BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCXXXIV AUGUST, 1843. VOL. LIV.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.

Contents

[FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.]
[A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.]
[CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY.]
[EXHIBITIONS]
[MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.]
[THE DEVIL'S FRILLS.]
[ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.]
[COMMERCIAL POLICY—EUROPE]
[JOLLY FATHER JOE]
[THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.]
[LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ.]
[THE REPEAL AGITATION.]

FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.

PART THE LAST.

We here close our attempts to convey to the English reader some notion, however inadequate, of the genius and mind of Schiller. It is in these Poems, rather, perhaps, than in his Dramas and Prose works, that the upright earnestness of the mind, and the rich variety of the genius, are best displayed. Here, certainly, can best be seen that peculiar union of intellect and imagination which Mr Carlyle has so well distinguished as Schiller's characteristic attribute, and in which it would be difficult to name the modern poet by whom he is surpassed; and here the variety of the genius is least restrained and limited by the earnestness of the mind. For Schiller's variety is not that of Shakspeare, a creative and universal spirit, passing with the breath of life into characters the most diverse, and unidentified with the creations its invisible agency invokes. But it is the variety of one in whom the consciousness of his own existence is never laid aside; shown not so much in baring the minds and hearts of others, as in developing the progress and the struggles of his own, in the infinite gradations of joy and of sorrow, of exquisite feeling and solemn thought. Hence, in the drama, arise his faults and deficiencies; in his characters, he himself speaks. They are gigantic images of his own moods at different epochs of his life—impassioned with Moor—philosophizing with Posa—stately, tranquil, and sad, with Wallenstein. But as, in his dramas, this intense perception of self—this earnest, haunting consciousness—this feeling of genius as a burden, and of life as a religion—interferes with true dramatic versatility; so, on the contrary, these qualities give variety in his poems to the expositions of a mind always varying, always growing—always eager to think, and sensitive to feel. And his art loved to luxuriate in all that copious fertility of materials which the industry of a scholar submitted to the mastery of a poet; to turn to divine song whatever had charmed the study or aroused the thought: philosophy, history, the dogma, or the legend, all repose in the memory to bloom in the verse. The surface of knowledge apparent in his poems is immense; and this alone suffices to secure variety in thought. But the aspiring and ardent nature of his intellect made him love to attempt also constant experiments in the theme and in the style. The romantic ballad, the classical tale, the lyric, the didactic, the epigrammatic—the wealth of his music comprehended every note, the boldness of his temper adventured every hazard. Yet still, (as in our Byron, in our Goldsmith, and as, perhaps, in every mind tenacious of its impressions,) some favourite ideas take possession of him so forcibly, as to be frequently repeated as important truths. The sacred and majestic office of the poet—the beauty of ideal life, (in which the author of the "Robbers" and "William Tell" deemed, at last, that the only liberty was to be found)—the worship of Virtue and the Beautiful, for their own sake, and without hope of reward;—these, and many ideas minor to, and proceeding from them, revisit us in a thousand tones of eloquent and haunting music.

Reluctantly we tear ourselves from a task which has indeed been a labour of love. Many poets may inspire as high an admiration as Schiller; few so tender a personal affection. Even in his doubts and his errors, we have that interest in his struggles which arises from the conviction of his sound heart and his manly nature. Wrestling at one time with bitter poverty, at one with unhappy passion—lonely in his habits, prematurely broken in his health, his later wisdom dispelling his early dreams of Utopian liberty—still, throughout all, his bravery never fails him, his gentleness is never soured; his philanthropy changes its form, but it is never chilled. Even when he wanders into error, it is from his search for truth. That humanity which the French writers of the last century sought to preach, Schiller took from the scoffing wit of Voltaire, and the unhealthy enthusiasm of Rousseau, to invest it with the thoughtful sweetness and the robust vigour of his own great soul. And we believe that no one can depart from the attentive study of that divine bequest he has left the world, without a more serious respect for virtue, and a more genial affection for mankind.

E. Lytton Bulwer.

SECOND PERIOD.

The Poems included in the Second Period of Schiller's literary career are few, but remarkable for their beauty, and deeply interesting from the struggling and anxious state of mind which some of them depict. It was, both to his taste and to his thought, a period of visible transition. He had survived the wild and irregular power which stamps, with fierce and somewhat sensual characters, the productions of his youth; but he had not attained that serene repose of strength—that calm, bespeaking depth and fulness, which is found in the best writings of his maturer years. In point of style, the Poems in this division have more facility and sweetness than those that precede them, and perhaps more evident vigour, more popular verve and gusto, than some that follow: in point of thought, they mark that era through which few men of inquisitive and adventurous genius—of sanguine and impassioned temperament—and of education chiefly self-formed, undisciplined, and imperfect, have failed to pass—the era of doubt and gloom, of self-conflict, and of self-torture.—In the "Robbers," and much of the poetry written in the same period of Schiller's life, there is a bold and wild imagination, which attacks rather than questions—innovates rather than examines—seizes upon subjects of vast social import, that float on the surface of opinion, and assails them with a blind and half-savage rudeness, according as they offend the enthusiasm of unreasoning youth. But now this eager and ardent mind had paused to contemplate; its studies were turned to philosophy and history—a more practical knowledge of life (though in this last, Schiller, like most German authors, was ever more or less deficient in variety and range) had begun to soften the stern and fiery spirit which had hitherto sported with the dangerous elements of social revolution. And while this change was working, before its feverish agitation subsided into that Kantism which is the antipodes of scepticism, it was natural that, to the energy which had asserted, denounced, and dogmatized, should succeed the reaction of despondency and distrust. Vehement indignation at "the solemn plausibilities" of the world pervades the "Robbers." In "Don Carlos," (commenced in this period, though published much later,) the passion is no longer vehement indignation, but mournful sorrow—not indignation that hypocrisy reigns, but sorrow that honesty cannot triumph—not indignation that formal vice usurps the high places of the world, but sorrow that, in the world, warm and generous virtue glows, and feels, and suffers—without reward. So, in the poems of this period, are two that made a considerable sensation at their first appearance—"The Conflict," published originally under the title of "The Freethinking of Passion," and "Resignation." They present a melancholy view of the moral struggles in the heart of a noble and virtuous man. From the first of these poems, Schiller, happily and wisely, at a later period of his life, struck the passages most calculated to offend. What hand would dare restore them? The few stanzas that remain still suggest the outline of dark and painful thoughts, which is filled up in the more elaborate, and, in many respects, most exquisite, poem of "Resignation." Virtue exacting all sacrifices, and giving no reward—Belief which denies enjoyment, and has no bliss save its own illusions; such is the sombre lesson of the melancholy poet—the more impressive because so far it is truth—deep and everlasting truth—but only, to a Christian, a part of truth. Resignation, so sad if not looking beyond the earth, becomes joy, when assured and confident of heaven. Another poem in this intermediate collection was no less subjected to severe animadversion, but with infinitely less justice. We mean "The Gods of Greece." This lament for the beautiful old mythology, is but the lament of a poet for the ancient founts of poetry; and few, now-a-days, can be literal enough to suppose it seriously intended to set up Paganism, to the disparagement of Christianity. But the fact is, that Schiller's mind was so essentially religious, that we feel more angry, when he whom we would gladly hail as our light and guide, only darkens us or misleads, than we should, with a less grave and reverent genius. Yet a period—a transition state—of doubt and despondency is perhaps common to men in proportion to their natural dispositions to faith and veneration. With them, it comes from keen sympathy with undeserved sufferings—from wrath at wickedness triumphant—from too intense a brooding over the great mysteries involved in the government of the world. Scepticism of this nature can but little injure the frivolous, and will be charitably regarded by the wise. Schiller's mind soon outgrew the state which, to the mind of a poet, above all men, is most ungenial, but the sadness which the struggle bequeathed, seems to have wrought a complete revolution in all his preconceived opinions. The wild creator of the "Robbers," drunk with liberty, and audacious against all restraint, becomes the champion of "Holy Order,"—the denouncer of the French republic—the extoller of an Ideal Life, which should entirely separate Genius the Restless from Society the Settled. And as his impetuous and stormy vigour matured into the lucent and tranquil art of "Der Spaziergang," "Wallenstein," and "Die Braut von Messina," so his philosophy threw itself into calm respect for all that custom sanctioned, and convention hallowed.

But even during the painful transition, of which, in his minor poems, glimpses alone are visible, Scepticism, with Schiller, never insults the devoted, or mocks the earnest mind. It may have sadness—but never scorn. It is the question of a traveller who has lost his way in the great wilderness, but who mourns with his fellow-seekers, and has no bitter laughter for their wanderings from the goal. This division begins, indeed, with a Hymn which atones for whatever pains us in the two whose strain and spirit so gloomily contrast it, viz. the matchless and immortal "Hymn to Joy"—a poem steeped in the very essence of all-loving and all-aiding, Christianity—breathing the enthusiasm of devout yet gladsome adoration, and ranking amongst the most glorious bursts of worship which grateful Genius ever rendered to the benign Creator.

And it is peculiarly noticeable, that, whatever Schiller's state of mind upon theological subjects at the time that this hymn was composed, and though all doctrinal stamp and mark be carefully absent from it, it is yet a poem that never could have been written but in a Christian age, in a Christian land—but by a man whose whole soul and heart had been at one time (nay, was at the very moment of composition) inspired and suffused with that firm belief in God's goodness and His justice—that full assurance of rewards beyond the grave—that exulting and seraphic cheerfulness which associates joy with the Creator—and that animated affection for the Brotherhood of Mankind, which Christianity—and Christianity alone, in its pure, orthodox, gospel form, needing no aid from schoolman or philosopher—taught and teaches. Would, for objects higher than the praise which the ingenuity of labour desires and strives for—would that some faint traces of the splendour which invests the original, could attend the passage of thoughts so noble and so tender, from the verse of a poet to the rhyme of a translator!

Hymn To Joy.

Spark from the fire that Gods have fed—
Joy—thou Elysian Child divine,
Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
The heart that Custom from the other
Divides, thy charms again unite,
And man in man but hails a brother,
Wherever rest thy wings of light.

Chorus—Embrace ye millions—let this kiss,
Brothers, embrace the earth below!
You starry worlds that shine on this,
One common Father know!

He who this lot from fate can grasp—
Of one true friend the friend to be,—
He who one faithful maid can clasp,
Shall hold with us his jubilee;
Yes, each who but one single heart
In all the earth can claim his own!—
Let him who cannot, stand apart,
And weep beyond the pale, alone!

Chorus—Homage to holy Sympathy,
Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
Up to yon Star-pavilions—she
Leads to the Unknown King!

All being drinks the mother-dew
Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
And Vice and Worth her steps pursue—
We trace them by the blossom.
Hers Love's sweet kiss—the grape's rich treasure,
That cheers Life on to Death's abode;
Joy in each link—the worm has pleasure,
The Cherub has the smile of God!

Chorus—Why bow ye down—why down—ye millions?
O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
Look upward-search the Star-pavilions:
There must His mansion be!

Joy is the mainspring in the whole
Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great Timepiece of Creation;
Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
Joy beckons—suns come forth from heaven;
Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,
Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!

Chorus—Joyous as Suns careering gay
Along their royal paths on high,
March, Brothers, march our dauntless way,
As Chiefs to Victory!

Joy, from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
Joy leads to Virtue Man's desires,
And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
The gales her waving banners buoy;
And through the shattered vaults of Death,
Springs to the choral Angels-Joy!

Chorus—Bear this life, millions, bravely bear—
Bear this life for the Better One!
See ye the Stars?—a life is there,
Where the reward is won.

Man never can the gods requite;
How fair alike to gods to be!
Where want and woe shall melt in light
That plays round Bliss eternally!
Revenge and Hatred both forgot;
No foe, the deadliest, unforgiven;
With smiles that tears can neighbour not;
No path can lead Regret to Heaven!

Chorus—Let all the world be peace and love—
Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
For God shall judge of us above,
As we shall judge each other!

Joy sparkles to us from the bowl—
Behold the juice whose golden colour
To meekness melts the savage soul,
And gives Despair a Hero's valour.
Up, brothers!—Lo, we crown the cup!
Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
Let the bright Fount spring heavenward!—Up!
To The Good Spirit this glass!—To Him!

Chorus—Praised by the ever-whirling ring
Of Stars, and tuneful Seraphim—
To The Good Spirit—the Father-King
In Heaven!—This glass to Him!

Strong-hearted Hope to Sorrow's sloth;
Swift aid to guiltless Woe;
Eternity to plighted Troth;
Truth just to Friend and Foe;
Proud men before the throne to stand;
(These things are worth the dying!)
Good fortune to the Honest, and
Confusion to the Lying!

Chorus—Draw closer in the holy ring,
Sworn by the wine-cup's golden river—
Sworn by the Stars, and by their King,
To keep our vow for ever!

The Invincible Armada.

She comes, she comes—the Burthen of the Deeps!
Beneath her wails the Universal Sea!
With clanking chains and a new God, she sweeps,
And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
The ocean-castles and the floating hosts—
Ne'er on their like, look'd the wild waters!—Well
May man the monster name "Invincible."
O'er shudd'ring waves she gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim
Just title to her haughty name.
The trembling Neptune quails
Under the silent and majestic forms;
The Doom of Worlds in those dark sails;—
Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the Storms

Before thee the array,
Blest island, Empress of the Sea!
The sea-born squadrons threaten thee,
And thy great heart, Britannia!
Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud—
She rests, a thunder heavy in its cloud!
Who, to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave,
That thou should'st be the sovereign of the nations?
To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave,
Till Freedom dug from Law its deep foundations;
The mighty CHART thy citizens made kings,
And kings to citizens sublimely bow'd!
And thou thyself, upon thy realm of water,
Hast thou not render'd millions up to slaughter,
When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings
The sceptre—and the shroud?
What should'st thou thank?—Blush, Earth, to hear and feel:
What should'st thou thank?—Thy genius and thy steel.
Behold the hidden and the giant fires!
Behold thy glory trembling to its fall!
Thy coming doom the round earth shall appall,
And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee,
And all free souls their fate in shine foresee—
Theirs is thy glory's fall!
One look below the Almighty gave,
Where stream'd the lion-flags of thy proud foe;
And near and wider yawn'd the horrent grave.
"And who," saith HE, "shall lay mine England low—
The stem that blooms with hero-deeds—
The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs—
The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain?
Who shall bid England vanish from the main?
Ne'er be this only Eden freedom knew,
Man's stout defence from Power, to Fate consign'd."
God the Almighty blew,
And the Armada went to every wind!

