perverted and ruled by love alone. There is an elevated tone of
feeling about the work in general, befitting the high theme to which it
is devoted. We will content ourselves with one specimen of the poetry,
though it would be easy to select many. The following lines are taken
from a short poem called 'Spring-time in the Woods':--
'Is that next life indeed a Paradise?
But whether I shall leave my flowers for aye
When leaving earth, or in some other world
Shall find them all again, this much I know:
Whate'er in me communes with them shall not
Be left in loneliness. That sense of mine
To which God comes in hues upon the cheeks
Of innocent flowers, and in their perfumed breath,
Expands in strength and purity, and God
Will come to it again as shall be best.
I cannot now declare how He shall come;
I only know that this poor world, so sad
And still so beautiful, cannot exhaust
The beauty in the mind of God, or yet
His artist power to mould and paint his thoughts.'
_Poems_. By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Groombridge and Sons.
_The Inner Life: a Poem._ By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Elliot Stock.
Mr. Matson does not now first come before the world as a poet, but in
his best poem, on 'The Inner Life,' he has done something better than
any of his previous productions. The book consists of meditations, not
perhaps very strictly connected, yet passing naturally from one into
another--all treating on themes of the deepest interest, as the title
implies; the poetical strains adding greatly to the charm of the
Christian philosophy that is conveyed in them. It is true poetry, though
not poetry of the highest order. The reader of this little work will be
glad to turn to a volume of poems by the same author which appeared some
years ago. Mr. Matson speaks in the preface to this book of the joy he
has found in poetry. We do not feel in his case as we are sometimes
tempted to do, that the poet himself is the only person benefited--the
pleasure found in making the verse being the only pleasure it can ever
afford. Far from this: we are much indebted to Mr. Matson for giving his
poetry to the world. The versification is unusually easy and flowing--no
straining after effect; no determination to be original at all costs:
all seems to come naturally and without effort. There is an evenness of
merit in the poems which would make it difficult to specify one above
another; but one characteristic marks them all, and distinguishes them
from those of many other writers, _i.e._, the Christian sentiment by
which they are all pervaded. Instead of the wail of unrelieved
disappointment and regret for the past, and dark and vague forebodings
for the future, the voice of resignation and heavenly hope is never
wanting, mingled with the plaintive strains in which we always expect to
hear a poet sing. We cordially recommend both the books to all lovers of
this class of poetry among our readers.
_The In-Gathering_. By JOHN A. HERAUD. Simpkin, Marshall and Co.
Mr. Heraud, whose first poem was published in 1820, ten years before
Tennyson, shows no perceptible decrease of poetic faculty now, after the
lapse of half a century. It is doubtless true with some men that
'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.'
The little volume before us contains 'Cimon and Pero,' a series of two
hundred somewhat mystical sonnets under the title of 'Alcyone,' and
several minor poems. 'Cimon and Pero,' which we prefer to any of the
other poems, is based on the fine old story, told by Valerius Maximus,
of the Greek woman, who, to save her imprisoned father from starvation,
fed him at her own breast. Mr. Heraud has avowedly chosen to tell the
tale in the austere style of Wordsworth's noble 'Laodamia,' and not
without success. It may be but a fable this, but no fable is devoid of
significance, and we may say with Valerius, 'Putaret aliquis hoc contra
rerum naturam factum, nisi deligere parentes prima naturæ lex esset.'
Several of the minor poems have a delicate beauty: among these may
specially be noted the short lyric entitled 'Eres,' which is quite in
Herrick's vein; the well-known story of 'The Brides of Venice' is also
pleasantly told. The author's admirers will be glad to find that he has
still the vigour and versatility of his youth, with greater skill of
artistic execution.
_The Poetical Works of William Cowper._ Edited, with Notes and
Biographical Introduction, by WILLIAM BENHAM, Vicar of Addington. Globe
Edition. Macmillan and Co.
It was a matter of course that Cowper's works should form a volume of
the Globe series. His popularity has scarcely waned since he first
became the poet of the religious world, beloved for his piety by those
who had but small appreciation of his poetry, and admired for his poetry
by those who had but little sympathy with his themes or his spirit. As a
realistic painter of middle-class life he anticipated, and in delicacy
and sensibility infinitely surpasses Crabbe; while as a humorist of the
purest water he took the kind of hold upon the general public that
Sydney Smith afterwards did--only Cowper's humour was more delicate and
subtle--and as a poet of nature he was the literary progenitor of
Wordsworth. Mr. Benham's biographical introduction is very carefully and
very modestly done. He is, we think, right in his judgment on the point
questioned by the _Spectator_, 'that Lady Austen would gladly have
married Cowper;' and perfectly conclusive, we think, is the evidence
concerning the contemplated marriage with Mary Unwin. Newton and Bull
were Cowper's most intimate friends, and the denial of Southey, who was
by no means so accurate as the _Spectator_ assumes, cannot be put
against their positive and explicit evidence. The works are arranged in
chronological order, and the notes are intelligent, accurate, and true.
Altogether, we possess in the Globe volume the best edition of Cowper
hitherto given to the world.