The Conflict.

No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
The conflict Duty claims—the giant task;—
Thy spells, O Virtue, never can assuage
The heart's wild fire—this offering do not ask!

True, I have sworn—a solemn vow have sworn,
That I myself will curb the self within;
Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn—
Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.

Rent be the contract I with thee once made;—
She loves me, loves me—forfeit be thy crown!
Blest he who, lull'd in rapture's dreamy shade,
Glides, as I glide, the deep fall gladly down.

She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays,
She sees my springtime wasted as it flees;
And, marv'ling at the rigour that gainsays
The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees.

Distrust this angel purity, fair soul!
It is to guilt thy pity armeth me;
Could Being lavish its unmeasured whole,
It ne'er could give a gift to rival Thee!

Thee—the dear guilt I ever seek to shun,
O tyranny of fate, O wild desires!
My virtue's only crown can but be won
In that last breath—when virtue's self expires!

Resignation.

And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,
And Nature seem'd to woo me;
And to my cradle such sweet joys were sworn:
And I, too, was amidst Arcadia born,
Yet the short spring gave only tears unto me!
Life but one blooming holiday can keep—
For me the bloom is fled;
The silent Genius of the Darker Sleep
Turns down my torch—and weep, my brethren, weep—
Weep, for the light is dead!
Upon thy bridge the shadows round me press,
O dread Eternity!
And I have known no moment that can bless;—
Take back this letter meant for Happiness—
The seal's unbrokenen—see!
Before thee, Judge, whose eyes the dark-spun veil
Conceals, my murmur came;
On this our orb a glad belief prevails,
That, thine the earthly sceptre and the scales,
Requiter is thy name.

Terrors, they say, thou cost for Vice prepare,
And joys the good shall know;
Thou canst the crooked heart unmask and bare;
Thou canst the riddle of our fate declare,
And keep account with Woe.
With thee a home smiles for the exiled one—
There ends the thorny strife.
Unto my side a godlike vision won,
Called Truth, (few know her, and the many shun,)
And check'd the reins of life.
"I will repay thee in a holier land—
Give thou to me thy youth;
All I can grant thee lies in this command."
I heard, and, trusting in a holier land,
Gave my young joys to Truth.

"Give me thy Laura—give me her whom Love
To thy heart's core endears;
The usurer, Bliss, pays every grief—above!"
I tore the fond shape from the bleeding love,
And gave—albeit with tears!
"What bond can bind the Dead to life once more?
Poor fool," (the scoffer cries;)
"Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore
That gives for Truth a shadow;—life is o'er
When the delusion dies!"
"Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn,
"Before the vain deceit?
Made holy but by custom, stale and worn,
The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born—
The sick world's solemn cheat?
What is this Future underneath the stone?
But for the veil that hides, revered alone;
The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown
On Conscience' troubled glass—
Life's lying likeness—in the dreary shroud
Of the cold sepulchre—
Embalm'd by Hope—Time's mummy—which the proud
Delirium, driv'ling through thy reason's cloud,
Calls 'Immortality!'
Giv'st thou for hope (corruption proves its lie)
Sure joy that most delights us?
Six thousand years has Death reign'd tranquilly!—
Nor one corpse come to whisper those who die,
What after death requites us!"
Along Time's shores I saw the Seasons fly;
Nature herself, interr'd
Among her blooms, lay dead; to those who die
There came no corpse to whisper Hope! Still I
Clung to the Godlike Word.
Judge!—All my joys to thee did I resign,
All that did most delight ne;
And now I kneel—man's scorn I scorn'd—thy shrine
Have I adored—Thee only held divine—
Requiter, now requite me!
"For all my sons an equal love I know,
And equal each condition,"
Answer'd an unseen Genius—"See below,
Two flowers, for all who rightly seek them, blow—
The Hope and the Fruition.
He who has pluck'd the one, resign'd must see
The sister's forfeit bloom:
Let Unbelief enjoy—Belief must be
All to the chooser;—the world's history
Is the world's judgment doom.
Thou hast had Hope—in thy belief thy prize—
Thy bliss was centred in it:
Eternity itself—(Go ask the Wise!)
Never to him who forfeits, resupplies
The sum struck from the Minute!"

The Gods Of Greece.

1.

Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world—a world how lovely then!—
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourish'd them your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

2.

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by Song, Truth's youthful beauty glow'd,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul—where'er they flow'd.
Man gifted Nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of Love;
All things betray'd to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!

3.

Where lifeless—fix'd afar,
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phœbus Apollo, in his golden car,
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored,
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd
The wavelet's silver foam.

4.

Yon bay, chaste Daphnè wreathed,
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel;
The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill—
Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;
And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
Heard Cytherea mourn!—

5.

Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto
The mortal race of old Deucalion;
Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,
Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son.
Between men, heroes, Gods, harmonious then
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;
Blest Amathusia, heroes, Gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!

6.

Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day—
For Gods, the Happy Ones, were kin to Man!
The Beautiful alone, the Holy there!
No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camœnæ favouring were,
And the subduing Grace!

7.

A palace every shrine;
Your very sports heroic;—Yours the crown
Of contests hallow'd to a power divine,
As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown.
Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
Sweet leaves round odorous hair!

8.

The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore,
Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer—
Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before;
And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine—
As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl
The ruddy Host divine!

9.

Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood—but from the porch
Of life, the lip—one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch.
The judgment-balance of the Realms below,
A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;
The very Furies at the Thracian's woe,
Were moved and music-spell'd.

10.

In the Elysian grove
The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear:
The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love,
And rush'd along the meads the charioteer;
There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain;
Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his
Friend there once more Orestes could regain,
His arrows—Philoctetes!

11.

More glorious then the meeds
That in their strife with labour nerved the brave,
To the great doer of renownèd deeds,
The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave.
To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead,
Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host;
And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed,
On the bark tempest-tost!

12.

Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;
Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!

13.

Cold, from the North, has gone
Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May;
And, to enrich the worship of the One,
A Universe of Gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And—Echo answers me!

14.

Deaf to the joys she gives—
Blind to the pomp of which she is possest—
Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives
Around, and rules her—by our bliss unblest—
Dull to the Art that colours or creates,
Like the dead timepiece, Godless Nature creeps
Her plodding round, and, by the leaden weights,
The slavish motion keeps.

15.

To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons, with weary sameness, weave
From their own light their fullness and decay:
Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.

16.

Home!—and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on, and the tones they heard,
Life's beauty and life's melodies—alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word!
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng,
Unseen, the Pindus they were wont to cherish,
Ah—that which gains immortal life in song
To mortal life must perish!

We subjoin a few poems, belonging to the third period, which were omitted in our former selections from that division.

The Meeting.

1.

I see her still, with many a fair one nigh,
Of every fair the stateliest shape appear:
Like a lone son she shone upon my eye—
I stood afar, and durst not venture near.
Seized, as her presence brighten'd round me, by
The trembling passion of voluptuous fear,
Yet, swift, as borne upon some hurrying wing,
The impulse snatch'd me, and I struck the string!

2.

What then I felt—what sung—my memory hence
From that wild moment would in vain invoke—
It was the life of some discover'd sense
That in the heart's divine emotion spoke;
Long years imprison'd, and escaping thence
From every chain, the SOUL enchanted broke,
And found a music in its own deep core,
Its holiest, deepest deep, unguess'd before.

3.

Like melody long hush'd, and lost in space,
Back to its home the breathing spirit came:
I look'd, and saw upon that angel face
The fair love circled with the modest shame;
I heard (and heaven descended on the place)
Low-whisper'd words a charmèd truth proclaim—
Save in thy choral hymns, O spirit-shore,
Ne'er may I hear such thrilling sweetness more!

4.

"I know the worth within the heart which sighs,
Yet shuns, the modest sorrow to declare;
And what rude Fortune niggardly denies,
Love to the noble can with love repair.
The lowly have the loftiest destinies;
Love only culls the flower that love should wear;
And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts, shill yearn
The heart that feels their wealth—and can return!"

To Emma.

1.

Amidst the cloud-grey deeps afar
The Bliss departed lies;
How linger on one lonely star
The loving wistful eyes!
Alas—a star in truth—the light
Shines but a signal of the night!

2.

If lock'd within the icy chill
Of the long sleep, thou wert—
My faithful grief could find thee still
A life within my heart;—
But, oh, the worse despair to see
Thee live to earth, and die to me!

3.

Can those sweet longing hopes, which make
Love's essence, thus decay?
Can that be love which doth forsake?—
That love—which fades away?
That earthly gifts are brief, I knew—
Is that all heaven-born mortal too?

To A Young Friend Devoting Himself To Philosophy.

Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo,
Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know—
Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine—that inner shrine—to win,
Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?
Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,
When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?
Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray—
When Heart from Reason—Sense from Thought, shall rend themselves away?
Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage;
And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage?
With eyes that keep their heavenly health—the innocence of youth
To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth?
Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way—
Oh, fly the charmèd margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.
Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;
But in the glimmering twilight, see—how safely Childhood goes!

The Puppet-show Of Life.

(Das Spiel des Lebens.)

A Paraphrase.

A literal version of this pretty little poem, which possibly may have been suggested by some charming passages in Wilhelm Meister, would, perhaps, be incompatible with the spirit which constitutes its chief merit. And perhaps, therefore, the original may be more faithfully rendered (like many of the Odes of Horace) by paraphrase than translation.

Ho—ho—my puppet-show!
Ladies and gentlemen, see my show!
Life and the world—look here, in troth,
Though but in parvo, I promise ye both!
The world and life—in my box are they;
But keep at a distance, good folks, I pray!
Lit is each lamp, from the stage to the porch,
With Venus's naphtha, from Cupid's torch;
Never a moment, if rules can tempt ye,
Never a moment my scene is empty!
Here is the babe in his loading-strings—
Here is the boy at play;
Here is the passionate youth with wings,
Like a bird's on a stormy day,
To and fro, waving here and there,
Down to the earth and aloft through the air!
Now see the man, as for combat, enter—
Where is the peril he fears to adventure?
See how the puppets speed on to the race,}
Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; }
How many the rivals, how narrow the space! }
But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game!
The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame.
How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow!
How the craven behind them come creeping slow—
Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall!
See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all!
See how at the goal, with her smiling eyes,
Ever waits Woman to give the prize!

The Commencement Of The New Century.

Where can Peace find a refuge?—whither, say,
Can Freedom turn?—lo, friend, before our view
The Century rends itself in storm away,
And, red with slaughter, dawns on earth the New.
The girdle of the lands is loosen'd;—hurl'd
To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine,—
Safe from War's fury not the watery world;—
Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine.
Two mighty nations make the world their field,
Deaming the world is for their heirloom given—
Against the freedom of all lands they wield
This—Neptune's trident; that—the Thund'rer's levin.
Gold to their scales each region must afford;
And, as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale,
The Frank casts in the iron of his sword,
To poise the balance, where the right may fail—
Like some huge Polypus, with arms that roam
Outstretch'd for prey—the Briton spreads his reign;
And, as the Ocean were his household home,
Locks up the chambers of the liberal main.
Where on the Pole scarce gleams the faintest star,
Onward his restless course unbounded flies;
Tracks every isle and every coast afar,
And undiscover'd leaves but—Paradise!
Alas, in vain on earth's wide chart, I ween,
Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky—
Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green—
And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity!
O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind,
O'er the vast universe, may rove thy ken;
But in the universe thou canst not find
A space sufficing for ten happy men!
In the heart's holy stillness only beams
The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng;
Freedom is only in the land of Dreams;
And only blooms the Beautiful in Song!

The Minstrels Of Old.

Where now the minstrel of the large renown,
Rapturing with living words the heark'ning throng?
Charming the Man to heaven, and earthward down
Charming the God?—who wing'd the soul with song?
Yet lives the minstrel, not the deeds—the lyre
Of old demands ears that of old believed it—
Bards of bless'd time—how flew your living fire
From lip to lip! how race from race received it!
As if a God, men hallow'd with devotion—
What Genius, speaking, shaping, wrought below,
The glow of song inflamed the ear's emotion,
The ear's emotion gave the song the glow;
Each nurturing each—back on his soul—its tone
Whole nations echoed with a rapture-peal;
Then all around the heavenly splendour shone
Which now the heart, and scarce the heart can feel.

Farewell To The Reader.

The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek,
Bow'd with the blush of shame, she ventures near—
She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak,
And feels the def'rence, but disowns the fear.
Such praise as Virtue gives, 'tis hers to seek—
Bright Truth, not tinsel Folly to revere;
He only for her wreath the flowers should cull
Whose heart, with hers, beats for the Beautiful.

Nor longer yet these days of mine would live,
Than to one genial heart, not idly stealing,
There some sweet dreams and fancies fair to give,
Some hallowing whispers of a loftier feeling.
Not for the far posterity they strive,
Doom'd with the time, its impulse but revealing,
Born to record the Moment's smile or sigh,
And with the light dance of the Hours to fly.

Spring wakes—and life, in all its youngest hues,
Shoots through the mellowing meads delightedly;
Air the fresh herbage scents with nectar-dews;
Livelier the choral music fills the sky;
Youth grows more young, and Age its youth renews,
In that field-banquet of the ear and eye;
Spring flies—lo, seeds where once the flowers have blush'd
And the last bloom's gone, and the last muse hush'd.

A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.

Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty's dominions, which (on the "lucus à non lucendo" principle) are called and known by the name of Reading Parties. Some half dozen under-graduates, in peril of the coming examination, form themselves into a joint-stock cramming company; take L.30 or L.40 shares in a private tutor; pitch their camp in some Dan or Beersheba which has a reputation for dulness; and, like other joint-stock companies, humbug the public, and sometimes themselves, into the belief that they are "doing business." For these classical bubbles, the long vacation is the usual season, and Wales one of the favourite localities; and certainly, putting "Reading" out of the question, three fine summer months might be worse spent, than in climbing the mountains, and whipping the trout-streams, of that romantic land. Many a quiet sea-side town, or picturesque fishing-village, might be mentioned, which owes no little of its summer gayety, and perhaps something of its prosperity, to the annual visit of "the Oxonians:" many a fair girl has been indebted for the most piquant flirtation of the season to the "gens togata," who were reading at the little watering-place to which fate and papa had carried her for the race-week, or the hunt ball: and whatever the effect of these voluntary rustications upon the class lists in Oxford, they certainly have procured for the parties occasionally a very high "provincial celebrity." I know that when we beat our retreat from summer quarters at Glyndewi in 18—, the sighs of our late partners were positively heart-rending, and the blank faces of the deserted billiard-marker and solitary livery-stable 'groom' haunt me to this day.

I had been endeavouring by hard reading, for the last three months, to work up the arrears of three years of college idleness, when my evil genius himself, in the likeness of George Gordon of Trinity, persuaded me to put the finishing touch to my education, by joining a party who were going down to Glyndewi in ——shire, "really to read." In an unguarded moment, I consented; packed up books enough to last me for five years, reading at the rate of twenty-four hours per day, wrote to the governor announcing my virtuous intention, and was formally introduced to the Rev. Mr Hanmer, Gordon's tutor, as one of his "cubs" for the long vacation.

Six of us there were to be; a very mixed party, and not well mixed—a social chaos. We had an exquisite from St Mary Hall, a pea-coated Brazenose boatman, a philosophical water-drinker and union-debater from Balliol, and a two bottle man from Christ Church. When we first met, it was like oil and water; it seemed as if we might be churned together for a century, and never coalesce: but in time, like punch-making, it turned out that the very heterogeneousness of the ingredients was the zest of the compound.

I had never heard of such a place as Glyndewi, nor had I an idea how to get there. Gordon and Hanmer were gone already; so I packed myself on the top of the Shrewsbury mail, as the direct communication between Oxford and North Wales, and there became acquainted with No. 2 of my fellows in transportation; (for, except Gordon and myself, we were all utter strangers to each other.) "I say, Hawkins; let's feel those ribbons a bit, will you?" quoth the occupant of the box-seat to our respectable Jehu. "Can't indeed, sir, with these hosses; it's as much as ever I can do to hold this here near leader." This was satisfactory; risking one's neck in a tandem was all very well—a part of the regular course of an Oxford education; but amateur drivers of stage coaches I had always a prejudice against: let gentlemen keep their own four-in-hands, and upset themselves and families, as they have an undeniable right to do—but not the public. I looked at the first speaker: at his pea-jacket, that is, which was all I could see of him: Oxford decidedly. His cigar was Oxford too, by the villanous smell of it. He took the coachman's implied distrust of his professional experience good-humouredly enough, proffered him his cigar-case, and entered into a discussion on the near-leader's moral and physical qualities. "I'll trouble you for a light, if you please," said I; he turned round, we stuck the ends of our cigars together, and puffed into each other's faces for about a minute, (my cigars were damp-ish,) as grave as North American Indians. "Thank you," said I, as the interesting ceremony was concluded, and our acquaintance begun. We got into conversation, when it appeared that he, too, was bound for the undiscovered shores of Glyndewi, and that we were therefore likely to be companions for the next three months. He was an off-hand, good-humoured fellow; drank brandy and water, treated the coachman, and professed an acquaintance with bar-maids in general, and pretty ones in particular, on our line of road. He was going up for a class, he supposed, he said; the governor had taken a "second below the line" himself, and insisted upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d——d nonsense, he said, in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with Greek names, he did not see that his classics were of any use to him: and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However, he must rub up all his old Eton books this 'long,' and get old Hanmer to lay it on thick. Such was Mr Branling of Brazenose.

At Shrewsbury, we were saluted with the intelligence, "Coach dines here, gentlemen." We found a couple of fowls that the coach might probably have dined upon, and digested with other articles—in the hind boot; to human stomachs they seemed impracticable. We employed the allotted ten minutes upon a leg of mutton, and ascended again to our stations on the roof: and here was an addition to our party. Externally, it consisted of a mackintosh and a fur cap: in the very short interval between the turned-down flap of the one and the turned-up collar of the other, were a pair of grey-glass spectacles, and part of a nose. So far we had no very sufficient premises from which to draw conclusions, whether or not he were "one of us." But there were internal evidences; an odour of Bouquet de Roi or some such villanous compound nearly overpowering the fragrance of some genuine weed which I had supplied my pea-coated friend with in the place of his Oxford "Havannahs"—a short cough occasionally, as though the smoke of the said weed were not altogether "the perfume of the lip he loved;"—and a resolute taciturnity. What was he? It is a lamentable fact that an Oxford under-graduate does not invariably look the gentleman. He vibrates between the fashionable assurance of a London swindler, and the modest diffidence of an overgrown schoolboy. There is usually a degree of unfinishedness about him. He seems to be assuming a character unlike the glorious Burschenschaf of Germany, he has no character of his own. However, for want of more profitable occupation, we set to work in earnest to discover who our fellow traveller really was: and by a series of somewhat American conversational enquiries, we at last fished out that he was going into ——shire like ourselves—nay, in answer to a direct question on the subject, that he hopes to meet Hanmer of Trinity at Glyndewi. But no further information could we get: our new friend was reserved. Mr Branling and I had commenced intimacy already. "My name is Branling of Brazenose;" "and mine Hawthorne of ----;" was our concise introduction. But our companion was the pink of Oxford correctness on this point. He thanked the porter for putting his luggage up called me "Sir" till he found I was an Oxford man; and had we travelled for a month together, would rather have requested the coachman to introduce us, than be guilty of any such barbarism as to introduce himself. So by degrees our intimacy, instead of warming, waxed cold. As night drew on, and the fire of cigars from Branling, self, and coachman, became more deadly, the fur cap was drawn still closer over the ears, the mackintosh crept up higher, and we lost sight of all but the outline of the spectacles.

The abominable twitter of the sparrows in the hedgerows gave notice of the break of day—to travellers the most dismal of all hours, in my opinion—when I awoke from the comfortable nap into which I had fallen since the last change of horses. For some time we alternately dozed, tumbled against each other, begged pardon, and awoke; till at last the sun broke out gloriously as we drove into the cheerful little town of B——.

A good breakfast set us all to rights, and made even our friend in the mackintosh talkative. He came out most in the character of tea-maker: (an office, by the way, which he filled to the general satisfaction of his constituents during our stay in North Wales.) We found out that he was a St Mary Hall man, with a duplicate name: Mr Sydney Dawson, as the cards on his multifarious luggage set forth: that he was an aspirant for "any thing he could get" in the way of honours: (humble aspiration as it seemed, it was not destined to be gratified, for he got nothing.) He thought he might find some shooting and fishing in Wales, so had brought with him a gun-case and a setter; though his pretensions to sportsmanship proved to be rather of the cockney order. For three months he was the happily unconscious butt of our party, and yet never but once was our good-humour seriously interrupted.

From B—— to Glyndewi we had been told we must make our way as we could: and a council of war, which included boots and the waiter, ended in the arrival of the owner of one of the herring-boats, of which there were several under "the terrace." "Was you wish to go to Glyndewi, gentlemen? I shall take you so quick as any way; she is capital wind, and you shall have fine sail." A man who could speak such undeniable English was in himself a treasure; for an ineffectual attempt at a bargain for some lobsters (even with a "Welsh interpreter" in our hands) had warned us that there were in this Christian country unknown tongues which would have puzzled even the Rev. Edward Irving. So the bargain was struck: in half-an-hour ourselves and traps were alongside the boat: and after waiting ten minutes for the embarkation of Mr Sydney Dawson and his dog Sholto, who seemed to have an abhorrence of sea-voyages, Branling at last hauled in the latter in the last agonies of strangulation, and his master having tumbled in over him, to the detriment of a pair of clean whites and a cerulean waistcoat, we—i.e. the rest of us—set sail for Glyndewi in high spirits.

Our boatmen were intelligent fellows, and very anxious to display their little stock of English. They knew Mr Hanmer well, they said—he had been at Glyndewi the summer before; he was "nice free gentleman;" and they guessed immediately the object of our pilgrimage: Glyndewi was "very much for learning;" did not gentlemen from Oxford College, and gentlemen from Cambridge College, all come there? We warned him not on any account to couple us in his mind with "Cambridge gentlemen:" we were quite a distinct species, we assured him. (They had beaten us that year in the eight-oar match on the Thames.) But there seemed no sufficient reason for disabusing their minds of the notion, that this influx of students was owing to something classical in the air of Glyndewi: indeed, supposing this theory to be wrong, it was no easy matter to substitute a sounder one. In what did the superiority of Mrs Jenkins's smoky parlour at Glyndewi consist, for the purposes of reading for a degree, compared with my pleasant rooms looking into —— Gardens at Oxford, or the governor's snug library at home? It is an abstruse question. Parents and guardians, indeed, whose part upon the stage of life, as upon the theatrical stage, consists principally in submitting to be more or less humbugged, attribute surprising effects to a fancied absence of all amusements, with a mill-horse round of Greek, Latin, and logic, early rising, and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From my own experience of reading parties, I should select as their peculiar characteristics, a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes, as, if once sported in the college quadrangle, would be the subject of a common-room instanter; and, among some individuals (whom we may call the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy shooting-coats and short pipes, with which they perambulate the neighbourhood to the marvel of the aboriginal inhabitants; while those whom we may class with the stoics, display a preference for dressing-gowns and meerschaums, and confine themselves principally to the doorways and open windows of their respective lodgings. How far these "helps to knowledge"—for which Oxford certainly does not afford equal facilities—conduce to the required first or second class, is a question I do not feel competent to decide; but if reading-parties do succeed, the secret of their success may at least as probably lie in these hitherto unregarded phenomena.

Five hours of a fair wind brought us to Glyndewi. Here we found Hanmer and Gordon, who had taken a house for the party, and seemed already domesticated. I cannot say that we were royally lodged; the rooms were low, and the terms high; but as no one thought of taking lodgings at Glyndewi in the winter, and the rats consequently lived in them rent-free for six months, it was but fair somebody should pay: and we did. "Attendance" we had into the bargain. Now, attendance at a lodging-house has been defined to be, the privilege of ringing your bell as often as you please, provided you do not expect any one to answer it. But the bell-ropes in Mrs. Jenkins's parlours being only ornamental appendages, our privilege was confined to calling upon the landing-place for a red-headed female, who, when she did come, which was seldom, was terrible to look upon, and could only be conversed with by pantomime.

To do Mrs. Jenkins and "Gwenny" justice, they were scrupulously clean in every thing but their own persons, which, the latter's especially, seemed to have monopolised the dirt of the whole establishment. College bedrooms are not luxurious affairs, so we were not inclined to be captious on that head; and we slept soundly, and awoke with a determination to make out first voyage of discovery in a charitable spirit.

The result of our morning's stroll was the unanimous conclusion, that Glyndewi was a rising place. It did not seem inclined to rise at all at once though; but in patches here and there, with a quarter of a mile or so between, like what we read of the great sea-serpent. (I fear this individual is no more; this matter-of-fact age has been the death of him.) There were two long streets—one parallel to the quay, (or, as the more refined called it, "the terrace,") and the other at right angles to it. The first was Herring Street—the second Goose Street. At least such were the ancient names, which I give for the benefit of antiquarian readers. Since the then Princess Victoria visited B——, the loyalty of the Glyndewi people had changed "Herring" into "Victoria;" and her royal consort has since had the equivocal compliment paid him of transmuting "Goose Street" into "Albert Buildings." I trust it will not be considered disloyal to say, that the original sponsors—the geese and the herrings—seen to me to have been somewhat hardly used; having done more for their namesakes, than, as far as I can learn, their royal successors even promised.

Glyndewi was rising, however, in more respects than in the matter of taste in nomenclature. Tall houses, all front and windows, were stuck up here and there; sometimes with a low fisherman's cottage between then, whose sinking roof and bulging walls looked as if, like the frog in the fable, it had burst in the vain attempt to rival its majestic neighbour. At one end stood a large hotel with a small business, and an empty billiard-room: at the other, a wall some six inches high marked the spot where subscription-rooms were to be built for the accommodation of visitors and the public generally, as set forth in the prospectus, as soon as the visitors and the public chose to find the money. Nearly the whole of the village was the property of a gentleman who had built the hotel and billiard-room, and run up a few lodging-houses on a speculation, which seemed at best a doubtful one, of making it in time a fashionable watering-place.