_The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, reprinted from the
Originals, with the latest Corrections of the Authors; together with the
poems of Charles Wesley not before published._ Collected and arranged by
E. OSBORN, D.D. Vols. VII. to X.
This admirably edited collection of the poetical works of the Wesleys
proceeds steadily towards its completion. It reveals a surprising
fecundity of verse, and an amazing degree of sustained fervour,
strength, and excellence. There are treasures of song in Charles
Wesley's compositions, unused and unknown as yet by the Church, that
would give him high rank as a hymn writer, independently of the
compositions which are in every church and on every lip. We do not think
he ever reaches the reverent sublimity of the best hymns of Watts.
Watts, for instance, would scarcely have used the somewhat incongruous
adjective 'tremendous deity;' nor would Watts have fallen into the
German jingles of some of his metres; but in devout inspiration, sacred
passion, and felicitous verse, Wesley holds his own against any hymn
writer of the Church of Christ. We shall have more to say concerning him
when the collection of his poetical works is complete. The eighth volume
contains his admirable version of the Psalms, and a great variety of
personal and national hymns, which furnish a kind of devotional
commentary on the history of both. The ninth volume consists of the
first portion of the short hymns on 'Select Passages of the Holy
Scriptures.' The two-volume edition of 1762 has long been a table book
with us. We specially commend some of Wesley's exquisite poetical
versions or uses--this, for instance:--
'O that I knew where I might find him,
Where but on yonder tree?
Or if too rich thou art,
Sink into poverty,
And find him in thine heart.'
_A Syren._ By J. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Three vols. Smith, Elder and Co.
Mr. J. A. Trollope has returned to the scenes of his first love--to
Italian skies, artists, maidens, marchesi, and friars. We are plunged at
once into the hot sunshine and tropical excitements of a Ravennese
Carnival. The author gives us exuberant descriptions of female beauty,
of fastidious adornment, dexterous _deshabille motivée_, and of fierce
sexual passion met by cold calculating resolve to play a high stake
without love, or faithfulness, or even wisdom. Mr. Trollope is matchless
in his portraiture of Italian _artistes_, and of the simple _contadina_
of refined and delicate taste, and pure seraphic devotion to the one
over-mastering affection. He has, in this story, contrasted the natures
of two beautiful portionless girls, who by strange fortune are thrown,
during the same carnival, into the way of the two Marchesi Castelmare.
The one is an opera singer, the other a painter. The former resolves on
making a conquest of the elder nobleman, and the latter does win the
affections of the younger. The uncle is described as the pattern of the
highest virtue, of stone-cold passions, of infinite proprieties; and La
Lalli, the syren, succeeds during the carnival in bewitching, maddening,
and befooling him into promise of marriage, and inspiring the most
deadly jealousy of any interference with his claim. A noble nature is
ruined by the fierce fires of a foolish attachment, and most tragic are
the issues. We will not diminish the fascination of the story by
revealing its secret. _La diva Lalli_ is actually murdered on the very
day when the old marchese has publicly admitted his intention to marry
her, and everybody but the murderer seems to have run the risk of having
to bear the brunt of the charge. More than a volume is occupied with an
endeavour to answer the question, 'Who has done the deed?' There is more
delicacy, and subtlety, and meaning in the inquiry, than in the inquiry,
'Who killed Tulkinghorn?' and the reader is reminded of the
heart-searching of Mr. Browning's 'Ring and Book,' rather than of Mr.
Dickens's popular story. The story cannot be called pleasing or
profitable. It is a wonderful drawing, full of brilliant effects, and
crowded with narrative and suggestion. The style is clear, and the
Italian expletives and appellatives give it an operatic grace and
sweetness that are very attractive. If '_tesoro mio_' had been
translated 'duck of diamonds,' and the rest of the prettiness turned
into plain English, perhaps the blue sky and the _circolo_ and the
_carnival_ would have had to vanish likewise.
_Against Time._ By ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. Two vols. Smith, Elder and Co.
1870.
The machinery that Mr. Shand has contrived is clumsy, and looks like a
violent effort to be original. The hero of the story is put into
circumstances of maddening temptation to make money by unfair means. He
is exasperated by discovering that a relative has made him sole heir to
her vast estates, on the proviso that in the course of three years he
developes out of the few thousands that are left to him, a fortune equal
to that which he may then receive. On his failing to fulfil this
condition, the designation of the property is concealed from all except
a pair of contemptible villains, who endeavour to play a series of
underhand tricks to secure it ultimately for their own uses. The hero
came from the Kursaals of Germany to hear of this race that he had to
run 'against time,' and he is determined, by huge speculation, to win
the prize. The monetary scheme, the Credit Foncier and Mobilier of
Turkey, is described by one who has seen the eggs of many of these
vipers hatched in the sun of England's prosperity. There is a grandeur
about the conception, and a rapidity in the inflation of this great
balloon, that is enough to take away the breath of ordinary financiers.
The young aristocrat is the Ulysses in council, the Achilles in strife,
the Bayard _sans peur, sans reproche_; and though he makes, in the
course of three years, some quarter of a million sterling, and might
claim the possession of family estates, he has positively contrived to
withdraw the greater part of it from the 'concern,' and to have done it
without dishonour. He has been dabbling up to the elbows in boiling
pitch, and is neither scorched, nor blistered, nor defiled. Most
surprising is his nobility. When the bubble bursts, he has the
magnanimity and magnificence voluntarily to sacrifice his splendid
fortune, and more splendid prospects, at the shrine of the honour which
seems for a moment in the dust. Finally, of course it all turns out for
the best, and the young lady who has won the heart of the great
financier is prepared to second his sublime sacrifice, and as the two
are starting for Australia in beautiful poverty, it turns out that on
the bridegroom's failing to fulfil the conditions of the will, the
penniless bride has herself become the heiress of the immense estates,
and so the pair are happy ever after. There is much brilliant writing in
the story, some caustic satire, and a great deal of clever and pleasant
characterization.
_Diary of a Novelist._ By the Author of 'Rachel's Secret,' 'Nature's
Nobleman,' &c. Hurst and Blackett. 1871.
The title of this volume is attractive. What speculations and hopes are
excited by the mere announcement, 'Diary of a Novelist!' The secrets
into which curious readers have attempted to pry are about to be
unfolded, the originals of the characters described are to be revealed,
a real personal living interest is to surround the author's fictions
ever after. What would we give to have such a diary from the pen of
George Eliot or Charles Dickens! But amid such a rush of eager
anticipations, we turn to the book itself, and find that no explanations
are given--the authoress does not lift the veil. It is the journal of a
year's most striking thoughts and noteworthy experiences. The first
feeling is one of disappointment that the volume is so different from
our expectations; but disappointment soon changes into hearty admiration
and sincere gratitude. It is emphatically a good book. Sympathy with all
that is beautiful and noble pervades the whole, and it is written with
the ease of a practised hand. The rippling chat runs on through a
succession of bright sunny scenes, ever and anon deepening into shady
pools of profounder thought, and then again merrily hastening on its
way. We are permitted to read the aims of this novelist's life, so true,
pure, earnest, that we involuntarily exclaim, 'O si sic omnia!' There is
also a cheerful religiousness in this diary, which will equally surprise
those who think that a fiction-writer's only use is for amusement, and
those who indiscriminately condemn all novels as unmitigated evils. The
following sentence gives us the key-note of the book:--'I like to feel
that this fair earth, which God has made, which even now, where man has
not marred it, keeps the touch of his hand upon it still--breathes back
its life to Him in love. And so the whole world becomes to me at once a
Temple and a Home--a place for worship and for happy life: and I live in
it, not alone, but sharing with all created things in the great Father's
care, and joining with them in their many-voiced psalm of love and
praise.' The charming sketches of natural scenery show the touch of an
artist and a poet; the outline descriptions of character reveal the
writer as a keen observer of human life; while her reflections on some
of the tangled problems of the world tell us that she, too, has wrestled
with the mighty mystery, and found peace only in trust.
We notice an exuberance of enthusiasm which might be toned down with
advantage to the general style. The attempt to transcribe the Yorkshire
dialect is not successful; but, as we have ourselves failed in that
accomplishment, we appreciate the difficulty, and only notice the
fact--'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'
_The Iliad of the East._ By FREDERICK RICHARDSON. Macmillan.
The title of this book is of course _ad captandum_; the East has no
Iliad, in any intelligible sense. What is here offered us is a series of
legends, taken from Valmiki's Sanskrit poem, the 'Ramagana,' and taken
from the French version of M. Fauche. It is a readable little volume,
and may be recommended to those who desire to obtain some slight
knowledge of the early Sanskrit poetry. When we compare a work like the
Ramagana with the Iliad and Odyssey, we cannot avoid the conclusion that
in the Greek mind there existed a vivid view of poetry, which is quite
absent from the Hindoo mind. Rama's adventures are absurdly grotesque.
We meet garrulous vultures, chivalrous monkeys, and so forth. The
supreme imagination, which obtains a sublime effect by depicting
humanity in its intensest forms, as in Achilles, Diomed, Odysseus, as in
Helen, Andromache, Penelope, has no place in the Oriental poems. They
are childish, exaggerated, mere nursery tales. The theorists, foremost
among whom is Mr. Max Müller, who conceived that both the Greek and
Sanskrit poetry come from one source, ought assuredly to explain to us
why there exists so wide a difference between the Homeric poems and all
the Oriental cycle. Homer's epic, like the goddess Athene, seems to have
sprung perfect in person and panoply from the brain of its creator. The
Eastern pseudo-epics are mere strings of ridiculous stories, with no
definite connection, no beginning, middle, or end. This manifest
literary difference would appear to indicate some definite racial
difference. Valmiki is not an entirely unreadable author, but between
Homer and him there is about as much difference as between Shakespeare
and Quallon. Now, what the Sanskrit scholars ought surely to do for us
is to state some theory whereby to account for the fact that their
favourite language contains no literature worth perusal. There is
neither the poetry of the Greek nor the theosophy of the Hebrew in
Sanskrit. Hence we venture to infer that there is some innate racial
distinction as yet undiscovered by the modern ethnologist.