Glyndewi had been recommended to us as a quiet place. It was quiet—horribly quiet. Not the quiet of green fields and deep woods, the charm of country life; but the quiet of a teetotal supper-party, or a college in vacation. "Just the place for reading: no gayety—no temptations." So I had written to tell the governor, in the ardour of my setting forth as one of a "reading-party:" alas! it was a fatal mistake. Had it been an ordinarily cheerful place, I think one or two of us could and should have read there; as it was, our whole wits were set to work to enliven its dulness. It took us as long to invent an amusement, as would have sufficed elsewhere for getting tired of half a dozen different dissipations. The very reason which made us fix upon it as a place to read in, proved in our case the source of unmitigated idleness. "No temptations" indeed! there were no temptations—the only temptation I felt there was to hang or drown myself, and there was not a tree six feet high within as many miles, and the Dewi was a river "darkly, deeply, beautifully"—muddy; it would have been smothering rather. We should not have staid to the end of the first month, had it not been for very shame; but to run away from a reading-party would have been a joke against us for ever. So from the time we got up in the morning, until we climbed Mrs Jenkins's domestic treadmill again at night, the one question was, what should we do with ourselves? Walk? there were the A—— and B—— roads—three miles of sand and dust either way. Before us was the bay—behind the ——shire mountains, up which one might walk some sixteen miles, (in the month of July,) and yet the same view from each successive point you reached: viz., a hill before you, which you thought must be the top at last, and Glyndewi—of which we knew the number of houses, and the number of windows in each—behind. Ride then? the two hacks kept by mine host of the Mynysnewydd Arms, deserve a history to themselves. Rossinante would have been ashamed to be seen grazing in the same field with such caricatures of his race. There was a board upon a house a few doors off, announcing that "pleasure and other boats" were to be let on hire. All the boats that we were acquainted with must have been the "other" ones—for they smelled of herrings, sailed at about the pace of a couple of freshmen in a "two—oar," and gave very pretty exercise—to those who were fond of it—in baling. As for reading, we were like the performers at a travelling theatre—always "going to begin."

Branling, indeed, did once shut himself up in his bedroom, as we afterwards ascertained, with a box of cigars and a black and tan terrier, and read for three weeks on end in the peculiar atmosphere thus created. Willingham of Christ Church, and myself, had what was called the dining-room in common, and proceeded so far on the third day after our arrival, as to lay out a very imposing spread of books upon all the tables; and there it remained in evidence of our good intentions, until the first time we were called upon to do the honours of an extempore luncheon. Unfortunately, from the very first, Willingham and myself were set down by Hanmer as the idle men of the party; the sort of prophetical discrimination, which tutors at Oxford are very much in the habit of priding themselves upon, tends, like other prophecies, to work its own fulfilment. Did a civil Welshman favour us with a call? "Show him in to Mr Hawthorne and Mr Willingham; I dare say they are not very busy"—quoth our Jupiter tonans from on high in the dining-room, where he held his court; and accordingly in he came. We had Stilton and bottled porter in charge for these occasions from the common stock; but the honours of all these visits were exclusively our own, as far as houseroom went. In dropped the rest of the party, one by one. Hanmer himself pitched the Ethics into a corner to make room, as he said, for substantials, the froth of bottled Guiness damped the eloquence of Cicero, and Branling having twisted up my analysis of the last-read chapter into a light for his cigar, there was an end of our morning's work. How could we read? That was what we always said, and there was some truth in it.

Mr Branling's reading fit was soon over too; and having cursed the natives for barbarians, because there was not a pack of harriers within ten miles, which confirmed him in the opinion he had always expressed of their utter want of civilization, (for, as he justly remarked, not one in a dozen could even speak decent English,) he waited impatiently for September, when he had got leave from some Mr Williams or Jones, I never remembered which, to shoot over a considerable range about Glyndewi.

But with the 20th of August, a change came over the spirit of our dream. Hitherto we had seen little of any of the neighbouring families, excepting that of a Captain George Phillips, who, living only three miles off, on the bank of the river, and having three sons and two daughters, and keeping a pretty yacht, had given us a dinner party or two, and a pleasant day's sail. Capital fellows were the young Phillipses: Nature's gentlemen; unsophisticated, hearty Welshmen; lads from sixteen to twenty. Down they used to come, in a most dangerous little craft of their own, which went by the name of the "Coroner's Inquest," to smoke cigars, (against which the Captain had published an interdict at home,) and question us about Oxford larks, and tell us in return stories of wild-fowl shooting, otter hunting, and salmon fishing, in all which they were proficient.

Our establishment was not an imposing one, but of them we made no strangers. Once they came, I remember, self-invited to dinner, in a most unfortunate state of our larder. The weekly half sheep had not arrived from B——; to get any thing in Glyndewi, beyond the native luxuries of bacon and herrings, was hopeless; and our dinner happened to be a leash of fowls, of which we had just purchased a live supply. Mrs Glasse would have been in despair; we took it coolly; to the three boiled fowls at top, we added three roast ditto at bottom, and by unanimous consent of both guests and entertainers, a more excellent dinner was never put on table.

But the 20th of August! the day of the Glyndewi regatta! that must have a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER II.

When a dull place like Glyndewi does undertake to be gay, it seldom does things by halves. Ordinary doses of excitement fail to meet the urgency of the case. It was the fashion, it appeared, for all the country families of any pretensions to ton, and not a few of the idlers from the neighbouring watering-places, to be at Glyndewi for the race-week. And as far as the programme of amusements went, certainly the committee (consisting of the resident surgeon, the non-resident proprietor of the "hotel," &c., and a retired major in the H.E.I.C.'s service, called by his familiars by the endearing name of "Tiger Jones") had made a spirited attempt to meet the demand. A public breakfast, and a regatta, and a ball—a "Full Dress and Fancy Ball," the advertisement said, on the 20th a Horse-Race; and an Ordinary on the 21st; a Cricket Match, if possible, and any extra fun which the Visitors' own genius might strike out on the following days.

The little bay of Glyndewi was not a bad place for a boat-race on a small scale. The "terrace" commanded the whole of it; there were plenty of herring-boats, about equally matched in sailing deficiencies, ready and willing to "run"—i.e. creep—for the prizes; and an honourable member of the Yacht Club, who for some years past, for reasons which it was said his creditors could explain, had found it more convenient to keep his season at B—— than at Cowes, always paid the stewards the compliment of carrying off the "Ladies' Challenge Cup."

The two or three years' experience which the Glyndewi people had lately gained of the nature and habits of "the Oxonians," made them an article in great demand on these occasions. Mammas and daughters agreed in looking upon us as undeniable partners in the ballroom, while the sporting men booked us as safe for getting up a creditable four-oar, with a strong probability of finding a light weight willing to risk his neck and reputation at a hurdle-race. Certain it is, that from the time the races began to be seriously talked about, we began to feel ourselves invested with additional importance. "Tiger Jones" (who occupied a snug little box about a mile out of Glyndewi, where he lived upon cheroots and brandy and water) called, was exceedingly polite, apologized for not inviting us to dinner—a thing he declared impossible in his quarters—hoped we would call some day and take a lunch with him, spoke with rapture of the capital crew which "the gentlemen who were studying here last summer" had made up, and which ran away from all competitors, and expressed a fervent hope that we should do likewise.

The sporting surgeon (of course he had called upon us long ago) redoubled his attentions, begged that if any of us were cricketers we would endeavour to aid him in getting up a "Glyndewi eleven" against the "Strangers," and fixed himself upon me as an invaluable acquisition, when he found I had actually once played in a match against Marylebone. (I did not tell him that the total score of my innings was "one.") Would I, then, at once take the drilling of as many recruits as he could get together? And would Mr Willingham and Mr Gordon, who "used to play at school," get up their practice again? (It wanted about a fortnight to the races.) The result of this, and sundry other interviews, was, that Branling at length found a vent for the vis inertiæ in putting us all, with the exception of Mr Sydney Dawson, whom he declared to be so stiff in the back that he had no hope of him, into training for a four-oar; and the surgeon and myself set off in his gig for B——, to purchase materials for cricket.

It is true, that our respected tutor did look more than usually grave, and shook his head with a meaning almost as voluminous as Lord Burleigh's, when informed of our new line of study. Rowing he declared to be a most absurd expenditure of time and strength; he never could see the fun of men breaking bloodvessels, and getting plucked for their degree, for the honour of "the Trinity Boat." But the cricket touched him on the raw. He was an old Etonian, and had in his time been a good player; and was now as active as any stout gentleman of seven-and-thirty, who had been twelve years a steady admirer of bursary dinners and common-room port. So, after some decent scruples on his part, and some well-timed compliments touching his physical abilities on ours, (he was much vainer of the muscle of his arm than of his high reputation as a scholar,) we succeeded in drawing from him a sort of promise, that if we were so foolish as to get up a match, he would try whether he had forgot all about bowling.

For the next fortnight, therefore, we had occupation enough cut out for us. Branling was unmerciful in his practice on the river; and considering that two of us had never pulled an oar but in the slowest of "Torpids," we improved surprisingly under his tuition. The cricket, too, was quite a new era in our existence. Davson (we told him that the "Sydney" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might, and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a cricketer, he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with two or three hours of it every fine evening, when we all sallied down to the marsh, followed by every idler in Glyndewi, he used to disappear occasionally in the mornings, and for some days puzzled us as to where and how he disposed of himself. We had engaged, in our corporate capacity, the services of a most original retainer, who cleaned boots, fetched the beer, eat the cold mutton, and made himself otherwise useful when required. He was amphibious in his habits, having been a herring-fisher the best part of his life; but being a martyr to the rheumatism, which occasionally screwed him up into indescribable forms, had betaken himself to earning a precarious subsistence as he could on shore. It was not often that we required his services between breakfast and luncheon, but one morning, after having dispatched Gwenny in all directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain, we at last elicited from her that "may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson." Then it came out, to our infinite amusement, that Dawson was in the habit, occasionally, of impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat, stumps, and ball down to the marsh, and there commencing private practice on his own account.

Mr Sydney Dawson and Bill Thomas—the sublime and the ridiculous—amalgamating at cricket, was far too good a joke to lose; so we got Hanmer to cut his lecture short, and come down with us to the scene of action. From the cover of a sandbank, we had a view of all that was going on in the plain below. There was our friend at the wicket, with his coat off, and the grey spectacles on, in an attitude which it must have taken him some study to accomplish, and Bill, with the ball in his hand, vociferating "Plaiy." A ragged urchin behind the wicket, attempting to bag the balls as Dawson missed them in what had once been a hat, and Sholto looking on with an air of mystification, completed the picture.

"That's too slow," said Sydney, as Bill, after some awful contortions, at length delivered himself of what he called "a cast." "Diawl!" said Bill, sotto voce, as he again got possession of the ball. "That's too high," was the complaint, as with an extraordinary kind of jerk, it flew some yards over the batsman's head, and took what remained of the crown out of the little lazzaroni's hat behind. "Diawl!" quoth Bill again, apologetically, "She got too much way on her that time." Bill was generally pretty wide of his mark, and great appeared to be the satisfaction of all parties when Dawson contrived to make a hit, and Sholto and the boy set off after the ball, while the striker leaned with elegant nonchalance upon his bat, and Bill mopped his face, and gave vent to a complimentary varety of "Diawl." It was really a pity to interrupt the performance; but we did at last. Bill looked rather ashamed of his share in the business when he saw "Mishtar," as he called Hanmer; but Dawson's self-complacency and good-humour carried him through every thing. "By Jove," said Willingham to him, "no wonder you improve in your style of play; Bill has no bad notion of bowling, has he?" "Why, no; he does very well for practice; and he is to have half-a-crown if he gets me out." "Bowl at his legs, Bill," said Willingham aside, "he's out, you know, if you hit them." "Nay," said Bill, with a desponding shake of the head, "She squat'n hard on the knee now just, and made 'n proper savage, but I wasn't get nothing for that."

Positively we did more in the way of reading after the boating and the cricket began, than while we continued in a state of vagrant idleness, without a fixed amusement of any kind. In the first place, it was necessary to conciliate Hanmer by some show of industry in the morning, in order to keep him in good humour for the cricket in the evening; for he was decidedly the main hope of our having any thing like a decent eleven. Secondly, the Phillipses took to dining early at home, and coming to practice with us in the evening, instead of dropping down the river every breezy morning, and either idling in our rooms, or beguiling us out mackerel-fishing or flapper-shooting in their boat. And thirdly, it became absolutely necessary that we should do something, if class lists and examiners had any real existence, and were not mere bugbears invented by "alma mater" to instil a wholesome terror into her unruly progeny. Really, when one compared our actual progress with the Augean labour which was to be gone through, it required a large amount of faith to believe that we were all "going up for honours in October."

We spent a very pleasant morning at Llyn-eiros, the den of "Tiger Jones." He obtained this somewhat appalling soubriquet from a habit of spinning yarns, more marvellous than his unwarlike neighbours were accustomed to, of the dangers encountered in his Indian sports; and one in particular, of an extraordinary combat between his "chokedar" and a tiger—whether the gist of the story lay in the tiger's eating the chokedar, or the chokedar eating the tiger, I am not sure—I rather think the latter. However, in Wales one is always glad to have some distinguishing appellation to prefix to the name of Jones. If a man's godfathers and godmothers have the forethought to christen him "Mountstewart Jones," or "Fitzhardinge Jones," (I knew such instances of cognominal anticlimax,) then it was all very well—no mistake about the individuality of such fortunate people. But "Tom Joneses" and "Bob Joneses" were no individuals at all. They were classes, and large classes; and had to be again distinguished into "Little Bob Joneses" and "Long Bob Joneses." Or if there happened to be nothing sufficiently characteristic in the personal appearance of the rival Joneses, then was he fortunate who had no less complimentary additions to his style and title than what might be derived from the name of his location, or the nature of his engagements. These honours were often hereditary—nay, sometimes descended in the female line. We hear occasionally, in England, of "Mrs Doctor Smith," and "Mrs Major Brown;" and absurd as it is, one does comprehend by intuition that it was the gentleman and not the lady who was the ten-year man at Cambridge, or the commandant of the Boggleton yeomanry; but few besides a Welshman would have learned, without a smile, that "Mrs Jones the officer" was the relict of the late tide-waiter at Glyndewi, or that the quiet, modest little daughter of the town-clerk of B—— was known to her intimates as "Miss Jones the lawyer." Luckily our friend the Tiger was a bachelor; it would have been alarming to a nervous stranger at the Glyndewi ball, upon enquiring the name of the young lady with red hair and cat's eyes, to have been introduced incontinently to "Miss Jones the tiger."