_John._ By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
Mrs. Oliphant's delicate touch in social description is too well known
for it to be necessary to dwell upon it here. She is one of the few
lady-novelists who improve as they go on; the truth being that she has
never sought to obtain startling effects by absurd means, but has always
studied nature and human nature. In 'John,' re-published from
_Blackwood's Magazine_, which is a novelette rather than a novel, she is
very felicitous. There is no more story than Canning's knife-grinder had
to tell: it is a mere love-tale, 'Silly sooth,' as Shakespeare hath it.
John is a country parson's son, and Kate is a banker's daughter, and she
is thrown from her horse near the parsonage, and has to be taken there,
and as she convalesces makes sad havoc with poor John. A simple story,
but charming in its simplicity. The _situation_ is well conceived. Dr.
Clifford is a worldly person; his son John is utterly unworldly;
Crediton, the banker, is a plutocrat of the first force; Kate is a
spoilt child, who means to have her own way in marriage. The end of it
all is easily conceivable; but the comedietta is played out with
consummate skill, especially by its heroine. We are less interested in
her lover than in her; and although doubtless Mrs. Oliphant is an able
nomenclator, we venture to think that the book would have more properly
represented its title if that title had been 'Kate.'
_From Thistles--Grapes?_ By Mrs. EILOART, Author of 'The Curate's
Discipline,' 'Meg,' &c., &c. In three vols. Richard Bentley, Publisher
in Ordinary to Her Majesty, New Burlington-street.
Given a bundle of thistles, how many bunches of grapes can it produce?
Answer, none. This theory Mrs. Eiloart seeks to develope to its fullest
extent; and, as a natural consequence, we find the miserable 'grapes,'
the son, dangling by the neck on the scaffold whither the testimony of
the 'thistles,' the unnatural parent, has sent him. There is nothing so
new or original in the plot of the novel as the title, which with its
note of interrogation at once arouses the interest of the reader, an
interest which unfortunately goes little further than the title-page.
The scene is laid in a cathedral town of England. Dr. Langton, a
sanctimonious divine, who has sown a terrible crop of wild oats, as well
as 'thistles' in his early youth, excites the enmity of one of his
parishioners, a ragged vagabond, who has been convicted of robbery, and
sentenced to one month's imprisonment in the county jail. The fellow,
having escaped from durance, is concealed by the hero till morning, and
succoured by the heroine in a wood, where he lies helpless and prostrate
from a sprained ankle. But unfortunately Dr. Langton, passing by that
way, discovers the poor wretch of whom the officers are in pursuit,
struggling amidst the brambles, and instantly gives the alarm. The
vagabond is consequently conveyed back to prison, muttering threats and
imprecations against his betrayer. From these preliminary incidents
arise a series of events, which, as they pass before us, we salute with
all the reverence to which they are entitled from their venerable age
and ancient service. But notwithstanding the long acquaintance we have
enjoyed, in the land of romance, with the greater part of the adventures
contained in these three volumes, some of them appear before us with
their old garments so delicately patched and mended with Mrs. Eiloart's
new materials that we willingly forget the proverbial weariness of the
thrice-told tale. The death of the heroine is well managed. The kindness
to the wretched offender, her efforts to drag him out of the mire into
the atmosphere of intelligence and feeling, meets with the usual result.
He becomes deeply enamoured of the sweet gentle girl according to the
brutal instincts of his nature, and pushes her through the wood even to
the brink of the precipice down which she is bent on throwing herself,
maddened as she is with the discovery of the hero's attachment to
another. The vagabond, whose brain is as usual muddled with beer,
suddenly becomes sobered at the sight of her peril, and rushes forward
to save her. Seizing her by the folds of her dress, the frail material
gives way, and a portion of it remaining in his hand and afterwards
found in his possession, becomes the circumstantial evidence, which
causes his arrest. Now the thistles come forward to bear witness to
having beheld the frantic flight of the girl through the wood, and the
subsequent appearance of the boor on the very spot where she had met
with her death. The testimony is crushing, the offender is condemned to
die, and mounts the scaffold proclaiming his innocence. The revelation
of the relationship in which he stands to his denouncer is made too
late, and Dr. Langton arrives with the proof of the young lady's
meditated suicide just in time to see his own illegitimate son swing in
mid-air as the drop falls, and the shoutings of the crowd announce that
all is over. The perseverance and tenacity of purpose which bear an
author through the labour of executing three goodly volumes unaided in
the task by incident, description, or dialogue, are beyond all praise.
'_Il est si facile de ne point écrire_,' exclaims Boileau. But the
lady-writers of modern times evidently reverse the saying--with them it
far more difficult to refrain.
_'Six Months Hence.'_ Being Passages from the Life of Maria _née_
Secretan. Three volumes. Smith, Elder and Co.
In the anonymous author of this story we have, we suspect, a new writer
of fiction, and of considerable power. The novel is mainly a
psychological one--although full of tragic incidents, and complicated in
its plot. Indeed, the story is constructed with a mechanical ingenuity,
which in the minuteness and mosaic of its incidents, is not unworthy of
the author of the 'Lady in White.' The story is told autobiographically
by the heroine, in a plain matter-of-fact way; full, however, of
psychological self-analysis that would do credit to the author of 'Dr.