The Tiger himself was a well-disposed animal; somewhat given to solitary prowling, like his namesakes in a state of nature, but of most untiger-like and facetious humour. He generally marched into Glyndewi after an early breakfast, and from that time until he returned to his "mutton" at five, might be seen majestically stalking up and down the extreme edge of the terrace, looking at the fishing-boats, and shaking—not his tail, for, as all stout gentlemen seem to think it their duty to do by the sea-side, he wore a round jacket. From the time that we began our new pursuits, he took to us amazingly—called us his "dear lads"—offered bets to any amount that we should beat the B——Cutter Club, and protested that he never saw finer bowling at Lord's than Hanmer's.

Branling was in delight. He had found a man who would smoke with him all day, (report said, indeed, that the Tiger regularly went to sleep with a cheroot in his mouth,) and he had the superintending of "the boat," which was his thought from morning to night. A light gig, that had once belonged to the custom-house, was polished and painted under his special directions, (often did we sigh for one of King's worst "fours!") and the fishermen marvelled at such precocious nautical talent.

None of these, however—great events as they were in our hitherto monotonous sojourn—were the "crowning mercy" of the Glyndewi regatta. Hitherto the sunshine of bright eyes, and the breath of balmy lips, had been almost as much unknown to us as if we had been still within the monastic walls of Oxford. We had dined in a body at our friend the surgeon's: he was a bachelor. We had been invited by two's and three's at a time to a Welsh squire's in the neighbourhood, who had two maiden sisters, and a fat, good-humoured wife. Captain Phillips had given us a spread more than once at Craig-y-gerron, and, of course, some of us (I was not so fortunate) had handed in the Misses Phillips to dinner; but the greater part of the time from six till eleven (at which hour Hanmer always ordered out our "trap") was too pleasantly occupied in discussing the captain's port and claret, and laughing at his jokes, to induce us to give much time or attention to the ladies in the drawing-room. If some of my fair readers exclaim against this stoic (or rather epicurean) indifference, it may gratify their injured vanity to know, that in the sequel some of us paid for it.

The Phillipses came down in full force, the day before the regatta; they were engaged to lunch with us, and, as it was the first time that the ladies of the party had honoured us with a visit, we spared no pains to make our entertainment somewhat more recherché than was our wont. It was then that I first discovered that Clara Phillips was beautiful. I am not going to describe her now; I never could have described her. All I knew, and all I remember, was, that for a long time afterwards I formed my standard of what a woman ought to be, by unconscious comparison with what she was. What colour her eyes were, was a question among us at the time. Willingham swore they were grey; Dawson insisted that they were hazel; Branling, to whom they referred the point, was inclined to think there was, "something green" in them. But that they were eyes of no common expression, all of us were agreed. I think at least half the party were more than half in love with her when that race-week was over. In one sense it was not her fault if we were; for a girl more thoroughly free from every species of coquetry, and with less of that pitiful ambition of making conquests, which is the curse of half the sex, it was impossible to meet with. But she was to blame for it too, in another way; for to know her, and not love her, would have been a reproach to any man. Lively and good-humoured, with an unaffected buoyancy of spirits, interesting herself in all that passed around her, and unconscious of the interest she herself excited, no wonder that she seemed to us like an angel sent to cheer us in our house of bondage. Of her own family she was deservedly the darling; even Dick Phillips, whom three successive tutors had given up in despair, became the most docile of pupils under his sister Clara; accustomed early to join her brothers in all out-door sports, she was an excellent horsewoman, a fearless sailor, and an untiring explorer of mountains and waterfalls, without losing her naturally feminine character, or becoming in any degree a hoyden or a romp. She sang the sweet national airs of Wales with a voice whose richness of tone was only second to its power of expression. She did every thing with the air of one who, while delighting others, is conscious only of delighting herself; and never seeking admiration, received it as gracefully as it was ungrudgingly bestowed.

If there is one form of taking exercise which I really hate, it is what people call dancing. I am passionately fond of music; but why people should conceive it necessary to shuffle about in all varieties of awkwardness, in order to enjoy it to their satisfaction, has been, is, and probably will ever be, beyond my comprehension. It is all very well for young ladies on the look-out for husbands to affect a fondness for dancing: in the first place, some women dance gracefully, and even elegantly, and show themselves off undoubtedly to advantage; (if any exhibition on a woman's part be an advantage;) then it gives an excuse for whispering, and squeezing of hands, and stealing flowers, and a thousand nameless skirmishings preparatory to what they are endeavouring to bring about—an engagement; but for a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave him—picking his way through a quadrille, like a goose upon hot bricks, or gyrating like a bad tee-totum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a "valse," I never see a man thus occupied, without a fervent desire to kick him. "What a Goth!" I hear a fair reader of eighteen, prettily ejaculate—"thank Heaven, that all men have not such barbarous ideas! Why, I would go fifty miles to a good ball!" Be not alarmed, my dear young lady; give me but a moment to thank Providence, in my turn, that you are neither my sister nor my daughter, and will promise you, that you shall never be my wife.

On the Saturday night then, I made Gordon and Willingham both very cross, and caught Sydney Dawson's eye looking over his spectacles with supreme contempt, when I declared my decided intention of staying at home the night of the ball. Even the Reverend Robert Hanmer, who was going himself, was annoyed when Gordon told him of what he called my wilfulness, having a notion that it was decidedly disrespectful in any of us, either to go when he did not, or to decline going, when he did.

On the Tuesday morning, I sent to B—— for white kids. Gordon looked astonished, Hanmer was glad that I had "taken his advice," and Willingham laughed outright; he had overheard Clara Phillips ask me to dance with her. Men are like green gooseberries—very green ones; women do make fools of them, and a comparatively small proportion of sugar, in the shape of flattery, is sufficient.

Two days before the regatta, there marched into Mrs Jenkins's open doorway, a bewildered looking gentleman, shaking off the dust from his feet in testimony of having had a long walk, and enquiring for Hanmer. Gwenny, with her natural grace, trotted up stairs before him, put her head in at the "drawing-room" door, (she seemed always conscious that the less one saw of her person the better,) and having announced briefly, but emphatically, "a gentlemans," retreated. Hanmer had puzzled himself and me, by an attempt to explain a passage which Aristotle, of course, would have put in plainer language, if he had known what he meant himself—but modern philosophers are kind enough to help him out occasionally—when the entrance of the gentleman in dust cut the Gordian knot, and saved the Stagyrite from the disgrace of having a pretty bit of esoteric abstruseness translated into common sense.

(What a blessing would it be for Dr ——, and Professor ——, if they might be allowed to mystify their readers in Greek! though, to do them justice, they have turned the Queen's English to good account for that purpose, and have produced passages which first-class men, at an Athenian University, might possibly construe, but which the whole board of sophists might be defied to explain.)

The deus ex machinâ—the gentleman on, or rather off the tramp—who arrived thus opportunely, was no less a person than the Reverend George Plympton, Fellow of Oriel, &c. &c. &c. He was an intimate friend of our worthy tutor's; if the friendship between Oxford dons can be called intimacy. They compared the merits of their respective college cooks three or four times a term, and contended for the superior vintage of the common-room port. They played whist together; walked arm-in-arm round Christchurch meadow; and knew the names of all the old incumbents in each other's college-list, and the value of the respective livings. Mr Plympton and a friend had been making a walking tour of North Wales; that is, they walked about five miles, stared at a mountain, or a fall, or an old castle, as per guide-book, and then coached it to the next point, when the said book set down that "the Black Dog was an excellent inn," or that "travellers would find every accommodation at Mrs Price's of the Wynnstay Arms." Knowing that Hanmer was to be found at Glyndewi, Mr Plympton left his friend at B——, where the salmon was unexceptionable, and had completed the most arduous day's walk in his journal, nearly thirteen miles, in a state of dust and heat far from agreeable to a stoutish gentleman of forty, who usually looked as spruce as if he came out of a band-box. Hanmer and he seemed really glad to see each other. On those "oxless" shores, where, as Byron says, "beef was rare," though

"Goat's flesh there was, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,"

the tender reminiscences of far-off Gaude days and Bursary dinners, that must have arisen in the hearts of each, were enough to make their meeting almost an affecting one. Hanmer must have blushed, I think, though far from his wont, when he asked Mr Plympton if he could feed with us at four upon—hashed mutton! (We consumed nearly a sheep per week, and exhausted our stock of culinary ideas, as well as our landlady's patience, in trying to vary the forms in which it was to appear; not having taken the precaution, as some Cambridge men did at B——s one vacation, to bespeak a French cook at a rather higher salary than the mathematical tutor's.[A]) Probably, however, Mr Plympton's unusual walk made him more anxious about the quantity than the quality of his diet, for he not only attacked the mutton like an Etonian, but announced his intention of staying with us over the ball, if a bed was to be had, and sending to B—— for his decorations. He was introduced in due form to the Phillipses the next day, and in the number and elegance of his bows, almost eclipsed Mr Sydney Dawson, whom Clara never ceased to recommend to her brothers as an example of politeness.

Bright dawned the morning of the 20th of August, the first of the "three glorious days" of Glyndewi. As people came to these races really for amusement, the breakfast was fixed for the very unfashionable hour of ten, in order not to interfere with the main business of the day—the regatta. Before half-past, the tables at the Mynysnewydd Arms were filled with what the ——shire Herald termed "a galaxy of beauty and fashion." But every one seemed well aware, that there were far more substantial attractions present, meant to fill not the tables only, but the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, in short, played very respectable knives and forks—made no bones—or rather nothing but bones—of the chickens, and ate kippered salmon like Catholics. You caught a bright eye gazing in your direction with evident interest—"Would you have the kindness to cut that pasty before you for a lady?" You almost overheard a tender whisper from the gentleman opposite to the pretty girl beside him. She blushes and gently remonstrates. Again his lip almost touches her cheek in earnest persuasion—yes! she is consenting—to another little slice of ham! As for the jolly Welsh squires themselves, and their strapping heirs-apparent, (you remember that six-foot-four man surely, number six of the Jesus boat)—now that the ladies have really done, and the waiters have brought in the relays of brandered chickens and fresh-caught salmon, which mine host, who has had some experience of his customers, has most liberally provided—they set to work in earnest. They have been only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl or so, to keep the ladies' company. But now, as old Captain Phillips, at the head of the table, cuts a slice and a joke alternately, and the Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities, one gets to have an idea what breakfast means. "Let me advise you, my dear Mr Dawson—as a friend—you'll excuse an old stager—if you have no particular wish to starve yourself—you've had nothing yet but two cups of tea—to help yourself, and let your neighbours do the same. You may keep on cutting Vauxhall shavings for those three young Lloyds till Michaelmas; pass the ham down to them, and hand me those devilled kidneys."

"Tea? no; thank you; I took a cup yesterday, and haven't been myself since. Waiter! don't you see this tankard's empty?"

"Consume you, Dick Phillips! I left two birds in that pie five minutes back, and you've cleared it out!"

"Diawl, John Jones, I was a fool to look into a tankard after you!"

Every thing has an end, and so the breakfast had at last; and we followed the ladies to the terrace to watch the sailing for the ladies' challenge cup. By the help of a glass we could see three yachts, with about half-a-mile between each, endeavouring to get round a small boat with a man and a flag in it, which, as the wind was about the worst they could have had for the purpose, seemed no easy matter. There was no great interest in straining one's eyes after them, so I found out the Phillipses, and having told Dawson, who was escorting Clara, that Hanmer was looking for him to make out the list of "the eleven," I was very sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H. Chouser's Firefly had won the cup, and that the other two yachts might be expected in the course of half-an-hour. Nobody waited for them, of course. The herring boats, after a considerable deal of what I concluded from the emphasis to be swearing in Welch, in which, however, Captain Phillips, who was umpire, seemed to have decidedly the advantage in variety of terms and power of voice, were pronounced "ready," and started by gunfire accordingly. A rare start they made of it. The great ambition of every man among them seemed to be to prevent the boats next in the line from starting at all. It was a general fouling match, and the jabbering was terrific. At last, the two outside boats, having the advantage of a clear berth on one side, got away, and made a pretty race of it, followed by such of the rest as could by degrees extricate themselves from the mêlée.

But now was to come our turn. Laden with all manner of good wishes, we hoisted a bit of dark-blue silk for the honour of Oxford, and spurted under the terrace to our starting-place. The only boat entered against us was the Dolphin, containing three stout gentlemen and a thin one, members of the B—— Cutter Club, who evidently looked upon pulling as no joke. Branling gave us a steady stroke, and Cotton of Balliol steered us admirably; the rest did as well as they could. The old boys had a very pretty boat—ours was a tub—but we beat them. They gave us a stern-chase for the first hundred yards, for I cut a crab at starting; but we had plenty of pluck, and came in winners by a length. Of course we were the favourites—the "Dolphins" were all but one married—and hearty were the congratulations with which we were greeted on landing. Clara Phillips' eyes had a most dangerous light in them, as she shook hands with our noble captain, who was in a terrible hurry, however, to get away, and hunting every where for "that d——d Dawson," who had promised to have Bill Thomas in readiness with "the lush." So I was compelled to stay with her and give an account of the race, which she perfectly understood, and be soundly scolded by the prettiest lips in the world for my awkwardness, which she declared she never could have forgiven if it had lost the race.

"You will come to the ball, then, Mr Hawthorne?"

"Am I not to dance with you?"

"Yes, if you behave well, and don't tease Mr Sydney Dawson: he is a great favourite of mine, and took great care of me this morning at breakfast."

"Well, then, for your sake, Miss Phillips, I will be particularly civil to him; but I assure you, Dawson is like the fox that took a pride in being hunted; he considers our persecution of him as the strongest evidence of his own superiority; and if you seriously undertake to patronize him he will become positively unbearable."

The regatta over, we retired to make a hurried dinner, and to dress for the ball. This, with some of our party, was a serious business. Willingham and Dawson were going in fancy dresses. The former was an admirable personification of Dick Turpin, standing upwards of six feet, and broadly built, and becoming his picturesque costume as if it were his everyday suit, he strutted before Mrs Jenkins's best glass, which Hanmer charitably gave up for his accommodation, with a pardonable vanity. Dawson had got a lancer's uniform from his London tailor; but how to get into it was a puzzle; it was delightful to see his attempts to unravel the gorgeous mysteries which were occupying every available spot in his dingy bedroom. The shako was the main stumbling-block. Being unfortunately rather small, it was no easy matter to keep it on his head at all; and how to dispose of the cap-lines was beyond our united wisdom. "Go without it, man," said Branling: "people don't want hats in a ballroom. You can never dance with that thing on your head."

"Oh, but the head-dress is always worn at a fancy-ball, you know, and I can take it off if I like to dance."

At last, the idea struck us of employing the five or six yards of gold cord that had so puzzled us, in securing shako and plume in a perpendicular position. This at length accomplished, by dint of keeping himself scrupulously upright, Mr Sydney Dawson majestically walked down stairs.

CHAPTER III.

Now, there happened to be at that time residing in Glyndewi an old lady, "of the name and cousinage" of Phillips, who, though an old maid, was one of those unhappily rare individuals who do not think it necessary to rail against those amusements which they are no longer in a situation to enjoy. She was neither as young, nor as rich, nor as light-hearted, as she had been; but it was difficult to imagine that she could ever have been more truly cheerful and happy than she seemed now. So, instead of cutting short every sally of youthful spirits, and every dream of youthful happiness, by sagacious hints of cares and troubles to come, she rather lent her aid to further every innocent enjoyment among her younger friends; feeling, as she said, that the only pity was, that young hearts grew old so soon. The consequence was, that instead of exacting a forced deference from her many nephews and nieces, (so are first cousins' children called in Wales,) she was really loved and esteemed by them all, and while she never wished to deprive them of an hour's enjoyment, they would willingly give up a pleasant party at any time to spend an evening with the old lady, and enliven her solitude with the sounds she best loved—the music of youthful voices.

All among her acquaintance, therefore, who were going to the ball in fancy costume, had promised to call upon her, whether in or out of their way, to "show themselves," willing to make her a partaker, as far as they could, of the amusement of the evening. Captain Phillips had asked us if we would oblige him, and gratify a kind old woman, by allowing him to introduce us in our fancy dresses. I had none, and therefore did not form part of the exhibition; but Dick Turpin and the cornet of lancers, with Branling in a full hunting costume, (which always formed part of his travelling baggage,) walked some fifty yards to the old lady's lodgings. Mr Plympton, always polite, accepted Captain Phillips's invitation to be introduced at the same time. Now Mr Plympton, as was before recorded, was a remarkably dapper personage; wore hair powder, a formidably tall and stiff white "choker," and upon all occasions of ceremony, black shorts and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably upright and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold. Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles, and rising to receive her guests with a delighted curtsy, scan curiously for a few moments Turpin's athletic proportions, and the fox-hunter's close-fitting leathers and tops. As for Dawson, he stood like the clear-complexioned and magnificently-whiskered officer, who silently invites the stranger to enter the doors of Madame Tussaud's wax exhibition; not daring to bow for fear of losing his beloved shako, but turning his head from side to side as slowly, and far less naturally, than the waxen gentleman aforementioned. All, in their several ways, were worthy of admiration, and all did she seem to admire; but it was when her eye rested at last on the less showy, but equally characteristic figure in black, who stood bowing his acknowledgments of the honour of the interview, with an empressement which fully made up for Dawson's forced hauteur—that her whole countenance glistened with intense appreciation of the joke, and the very spectacles danced with glee. Again did she make the stranger her most gracious curtsy; again did Mr Plympton, as strongly as a bow could do it, declare how entirely he was at her service: he essayed to speak, but before a word escaped his lips, the old lady fairly burst out into a hearty laugh, clapped her hands, and shouted to his astonished ears, "Capital, capital! do it again! oh, do it again!" For a moment the consternation depicted upon Mr Plympton's countenance at this remarkable reception, extended to the whole of his companions; but the extraordinary sounds which proceeded from Captain Phillips, in the vain attempt to stifle the laugh that was nearly choking him, were too much for the gravity of even the polite Mr Dawson; and it was amidst the violent application of pocket-handkerchiefs in all possible ways, that the captain stepped forward with the somewhat tardy announcement, "My dear aunt, allow me to present the Rev. Mr Plympton, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College." This was accompanied by a wink and an attempt at a frown, intended to convey the strongest reprobation of the old lady's proceedings; but which, upon the features of the good captain, whose risible muscles were still rebellious, had any thing but a serious effect. "Indeed!" said she, curtsying yet more profoundly in return for another bow. "How do you do, sir? Oh, he is beautiful, isn't he?" half-aside to Willingham, who was swallowing as much as he could of the butt of his whip. Poor Mr Plympton looked aghast at the compliment. Branling fairly turned his back, and burst from the room, nearly upsetting Hanmer and myself; who, having waited below some time for our party to join us, had made our way upstairs to ascertain the cause of the unusual noises which reached us from the open door of the drawing-room. Dawson was shaking with reckless disregard of the safety of his head-dress, and the captain in an agony between his natural relish for a joke and his real good breeding. "Aunt Martha, this is a clergyman, a friend of Mr Hanmer's, who is on a visit here, and whom I introduce to you, because I know you will like him." Mr Plympton commenced a fresh series of bows, in which there was, perhaps, less gallantry and more dignity than usual, looking all the time as comfortable as a gentleman might do who was debating with himself whether the probabilities, as regarded the old lady's next movements, lay on the side of kissing or scratching. Mrs Martha Phillips herself commenced an incoherent apology about "expecting to see four young gentlemen in fancy dresses;" and Hanmer and the captain tried all they could to laugh off a contretemps, which to explain was impossible. What the old lady took Mr Plympton for, and what Mr Plympton thought of her, were questions which, so far as I know, no one ventured to ask. He left Glyndewi the next morning, but the joke, after furnishing us with a never-failing fund of ludicrous reminiscence for the rest of our stay, followed him to the Oriel common-room, and was an era in the dulness of that respectable symposium.

Dancing had begun in good earnest when we arrived at the ballroom. There was the usual motley assemblage of costumes of all nations under the sun, and some which the sun, when he put down the impudence of the wax-lights upon his return the next morning, must have marvelled to behold. Childish as it may be called, a fancy ball is certainly, for the first half-hour at all events, an amusing scene. Willingham and myself stood a little inside the doorway for some moments, he enjoying the admiring glances which his tine figure and picturesque costume were well calculated to call forth, and I vainly endeavouring to make out Clara's figure amidst the gay dresses, and well-grown proportions, of the pretty Cambrians who flitted past. Sounds of expostulation and entreaty, mingled with a laugh which we knew to be Branling's, in the passage outside, disturbed both our meditations, and at last induced me to turn my eyes unwillingly to the open door. Branling was leaning against it in a fit of uncontrollable mirth, and beckoned us earnestly to join him. Outside stood Dawson, stamping with vexation, and endeavouring to undo the complex machinery which had hitherto secured his shako in an erect position. He was in the unfortunate predicament of Dr S——'s candelabrum, which, presented to him as a testimony of respect from his grateful pupils, was found by many feet too large to be introduced into any room in the Dr's comparatively humble habitation, and stood for some time in the manufacturer's show-room in testimony of the fact, that public acknowledgments of merit are sometimes made on too large a scale. Architects who give measurements for ordinary doorways, do not contemplate such emergencies as testimonial candelabrums or irremoveable caps and plumes: and the door of the Glyndewi ballroom had no notion of accommodating a lancer in full dress who could not even be civil enough to take off his hat. So there stood our friend, impatient to display his uniform, and unwilling to lessen the effect of his first appearance by doffing so important a part of his costume: to get through the door, in the rigid inflexibility of head and neck which he had hitherto maintained, was a manifest impossibility: Branling had suggested his staying outside, and he would undertake to bring people to look at him: but Dawson, for some unaccountable reason, was usually suspicious of advice from that quarter; so he "stooped to conquer" and lost all. The shako tumbled from its precarious perch, and hung ignobly suspended by the cap-lines. A lancer with a pair of grey spectacles, and a shako hanging round his neck, would have been a very fancy dress indeed: so he was endeavouring, at the risk of choking himself, to disentangle, by main force, the complication of knots which we had woven with some dim hope of the result. In vain did we exhort him to take it patiently, and remind him how preposterous it was to expect, that what had taken our united ingenuity half an hour to arrange "to please him," could be undone in a minute. "Cut the cursed things, can't you?" implored he. No one had a knife. "I do believe Branling, you are tying that knot tighter: I had much rather not have your assistance." Branling protested his innocence. At last we did release him, and he entered the room with a look most appropriately crest-fallen, shako in hard, solacing himself by displaying its glories as well as could be effected by judicious changes of its position.

I soon found Clara, looking more radiantly beautiful than ever I had seen her, in a sweet dress of Stuart tartan. I had to make my apologies, which were most sincerely penitent ones, for not being in time to claim my privilege of dancing the first quadrille with her. She smiled at my evident earnestness, and good-humouredly added, that the next would be a much more pleasant dance, as the room was now beginning to fill. It was a pleasant dance as she said: and the waltz that followed still more delightful: and then Clara, with a blush and a laugh, declined my pressing entreaties until after supper at all events. I refused her good-natured offer of an introduction to "that pretty girl in blue" or any other among the stars of the night: and sat down, or leant against the wall, almost unconsciously watching her light step, and sternly resisting all attempts on the part of my acquaintances to persuade me to dance again. Of course all the dancing characters among our party were Clara's partners in succession; and both Gordon and Dawson, who came to ask what had put me into the sulks, were loud in their encomiums on her beauty and fascination; even Branling, no very devoted admirer of the sex, (he saw too much of them, he said, having four presentable sisters,) allowed that she was "the right sort of girl;" but it was not until I saw her stand up with Willingham, and marked his evident admiration of her, and heard the remarks freely made around me, that they were the handsomest couple in the room, that I felt a twinge of what I would hardly allow to myself was jealousy: when, however, after the dance, they passed me in laughing conversation, evidently in high good humour with each other, and too much occupied to notice any one else, I began to wonder I had never before found out what a conceited puppy Willingham was, and set down poor Clara as an arrant flirt. But I was in a variable mood, it seemed, and a feather—or, what some may say is even lighter, a woman's word—was enough to turn me. So when I found myself, by some irresistible attraction, drawn next to her again at supper, and heard her sweet voice, and saw what I interpreted into a smile of welcome, as she made room for me beside her, I forgave her all past offences, and was perfectly happy for the next hour: nay, even condescended to challenge Willingham to a glass of soi-disant champagne. The Tiger, who was, according to annual custom, displaying the tarnished uniform of the 3d Madras N. I., and illustrating his tremendous stories of the siege of Overabad, or some such place, by attacks on all the edibles in his neighbourhood, gave me a look of intelligence as he requested I would "do him the honour," and shook his whiskers with some meaning which I did not think it necessary to enquire into. What was it to him if I chose to confine my attentions to my undoubtedly pretty neighbour? No one could dispute my taste, at all events; for Clara Phillips was a universal favourite, though I had remarked that none of the numerous "eligible young men" in the room appeared about her in the character of a dangler. She was engaged to Willingham for the waltz next after supper, and I felt queerish again, till she willingly agreed to dance the next set with me, on condition that I would oblige her so far as to ask a friend of hers to be my partner in the mean time. "She is a very nice girl, Mr. Hawthorne, though, perhaps, not one of the belles of the room, and has danced but twice this evening, and it will be so kind in you to ask her—only don't do it upon my introduction, but let Major Jones introduce you as if at your own request." Let no one say that vanity, jealousy, and all those pretty arts by which woman wrongs her better nature, are the rank growth necessarily engendered by the vitiated air of a ballroom; rooted on the same soil, warmed by the same sunshine, fed by the same shower, one plant shall bear the antidote and one the poison: one kind and gentle nature shall find exercise for all its sweetest qualities in those very scenes which, in another, shall foster nothing but heartless coquetry or unfeminine display. Never did Clara seem so lovely in mind and person as when she drew upon her own attractions to give pleasure to her less gifted friend; and I suppose, I must have thrown into the tone of my reply something of what I felt; for she blushed, uttered a hasty "I thank you," and told Willingham it was time to take their places. I sought and obtained the introduction, and endeavoured, for Clara's sake, to be an agreeable partner to the quiet little girl beside me. One subject of conversation, at all events, we hit upon, where we seemed both at home; and if I felt some hesitation in saying all I thought of Clara, my companion had none, but told me how much every body loved her, and how much she deserved to be loved. It was really so much easier to draw my fair partner out on this point than any other that I excused myself for being so eager a listener; and, when we parted, to show my gratitude in what I conceived the most agreeable way, I begged permission to introduce Mr. Sydney Dawson, and thus provided her with what, I dare say, she considered a most enviable partner. I had told Dawson she was a very clever girl; (he was fond of what he called "talented women," and had a delusive notion that he was himself a genius:) he had the impertinence to tell me afterwards he found her rather stupid; I ought, perhaps, to have given him the key-note. During the dance which followed, I remember I was silent and distrait; and when it was over, and Clara told me she was positively engaged for more sets than she should dance again, I left the ballroom, and wandered feverishly along the quay to our lodgings. I remember persuading myself, by a syllogistic process, that I was not in love, and dreaming that I was anxiously reading the class-list, in which it seemed unaccountable that my name should be omitted, till I discovered, on a second perusal, that just about the centre of the first class, where "Hawthorne, Franciscus, e. Coll—" ought to have come in, stood in large type the name of "Clara Phillips."