Austin's Guests,' especially in the delineation of Fortescue's madness.
The heroine enters upon a situation as governess in the family of Mr.
Armitage, of Harcourt Villa, Hastings; who, being left a widower, with
a son and daughter, Charles and Helen, has married, a second time, a
woman of coarse nature and unscrupulous character, who has one son,
Fred, a little boy of six. A Mr. Fortescue, an accomplished and wealthy
young man, is a constant visitor at the villa, and is the presumptive
lover of Helen, although he has never declared his love. Helen, and
Maria, the governess, who are of the same age, become fast friends;
gradually, however, Mr. Fortescue transfers his attentions to Maria,
whose first guilt consists in yielding to ambitious desires, and
permitting in herself and Mr. Fortescue treachery to her friend. The
incipient attachment is strengthened by a long nursing of little Fred,
who meets with an accident; the rescue of Maria from the tide by Mr.
Fortescue precipitates matters, and they are secretly engaged to be
married; two or three days before the intended disclosure of the
engagement, and a few days before the intended marriage, Mr. Armitage
dies, having, through the machinations of his wife, made an iniquitous
will, whereby little Fred is made his heir in the event of his attaining
the age of twenty-one; should he die before that age, the estates revert
to the natural heir, no other provision being made. Maria and Mr.
Fortescue are married. On the very week of their arrival at Dalemain
Castle, Mr. Fortescue's seat in Cumberland, little Fred is
murdered,--Mr. Fortescue being absent from home on some business in
another part of Cumberland. Helen is suspected and tried; then suspicion
falls upon Charles, against whom circumstantial evidence is strong, and
public indignation stronger still. The mob at Lewes attempt to lynch him
on the day of his trial, and he receives injuries of which he dies. In
the meanwhile, Maria discovers that she has married a maniac, who
inherits the fatal taint from his grandmother. In the event of such a
contingency, by the grandfather's will, the property is to go to the
next heir. Now comes the struggle between Maria's cupidity and her
conscience; she tries to hide the fact of her husband's insanity, and
discovers that, under a strong hallucination, he has been the murderer
of little Fred. Again a struggle between selfishness and
conscience--Helen is accused of the murder, and Maria conceals the
evidence that will exculpate her, and, to put it out of her power to
save her, goes with her husband into Switzerland; there she hears that
the accusation is transferred to Charles, whom she has secretly but
passionately loved. What conscience would not do for Helen, love does
for Charles; she hastens to England with proofs of his innocence, but
arrives only in time to see him die of the injuries received from the
mob. All this is told with great power--the anatomy of selfishness in
herself, of madness in her husband, and of love in Helen and Charles is
very masterly, and almost painfully minute. The story is one of intense
interest, and gives promise of another powerful writer of fiction, who,
notwithstanding the feminine autobiography, and the minute analysis of
female passions, is, we suspect, of the sterner sex.
_The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson_. By One of the Firm.
Edited by ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Smith, Elder, and Co.
Mr. Trollope has, in this little _brochure_, essayed the epic of modern
advertising. The following sentences epitomise the moral
thereof:--Robinson, _loquitur_--'Did you ever believe an advertisement?
Jones, in self-defence, protested that he never had. And why should
others be more simple than you? No man, no woman, believes them. They
are not lies; for it is not intended they should obtain credit. I should
despise the man who attempted to build his advertisement on a system of
facts, as I should the builder who lays his foundation on the sand. The
groundwork of advertisement is romance. It is poetry in its very
essence. Is Hamlet true?'
'I really do not know,' said Mr. Brown.
'There is no man, to my thinking, so false,' continued Robinson, 'as he
who in trade professes to be true. He deceives, or endeavours to do so.
I do not. Advertisements are profitable; not because they are believed,
but because they attract attention.'
_Per contra._ 'The ticketing of goods at prices below their value is not
to our taste, but the purchasing of such goods is less so. The lady who
will take advantage of a tradesman, that she may fill her house with
linen, or cover her back with finery, at his cost, and in a manner which
her own means would not fairly permit, is, in our estimation, a robber.
Why is it that commercial honesty has so seldom charms for women? A
woman who would give away the last shawl from her back will insist on
smuggling her gloves through the Custom-house. Is not the passion for
cheap purchases altogether a female mania? And yet every cheap
purchase--every purchase made at a rate so cheap as to deny the vendor
his fair profit, is, in truth, a dishonesty--a dishonesty to which the
purchaser is indirectly a party. Would that woman could be taught to
hate bargains! How much less useless trash would there be in our houses,
and how much fewer tremendous sacrifices in our shops?'
Those who read in the _Cornhill Magazine_ this sketch of the advertising
firm, its wonderful puffs, and the sensations they caused in
Bishopsgate; with the unromantic, hard, business-like match-making which
is interwoven with it, will remember with what a keen and somewhat
cynical satire, too much upon a dead realistic level perhaps, the story
is told. Those who have not read it there, are recommended to make
themselves acquainted with it. It is but 'An Editor's Tale,' but its
moral is wholesome and timely.
_Mariette; or, Further Glimpses of Life in France_. A Sequel to Marie.
Bell and Daldy.