The races, which occupied the morning of the next day, were as stupid as country races usually are, except that the Welshmen had rather more noise about it. The guttural shouts and yells from the throats of tenants and other dependents, as the "mishtur's" horse won or lost, and the extraordinary terms in which they endeavoured to encourage the riders, were amusing even to a stranger, though one lost the point of the various sallies which kept the course in one continued roar. As to the running, every body—that is, all the sporting world—knew perfectly well, long before the horses started, which was to win; that appearing to be the result of some private arrangement between the parties interested, while the "racing" was for the benefit of the strangers and the ladies. Those of the latter who had fathers, or brothers, or, above all, lovers, among the knowing ones, won divers pairs of gloves on the occasion, while those who were not so fortunate, lost them.

I fancied that Clara was not in her usual spirits on the race-course, and she pleaded a headach as an excuse to her sister for ordering the carriage to drive home long before the "sport" was over. If I had thought the said sport stupid before, it did not improve in attraction after her departure; and, when the jumping in sacks, and climbing up poles, and other callisthenic exercises began, feeling a growing disgust for "things in general," I resisted the invitation of a mamma and three daughters, to join themselves and Mr Dawson in masticating some sandwiches which looked very much like "relics of joy" from last night's supper, and sauntered home, and sat an hour over a cigar and a chapter of ethics. As the clock struck five, remembering that the Ordinary hour was six, I called at the Phillips' lodgings to enquire for Clara. She was out walking with her sister; so I returned to dress in a placid frame of mind, confident that I should meet her at dinner.

For it was an Ordinary for ladies as well as gentlemen. A jovial Welsh baronet sat at the head of the table, with the two ladies of highest "consideration"—the county member's wife and the would-have-been member's daughter—on his right and left; nobody thought of politics at the Glyndewi regatta. Clara was there; but she was escorted into the room by some odious man, who, in virtue of having been made high-sheriff by mistake, sat next Miss Anti-reform on the chairman's left. The natives were civil enough to marshal us pretty high up by right of strangership, but still I was barely near enough to drink wine with her.

If a man wants a good dinner, a hearty laugh, an opportunity of singing songs and speech-making, and can put up with indifferent wine, let him go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year, if it still be among the things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or formality: people came there for amusement, and they knew that the only way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners, even while the ladies remained. It was, as Hanmer called it, an extra-ordinary. But it was when the ladies had retired, and Hanmer and a few of the "steady ones" had followed them, and those who remained closed up around the chairman, and cigars and genuine whisky began to supersede the questionable port and sherry, and the "Vice" requested permission to call on a gentleman for a song, that we began to fancy ourselves within the walls of some hitherto unknown college, where the "levelling system" had mixed up fellows and under-graduates in one common supper-party, and the portly principal himself rejoiced in the office of "arbiter bibendi." Shall I confess it? I forgot even Clara in the uproarious mirth that followed. Two of the young Phillipses were admirable singers, and drew forth the hearty applause of the whole company. We got Dawson to make a speech, in which he waxed poetical touching the "flowers of Cambria," and drew down thunders of applause by a Latin quotation, which every one took that means of showing that they understood. I obtained almost unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery to which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt, after no little application, a Welsh toast—a happy specimen of the language; it was but three words, but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I, after a "neat and appropriate" preface, uttered my triple Shibboleth, (it ended in rag, and signified "Wales, Welshmen, and Welshwomen,") than the whole party rose, and cheered at me till I felt positively modest. My pronunciation, I believe, was perfect, (a woman's lips and an angel's voice had taught it to me:) and it was indeed the Open Sesame to their hearts and feelings. I became at once the intimate friend of all who could get near enough to offer me their houses, their horses, their dogs—I have no doubt, had I given a hint at the moment, I might have had any one of their daughters. "Would I come and pay a visit at Abergwrnant before I left the neighbourhood? Only twenty-five miles, and a coach from B——!" "Would I, before the shooting began, come to Craig-y-bwldrwn, and stay over the first fortnight in September?" I could have quartered myself, and two or three friends, in a dozen places for a month at a time. And, let me do justice to the warm hospitality of North Wales—these invitations were renewed in the morning: and were I ever to visit those shores again, I should have no fear of their having been yet forgotten.

Captain Phillips had told us, that when we left the table, "the girls" would have some coffee for us, if not too late; and Willingham and myself, having taken a turn or two in the moonlight to get rid of the excitement of the evening, bent our steps in that direction. There were about as many persons assembled as the little drawing-room would hold, and Clara, having forgotten her headach, and looking as lovely as ever, was seated at a wretched piano, endeavouring to accompany herself in her favourite songs. Willingham and myself stood by, and our repeated requests for some of those melodies which, unknown to us before, we had learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously, half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions of I know not what—love and a living, Clara and a cottage—were floating dreamlike before my eyes, and I felt as if borne along by a current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing book, which contained one of his favourites; and, leaning over her with my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing, I said something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had lately been enjoying, lest it might not last. For a moment she met my earnest look, and coloured violently; and then fixing her eyes on the music before her, she said quickly, "Mr Hawthorne, I thought you had a higher opinion of me than to make me pretty speeches; I have a great dislike to them." I began to protest warmly against any intention of mere compliment, when the return of Willingham with his song prevented any renewal of the subject. I was annoyed and silent, and detected a tremor in her voice while she sang the words, and saw her cheek paler than usual. The instant the song was over, she complained with a smile of being tired, and without a look at either of us, joined a party who were noisily recounting the events of the race-course. Nor could I again that evening obtain a moment's conversation with her. She spoke to me, indeed, and very kindly; but once only did I catch her eye, when I was speaking to some one else—the glance was rapidly withdrawn, but it seemed rather sorrowful than cold.

I was busy with Hanmer the next morning before breakfast, when Dick Phillips made his appearance, and informed us that the "strangers" had made up an eleven for the cricket match, and that we were to play at ten. He was a sort of live circular, dispatched to get all parties in readiness.

"Oh! I have something for you from Clara," said he to me, as he was leaving; "the words of a song she promised you, I believe."

I opened the sealed envelope, saw that it was not a song, and left Hanmer somewhat abruptly. When I was alone, I read the following:—

"Dear Mr Hawthorne,—Possibly you may have been told that I have, before now, done things which people call strange—that is, contrary to some arbitrary notions which are to supersede our natural sense of right and wrong. But never, until now, did I follow the dictates of my own feelings in opposition to conventional rules, with the painful uncertainty as to the propriety of such a course, which I now feel. And if I had less confidence than I have in your honour and your kindness, or less esteem for your character, or less anxiety for your happiness, I would not write to you now. But I feel, that if you are what I wish to believe you, it is right that you should be at once undeceived as to my position. Others should have done it, perhaps—it would have spared me much. Whether your attentions to me are in sport or earnest, they must cease. I have no right to listen to such words as yours last night—my heart and hand are engaged to one, who deserves better from me than the levity which alone could have placed me in the position from which I thus painfully extricate myself. For any fault on my part, I thus make bitter atonement. I wish you health and happiness, and now let this save us both from further misunderstanding.

"C."

Again and again did I read these words. Not one woman in a hundred would have ventured on such a step. And for what? to save me from the mortification of a rejection? It could be nothing else. How easy for a man of heartless gallantry to have written a cool note in reply, disclaiming "any aspiration after the honour implied," and placing the warm-hearted writer in the predicament of having declined attentions never meant to be serious! But I felt how kindly, how gently, I had been treated—the worst of it was, I loved her better than ever. I wrote some incoherent words in reply, sufficiently expressive of my bitter disappointment, and my admiration of her conduct; and then I felt "that my occupation was gone." She whom I had so loved to look upon, I trembled now to see. I had no mind to break my heart; but I felt that time and change were necessary to prevent it. Above all, Glyndewi was no place for me to forget her in.

In the midst of my painful reflections on all the happy hours of the past week, Gordon and Willingham broke in upon me with high matter for consultation relative to the match, In vain did I plead sudden illness, and inability to play: they declared it would knock the whole thing on the head, for Hanmer would be sure to turn sulky, and there was an end of the eleven; and they looked so really chagrined at my continued refusals, that at length I conquered my selfishness, (I had had a lesson in that,) and, though really feeling indisposed for any exertion, went down with them to the ground. I was in momentary dread of seeing Clara arrive, (for all the world was to be there,) and felt nervous and low-spirited. The strangers' eleven was a better one than we expected, and they put our men out pretty fast. Hanmer got most unfortunately run out after a splendid hit, and begged me to go in and "do something." I took my place mechanically, and lost my wicket to the first ball. We made a wretched score, and the strangers went in exultingly. In spite of Hanmer's steady bowling, they got runs pretty fast; and an easy catch came into my hands just as Clara appeared on the ground, and I lost all consciousness of what I was about. Again the same opportunity offered, and again my eyes were wandering among the tents. Hanmer got annoyed, and said something not over civil: I vas vexed myself that my carelessness should be the cause of disappointment twice, and yet more than half-inclined to quarrel with Branling, whom I overheard muttering about my "cursed awkwardness." We were left in a fearful minority at the close of the first innings, when we retired to dinner. The Glyndewi party and their friends were evidently disappointed. I tried to avoid Clara; but could not keep far from her. At last she came up with one of her brothers, spoke and shook hands with me, said that her brother had told her I was not well, and that she feared I ought not to have played at all. "I wish you could have beat them, Mr Hawthorne—I had bet that you would; perhaps you will feel better after dinner, those kind of headachs soon wear off," she added with a smile and a kind look, which I understood as she meant it. I walked into the tent where we were to dine: I sat next a little man on the opposite side, an Englishman, one of their best players, as active as a monkey, who had caught out three of our men in succession. He talked big about his play, criticised Willingham's batting, which was really pretty, and ended by discussing Clara Phillips, who was, he said, "a demned fine girl, but too much of her." I disliked his flippancy before, but now my disgust to him was insuperable. I asked the odds against us, and took them freely. There was champagne before me, and I drank it in tumblers. I did what even in my under-graduate days was rarely my habit—I drank till I was considerably excited. Hanmer saw it, and got the match resumed at once to save me, as he afterwards said, "from making a fool of myself." I insisted, in spite of his advice "to cool myself," upon going in first. My flippant acquaintance of the dinner-table stood point, and I knew, if I could but see the ball, and not see more than one, that I could occasionally "hit square" to some purpose. I had the luck to catch the first ball just on the rise, and it caught my friend point off his legs as if he had been shot. He limped off the ground, and we were troubled with him no more. I hit as I never did before, or shall again. At first I played wild; but as I got cool, and my sight became steady, I felt quite at home. The bowlers got tired, and Dick Phillips, who had no science, but the strength of a unicorn, was in with me half-an-hour, slashing in all directions. It short, the tide turned, and the match ended in our favour.

I was quite sober, and free from all excitement, when I joined Clara, for the last time after the game was over. "I am so glad you played so well," said she, "if you are but as successful at Oxford as you have been at the boat-race and the cricket, you will have no reason to be disappointed. Your career here has been one course of victory." "Not altogether, Miss Phillips: the prize I shall leave behind me when I quit Glyndewi to-morrow, is worth more than all that I can gain." "Mr Hawthorne," said she kindly, "one victory is in your own power, and you will soon gain it, and be happy—the victory over yourself."

I made some excuse to Hanmer about letters from home, to account for my sudden departure. How the party got on after I left them, and what was the final result of our "reading," is no part of my tale; but I fear the reader will search the class-lists of 18— in vain for the names of Mr Hanmer's pupils.

Hawthorne.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Fact.

CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY.

No. X.

THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA.

The Ottoman empire, exhausted by its strenuous and long-continued efforts in the death-struggle of Candia, had need of peace and repose to recruit its resources; but the calm was not of long duration. A fresh complication of interests was now arising in the north, which, by involving the Porte in the stormy politics of Poland and Russia, led to consequences little foreseen at the time, and which, even at the present day are far from having reached their final accomplishment. Since the ill-judged and unfortunate invasion by Sultan Osman II., in 1620 the good understanding between Poland and the Porte had continued undisturbed, save by the occasional inroads of the Crim Tartars on the one side, and the Cossacks of the Dniepr on the other, which neither government was able entirely to restrain. But the oppression to which the Polish nobles attempted to subject their Cossack allies, whom they pretended to regard as serfs and vassals, was intolerable to these freeborn sons of the steppe; and an universal revolt at length broke out, which was the beginning of the evil days of Poland. For nearly twenty years, under the feeble rule of John Casimer, the country was desolated with sanguinary civil wars; the Czar Alexis Mikhailowitz, eager to regain the rich provinces lost by Russia during the reign of his father, at length appeared in the field as the protector of the Cossacks; and, in 1656, the greater part of their body, with the Ataman Bogdan Khmielniçki at their head, formally transferred their allegiance to the Russian sceptre. This fatal blow, which in effect turned the balance of power, so long fluctuating between Poland and Russia, in favour of the latter, failed, however, to teach moderation to the Polish aristocracy; and the remainder of the Cossacks, who still continued in their ancient seats under the Ataman Doroszenko, finding themselves menaced by a fresh attack, embraced the resolution of "placing themselves under the shadow of the horsetails," by becoming the voluntary vassals of the Porte, of which they had so long been the inveterate enemies. In spite of the violent reclamations of the Polish envoy Wizoçki, the offer was at once accepted, and a mace and kaftan of honour sent to the ataman as ensigns of investiture, while the Poles were warned to desist from hostilities against the subjects of the sultan. The refusal to accede to this requisition produced an instant declaration of war, addressed in an autograph letter from Kiuprili to the grand chancellor of Poland, and followed up, in the spring of 1672, by the march of an army of 100,000 men for Podolia. The sultan himself took the field for the first time, attended by Kiuprili and the other vizirs of the divan, and carrying with him his court and harem, and the whole host, after a march of four months from Adrianople, crossed the Dniester in the first days of August.