This story of humble life in the French provinces is intended as a
sequel to that of 'Marie,' and is a mere narrative of events occurring
in the daily existence of the humblest of serving women, who reports the
sayings and doings of her masters, through the incidents, political and
municipal, occurring in the good town of Nantes, where they reside. The
book is amusing enough, a sort of French country town chronicle, such a
record as Mrs. Gaskell would now and then give us of English life under
the same conditions; there is nothing in it to stir the
passions--nothing to irritate or vex; but on the other hand, nothing to
soothe or calm the nerves. It resembles a long unbroken chant, as if
from the lips of an aged crone, which neither commands the attention of
the listener nor prevents him from bestowing it on anything else, and
yet is regretted when it is over, simply because the scenes, the
characters, the conversations are all familiar to our memory, and
hallowed by long association. The little volume possesses one charm of
its own. It is written without the smallest pretension, easy and simple
in style, and delicately subdued in sentiment, in keeping with the
character and station of the supposed narrator.
_Lorna Doone._ A Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. BLACKMORE. Sampson Low.
We spoke of this novel when it first appeared in almost the highest
terms of commendation that we could command. A re-perusal of it only
confirms our impression, that in scholarly conscientiousness, artistic
skill, and romantic interest, it more nearly approaches the best of the
Waverley novels than any fiction that has appeared since then. We can
give it no higher praise. We only wonder that it has so tardily won the
honours of a cheap edition.
_The Victory of the Vanquished._ A Tale of the First Century. By the
Author of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. T. Nelson and Co.
In her new story, Mrs. Charles has ventured to tread the oft-trodden
paths of the age of the Incarnation, and with a delicacy, grace, and
devout tenderness that perhaps none of her predecessors have attained.
The story opens in Rome in the year A.D. 17. Its personages are a
captive German family, brought to Rome by Germanicus--slaves in his
household, first becoming acquainted with the pagan life at Rome, then
with the heaving Jewish life, which He who was Immanuel was stirring to
its depths. Jew and Roman, Greek and Christian represent the various
classes of contemporary life. Mrs. Charles is too refined and reverent
an artist to bring us into the actual presence of him who taught in
Capernaum; but we vividly feel and realize his life; and Siguna and her
children, Seivord and Hilda, and Laon, the old Greek, and Cloelia
Diodora, the Roman maiden, find its salvation. A more beautiful,
pellucid, and tender story has rarely been written.
_Chips from a German Workshop._ By F. MAX MULLER, M.A., Foreign Member
of the French Institute, &c. Vol. III., Essays on Literature, Biography,
and Antiquities. Longmans, Green, and Co.
The first and second volumes of Mr. Max Müller's occasional essays on
the subject of comparative mythology, and on the so-called science of
religious development, received the modest and quaint title of 'Chips
from a German Workshop.' Our author has given the stress of his energy
and the prime of his life to great undertakings. His edition of the
'Rig-Veda,' and now his elaborate translation and interpretation of its
hymns, have not prevented his delivering important courses of lectures
on the Science of Language. The great assistance he rendered to Baron
Bunsen in his Oriental and philological speculations has been abundantly
recognised by all students of the greater works of Bunsen. But
scientific scholarship on this high scale has brought our author into
contact with other and allied themes of literary research; and we find
in the present volume a reprint of sixteen additional essays, of varied
interest and merit, which greatly enhance our idea of the wide extent of
Mr. Max Müller's scholarship, and are, moreover, of a class which may be
safely commended to the general reader. Comparative grammar is clearly
the key which this accomplished student of ancient and modern languages
is tempted to use on all occasions, and for the solution of all puzzles,
historical, theological, political, and even scientific. His keen and
penetrating eye sees analogies, histories, reaches of civilization,
bonds and bars of fellowship, in non-extant words, where one less
trained to the business would utterly fail to discover them; and his
linguistic omniscience makes us, in our ignorance, not seldom feel that
he is too clever by half, and that his conclusions come almost too 'pat'
upon his speculative theses. Be this as it may, we thank him very
heartily for the exceeding refreshment and peculiar charm of this
volume. The three articles on 'Cornish Antiquities,' on the question
'Are there Jews in Cornwall?' and on 'the Insulation of St. Michael's
Mount,' which were written in 1867, form a trilogy of extreme interest.
We have seldom read anything more perfect or complete in its way than
his demolition of Mr. Pengelly's plausible theory, that the Cornish
language was spoken before the insulation of St. Michael's Mount, in
Cornwall, could have taken place; even though, geologically speaking,
that event must be thrown back from 16,000 to 20,000 years. His learned
refutation of the idea that Jews worked in the mines of Cornwall, in
part effected by the discovery of the true etymology of the name of the
town Marazion, on which so much had been built, and his instructive
exposition of the nature and value of the Cornish antiquities and
language, will well repay perusal.
The gem of the volume is the eloquent and affectionate tribute to the
memory of Bunsen, in the form of a review of his memoirs. To these Max
Müller has now added a valuable postscript, in a selection of some
hundred letters addressed to himself by the great scholar and
diplomatist. They are charged with kindly and generous feeling, and with
noble enthusiasm; and they give fresh insight into Bunsen's astounding
activity, far-reaching glance, and prodigious range of literary
endeavour. They would many of them be more intelligible if they were
read in their proper place in his biography; but the perusal of them
recalls the zest with which three years ago the memoirs of this great
man were devoured rather than read. We are not surprised that M. Müller
should say, 'It has been my good fortune in life to have known many men
whom the world calls great philosophers, statesmen, scholars, artists,
and poets; but take it all in all, take the full humanity of the man, I
have never seen, and I shall never see his like again.'
One of the essays to which we would direct special attention is that on
the language and poetry of Schleswig-Holstein. The biographical articles
on Schiller, and Wilhelm Müller, and some of the shorter 'chips' on 'Ye
Schyppe of Fools,' 'Old German Love-songs,' and on 'A German Traveller
in England, A.D. 1598,' are racy, and highly entertaining.
_The World of Moral and Religious Anecdote; Illustrations and Incidents
gathered from the Words, Thoughts, and Deeds in the Lives of Men, Women,
and Books_. By EDWIN PAXTON HOOD. Hodder and Stoughton.
Mr. Hood is a man who reads everything, and who, making allowance for
such slight inaccuracies as are characteristic of voracious readers,
forgets nothing that he has read. It would be difficult to name a man
better qualified to compile a volume of anecdotes. We wish, however, he
would not call Samuel Bailey, the thoughtful author of the 'Essays on
the Formation and Publication of Opinions,' Bail_lie_. Eccentricities of
this kind are frequent in Mr. Hood's writings, and not easy to be
accounted for.
The volume published by Mr. Hood, under the more general title 'The
World of Anecdote,' has met with a reception so favourable, that he has
published this companion volume, 'The World of Religious Anecdote,'
filled with anecdotes of religious men or things, gathered from a very
wide circle of religious biography and history, and from all imaginable
miscellaneous sources--from a quarterly review to a newspaper. Mr. Hood
does not exaggerate the importance and significance of anecdote, either
in history or biography; if exactly told, such incidents as constitute
anecdote, indicate the movement or the man, more truthfully than formal
disquisition. We do not pretend to have read through Mr. Hood's
volume--this would be a task, less arduous only than to read through a
dictionary--but we have read enough of it cordially to commend it as a
repertory of many things that are both new and good, and of some that
are neither.
_The Essays of an Optimist_. By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE. Smith, Elder, and Co.
Mr. Kaye tells us that he had no particular design when writing these
papers; no purpose, that is, of illustrating any special philosophy.
They were not to him a serious work--they were 'holiday tasks, written
by snatches, and sent off piece by piece as they were written; the loose
thoughts of a loose thinker, desultory, discursive,' written away from
books, 'in country inns, or sea-side lodgings, or other strange places
far away from home.' Criticism is exonerated from dealing in any serious
way with a book so produced. Literature is not thus achieved.
Cameo-cutting should be as artistic and patient as _genre_ painting. Mr.
Kaye is pleasantly garrulous, and intelligently superficial. He writes
as one would write good letters; and what he writes is very pleasant to
read. He throws the regulating good sense of a sober well-informed man
upon such matters as Holidays, Work, Success, Growing Old, Toleration,
&c. He has done and can do good work; therefore we accept with a certain
degree of interest these 'chips.'
_A Book of Golden Thoughts_. By HENRY ATTWELL, Knight of the Order of
the Oak Crown, &c. Macmillan and Co.
This is one of the most charming volumes of the Golden Treasury series.
The author, with rare discernment and fine taste, has selected the
richest, sweetest thoughts of our greatest and wisest teachers on a
marvellous variety of themes, but all tending in the direction of high
spiritual culture. The apothegms or longer passages extracted from
French or German writers are translated with delicate tact and placed in
an appendix. The words of Pascal--_J'ecrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre,
et non pas peut-être dans une confusion sans dessein: c'est le veritable
ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le désordre même_--are
placed at the head of the volume. It would take a long time to try and
unravel the design of Mr. Attwell, but whoever wishes to have the
choicest words of Bacon, Pascal, Montesquieu, Goethe, Ruskin, Helps, and
many others, may find them here brought together into small compass, and
presented in a very attractive form.
_Publications of the Early English Text Society_. 1870. Extra Series.
Trübner and Co.
X.--_The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, made by Andrewe
Boorde, of Physycke Doctor_.
_A Compendyus Regyment, or a Dyetary of Helth_. By the same Author.
_Barnes in Defence of the Berde_.
XI.--_The Bruce_. By Master JOHN BARLOWE, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, A.D.
1375.
These issues are not quite according to the Society's programme in their
report of January last, which, stated that three or four other works
besides the first part of the 'Bruce' were in the press for their extra
series of 1870, and made no mention of the volume which Mr. Furnivall
has edited. Indeed, the opportunity for his undertaking this work did
not, he tells us, occur until February, when he purchased an early copy
of the Dyetary at Mr. Corser's sale.
Dr. Andrew Boorde or Borde, was a Carthusian monk of Henry the Eighth's
time, who 'was dyspensyd of the religion,' whatever that may mean--a
point obscure to Mr. Furnivall--travelled over a great part of Europe,
and returned to practise as a physician, having for his patient the Duke
of Norfolk, when that great noble was in the Royal favour. Of several
works which the Doctor wrote, Mr. Furnivall has printed two; in a
preface and epilogue which he is pleased to style 'Forewords and
Hindwords,' are collected many particulars of the author's life, and
long extracts from others of his writings. 'The Introduction of
Knowledge' is a book of travel, partly in rhyme, giving characteristics
and specimens of the languages of the several countries the author had
visited. The Dyetary is a book of hygiène, containing many prescriptions
which modern physicians would approve. Both tracts abound in quaint,
curious, and shrewd remarks. One of the Doctor's last works was a
treatise on beards, which he seems to have condemned, and to have
advocated shaving. For this Mr. Furnivall, who 'left off the absurdity
some three years before his neighbours,' thinks him 'a noodle,' as it
seems did 'Barnes, whoever he may be,' whose defence of the Berde is
here printed. There is, however, some reason to suppose that the learned
editor thinks Barnes was a noodle also. The subject is clearly a pet
with him.
The 'Bruce' is well-known, and has been frequently reprinted, editions
having appeared as lately as 1856 and 1869. The last was issued after
Mr. Skeat had begun his labours; but its character was not such as to
lead the Society to desire less the completion of their own edition.
About half the poem is now printed. Mr. Skeat's preface and glossarial
index await the publication of the second part. John Barlowe was the
contemporary of Wycliffe, Chaucer, and Gower, and his poem is a worthy
member of the group of noble works which were the first fruits of
English literature. It may be called English, now that Scotland and
England have a common inheritance, though it is a Scot's story of his
countrymen's resistance to the dictation and encroachment of the English
king, and the Archdeacon would doubtless have scorned and repudiated the
epithet. The subject-matter of the poem is a great one. It tells how, on
the death of King Alexander, a doubt arose, whether, according to the
true law of inheritance, the Bruce or the Baliol ought to succeed to the
throne; how the dispute was referred to the arbitration of the English
Edward,--
'For that the king of Ingland
Held swylk freyndship and company
To thar king, that was swa worthy
Thai trowyt that he as gud nychtbur,
And as freyndsome compositur
Wald have Iugyt in lawtes;'
how, instead of judging loyally, he seized the opportunity for insisting
on his own claim to a feudal superiority over the Scottish crown,
deciding for the Balliol because he 'Assentyt till him in all his will,'
while the Bruce replied,--
Schyr, said he, sa God me save,
The kynryk zham I nocht to have,
Bot gyff it full off rycht to me:
And gyff God will that it sa be,
I sall as frely in all thing
Hald it, as it afferis to king;
Or as myn eldris foronch me
Held it in freyast reawte;'
how English invasion and Scottish insurrection followed, and how the
long-baffled Bruce fought out his triumph. The story is told with
archaic simplicity, but with much grace of diction.
_The Riches of Chaucer, &c._ By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. Second Edition,
carefully Revised. Lockwood and Co.
_Tales from Chaucer in Prose, designed chiefly for the use of Young
Persons_. By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. Second Edition, carefully Revised.
Lockwood and Co.
Mr. Clarke is a veteran in the field of Shakespearian literature;
although this is not necessarily a qualification for the exposition of
Chaucer, who lived two centuries and a quarter earlier, and at the very
dawn of our literature: the scholarly character of his Shakespearian
work, however, is a presumption in favour of a worthy presentation of
Chaucer. The work itself justifies this presumption. The first of these
volumes is an expurgated, modernized, and accentuated edition of
Chaucer. Scholars, or perhaps we should say, pedants, will likely enough
turn up their noses at this, and pour upon Mr. Clarke the ridicule that
has been the meed of Bowdler; but Chaucer and Shakespeare stand in
different relations to modern popular readers. To such the archaic
language of Chaucer makes him simply unintelligible, while his
coarseness absolutely excludes him _puerisque virginibus_. No idolatry
of English literature can warrant a parent in putting Chaucer as he is
into the hands of his children. Nor can much moral benefit accrue to
anyone from his perusal. If, therefore, Chaucer is to be a popular book
at all, to be read by any but scholars, both processes are essential.
Mr. Clarke has every desirable qualification for the work, which demands
both a scholar and an artist. The accentuation of the rhythm too will be
a great help to unpractised readers. This edition of Chaucer may be put
into the hands of young people and modest women, with the assurance also
that it will be easily understood and thoroughly enjoyed. We trust that
through it our first and one of our greatest poets will be introduced
into schools and homes, and win a popularity hitherto denied him.
The second volume is an attempt to reproduce the Tales of Chaucer in
modern prose after the manner of Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare.' This
is a far more arduous undertaking. Mr. Clarke tells us that he has
endeavoured to render the poetry in as easy prose as he could, without
at the same time destroying the poetical description and strong natural
expressions of the author. Some of the long discussions are omitted, as
of course is all that is offensive in coarse expression or allusion. The
task has been difficult. 'I was,' Mr. Clarke says, 'to be at one and the
same time modernly antique, prosaically poetic, and comprehensively
concise.' That he has succeeded in so large a degree is very high merit.
We trust his little volume will be widely read.