The distracted state of Poland, where the helpless Michael Coribut Wieçnowiçki bore but the empty title of king, precluded the possibility of even an attempt at resistance, and the grand marshal of the kingdom, the heroic John Sobieski, who, with only 6000 men, had held his ground against the Cossacks, Turks, and Tartars, through the preceding winter, was compelled to withdraw from Podolia. The whole province was speedily overrun; the fortresses of Kaminiec and Leopol were yielded almost without defence; and the king, terrified at the progress of the invaders, sued for peace, which was signed September 18, 1672, in the Turkish camp at Buczacz. Kaminiec, Podolia, and the Cossack territory, were by this act ceded to the Porte, besides an annual tribute from Poland of 220,000 ducats; and Mohammed, having caused proclamation to be made by the criers that "pardon for his offences had been granted to the rebel kral of the Leh,"[B] (Poles,) returned in triumph to Adrianople, leaving his army in winter quarters on the Danube.

The Diet, however, indignantly refused either to ratify the treaty or pay the tribute; and hostilities were resumed the next year with increased inveteracy on both sides. The sultan accompanied his army only to the Danube, where he remained engrossed with the pleasures of the chase at Babataghi; while Sobieski, who had accommodated for the time his differences with his colleague and rival Paç, hetman of Lithuania, and was at the head of 50,000 men, boldly anticipated the tardy movements of the Turks, who were advancing in several separate corps d'armée, by crossing the Dniester early in October. He was forthwith joined by Stephen, waiwode of Moldavia, with great part of the Moldavian and Wallachian troops, who unexpectedly deserted the standards of the crescent; and, after several partial encounters, a general engagement took place, November 11, 1673, between the Polish army and the advanced divisions of the Ottomans under the serasker Hussein, pasha of Silistria, who lay in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A heavy fall of snow during the night, combined with a piercing north wind had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries, accustomed to the genial warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles, stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief, made their onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25,000 men, with numerous begs and pashas, remained on the field of battle, or perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski, in the belief that it was the Sandjak-shereef, or sacred standard of the Prophet—the oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so disastrous, with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard, ten years before, befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps, under the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, and the contest continued during several years, without any notable achievement on either side, the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while the civil dissensions of his kingdom, with his consequent inferiority of numbers, kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched camp at Zurawno, with only 15,000 men, he had for twenty days kept at bay 100,000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim, surnamed Shaïtan or the devil, when both sides, weary of the fruitless struggle, agreed upon a conference, and peace was signed October 27, 1676. The humiliating demand of tribute was no longer insisted upon; but Kaminiec, Podolia, and great part of the Ukraine, were left in possession of the Turks, whose stubborn perseverance thus succeeded, as on many occasions, in gaining nearly every object for which the war had been undertaken.

Before the news, however, of the pacification with Poland had reached Constantinople, Ahmed-Kiuprili had closed his glorious career. He had long suffered from dropsy, the same disease which had proved fatal to his father, and the effects of which were in his case, aggravated by too free an indulgence in wine, to which, after his return from Candia, he is said to have become greatly addicted. He had accompanied the sultan, who had for many years remained absent from his capital, on a visit, during the summer months, to Constantinople, but, on the return to Adrianople, he was compelled, by increasing sickness, to halt on the banks of the Erkench, between Chorlu and Demotika, where he breathed his last in a chitlik, or farm-house, called Kara-Bovir, October 30, at the age of forty-seven, after having administered the affairs of the empire for a few days more than fifteen years. His corpse was carried back to Constantinople, and laid without pomp in the mausoleum erected by his father, amid the lamentations of the people, rarely poured forth over the tomb of a deceased grand vizir. The character of this great minister has been made the theme of unmeasured panegyrics by the Turkish historians; and Von Hammer-Purgstall (in his History of the Ottoman Empire) has given us a long and elaborate parallel between the life and deeds of Ahmed Kiuprili and of the celebrated vizir of Soliman the Magnificent and his two successors, Mohammed-Pasha Sokolli; but we prefer to quote the impartial and unadorned portrait drawn by his contemporary Rycaut:—"He was, in person, (for I have seen him often, and knew him well,) of a middle stature, of a black beard, and brown complexion;[C] something short-sighted, which caused him to knit his brows, and pore very intently when any strange person entered the presence; he was inclining to be fat, and grew corpulent towards his latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this important charge, the enemies his father had created him, the contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother, and the arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages, and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the last hour of his death, there is none but must judge him to have deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we consider how few were put to death, and what inconsiderable mutinies or rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government, it will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not a person who delighted in blood, and in that respect far different from the temper of his father; he was generous, and free from avarice—a rare virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law, and therefore greatly addicted to all the formalities of it, and in the administration of justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the neighbouring princes, there may, I believe, be fewer examples of his breach of faith, than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful, having upon every expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel, with a considerable part of Hungary, he concluded the long war with Venice by an entire and total subjugation of the Island of Candia, having subdued that impregnable fortress, which by the rest of the world was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec,) the key of Poland, where the Turks had been frequently baffled, and laid Ukraine to the empire. If we measure his triumphs, rather than count his years, though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people, yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably, nor in a greater height and eminency of glory."

The deceased vizir left no children: and the sultan is said to have offered the seals, in the first instance, as if the office had become in fact hereditary in the family, to Mustapha, another son of Mohammed-Kiuprili, a man of retired and studious habits, who had the philosophy to decline the onerous dignity.[D] However this may have been, (for the story appears to rest on somewhat doubtful authority,) within seven days of the death of Ahmed, the vizirat had been conferred on Kara-Mustapha Pasha, who then held the office of kaimakam, and had for several years been distinguished by the special favour and confidence of the sultan. The new minister was connected by the ties both of marriage and adoption with the house of Kiuprili. His father Oroudj, a spahi, holding land at Merzifoun, (a town and district in Anatolia contiguous to Kiupri,) had fallen at the siege of Bagdad, under Sultan Mourad-Ghazi in 1638: and the orphan had been educated in the household of Mohammed-Kiuprili as the companion and adopted brother of his son Ahmed, one of whose sisters he in due time received in marriage. The elevation of his patron to the highest dignity of the empire, of course opened to Kara-Mustapha the road to fortune and preferment—from his first post of deputy to the meer-akhor, or master of the horse, he was promoted to the rank of pasha of two tails—and after holding the governments successively of Silistria and Diarbekr was nominated capitan-pasha in 1662 by his brother-in-law Ahmed; but exchanged that appointment in the following year for the office of kaimakam, in which capacity he was left in charge of the capital on the departure of the vizir to the army in Hungary. His duties in this situation, as lieutenant of the grand-vizir during his absence, gave him constant access to the presence of the sultan: and being (as he is described by the contemporary writer above quoted) "a wise and experienced person, of a smooth behaviour, and a great courtier," he so well improved the opportunities thus afforded him, as to obtain a place in the monarch's favour second only to that of Kiuprili himself. This excessive partiality was, however, scarcely justified by the good qualities of the favourite; for though the abilities of Kara-Mustapha were above mediocrity, his avarice was so extreme as to lay him open to the suspicion of corruption: and his sanguinary cruelty, when holding a command in Poland in the campaign of 1674, drew down on him the severe reprobation of his illustrious brother in-law. The predilection of the sultan for his society continued, however, unabated:—and during the visit of the court to Constantinople in 1675, he was still further exalted by becoming, at least in name, son-in-law to his sovereign, being affianced to the Sultana Khadidjeh, then only three years old. The fêtes of the betrothal, which were celebrated at the same time as those for the circumcision of the heir-apparent, (afterwards Mustapha II.,) were unrivalled for splendour in a reign distinguished for magnificence:—and on the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili in the following year, this fortunate adventurer found little difficulty in stepping, as we have seen, into the vacated place.

The first cares of the new vizir were on the side of the newly acquired frontier in the Ukraine; for, though all claim to that part of the Cossack territory had been expressly resigned by Poland at the treaty of Durawno, the Czar of Muscovy had never ceased to assert his pretensions to the whole Ukraine, in virtue of the convention of 1656 with Khmielniçki; and during the Polish campaign of 1674, his troops on the border, under a general named Romanodoffski, had several times come into collision with the Turks—an era deserving notice as the first hostile encounter between these two great antagonist powers. The defection of Doroszenko, who had gone over to the Russians at the end of 1676, and surrendered to them the important fortress of Czehryn, the capital and key of the Ukraine, and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its walls in the following year, showed the necessity of vigorous measures: and, in 1678, the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a formidable force in the Ukraine, bringing with him George Khmielniçki, son of the former ataman, who had long been confined as a state prisoner in the Seven Towers, but was now released to counteract, by his hereditary influence with the Cossacks, the adverse agency of Doroszenko. Czehryn, after a close investment of a month, was carried by storm, the garrison put to the sword, and the fortifications razed. But though the war was continued through another campaign, it was obviously not the interest of the Divan to prolong this remote and unprofitable contest at a juncture when the state of parties in Hungary bid fair to present such an opportunity as had never before occurred, for definitively establishing the supremacy of the Porte over the whole of that kingdom. Negotiations were accordingly opened on the Dniepr between the Muscovite leaders and the Khan Mourad-Gherni; and a peace was signed at Radzin, Feb. 12, 1681, by which the frontiers on both sides were left unaltered, while the Porte expressly renounced all claim to Kiow and the Russian Ukraine, which had been in the possession of the Czar since 1656. The ratification of the treaty was brought to Constantinople in the following September by an envoy, whose gifts of costly arctic furs, and ivory from the tusks of the walrus, might have unfolded to the Turks the wide extent of the northern realms ruled by the monarch whom they even yet regarded only as a tributary of their own vassal the Khan of the Tartars, and scarcely deigned to admit on equal terms to diplomatic intercourse.

Though the truce for twenty years, concluded between the Porte and the Empire after the defeat of Ahmed-Kiuprili at St Gotthard in 1564, had not yet expired by nearly three years, the political aspect of Hungary left little doubt that the resumption of hostilities would not be so long delayed. To understand more clearly the extraordinary complication of interests of which this country was now the scene, it will, however, be necessary to take a retrospective glance at its history during the seventeenth century, after the treaty of Komorn with the Porte, in 1606, had terminated for the time the warfare of which it had almost constantly been the theatre since the occupation of Buda by Soliman the Magnificent in 1541, ad had, in some measure, defined the boundaries of the two great powers between which it was divided. The Emperors of the House of Hapsburg, indeed, styled themselves Kings of Hungary, and Diets were held in their name at Presburg; but the territory actually under their sway amounted to less than a third of the ancient kingdom, comprehending only the northern and western districts; while all the central portion of Hungary Proper, as far as Agria on the north, and the Raab and the Balaton Lake on the west, was united to the Ottoman Empire, and formed the pashaliks of Buda and Temeswar, which were regularly divided into sandjaks and districts, with their due quota of spahis and timariots, who had been drawn from the Moslem provinces of Turkey, and held grants of land by tenure of military service. The principality of Transylvania, (called Erdel by the Turks,) which had been erected by Soliman in favour of the son of John Zapolya, comprehended nearly one-fourth of Hungary, and (though its suzerainté was claimed by Austria in virtue of a reversionary settlement executed by that prince shortly before his death,) was generally, in effect, dependent on, and tributary to the Porte, from which its princes, elected by the Diet at Klaucenburg, received confirmation and investiture, like the waiwodes of the neighbouring provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. During the interval between the death of John Sigismond Zapolya in 1571, and the election of Michael Abaffi in 1661, not fewer than thirteen princes, besides nearly as many ephemeral pretenders, had occupied the throne; and, though at one time the family of Batthori, and, subsequently, that of Racoczy, established a kind of hereditary claim to election, their tenure was always precarious; and, on more than one occasion, the prince was imposed on the states by the Turks or Austrians, without even the shadow of constitutional forms.

This modified independence of Transylvania, however, often gave its princes great political importance, during the endless troubles of Hungary, as the assertors of civil and religions liberty against the tyranny and bad faith of the Austrian cabinet; which, with unaccountable infatuation, instead of striving to attach to its rule, by conciliation and good government, the remnant of the kingdom still subject to its sceptre, bent all its efforts to destroy the ancient privileges of the Magyars, and to make the crown formally, as it already was in fact, hereditary in the imperial family. The extirpation of Protestantism was another favourite object of Austrian policy: and the cruelties perpetrated with this view by George Basta and the other imperial generals at the beginning of the century was such, that a general rising took place under Stephen Boczkai, then waiwode of Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, who extorted from the Emperor Rodolph, in 1607, the famous pacification of Vienna, which was guaranteed by the Porte, and which secured to the Hungarians full liberty of conscience, as well as the enjoyment of all their ancient rights. This agreement was soon violated; but the Protestants again found a protector in a Transylvanian prince, the celebrated Bethlen-Gabor;[E] who, assuming the royal title, occupied Presburg and Neuhausel in 1619, formed an alliance with the Bohemian revolters under Count Thurn, and was narrowly prevented from forming a junction with them under the walls of Vienna, which, if effected, would probably have overthrown the dynasty of Hapsburg. He is said to have entertained the design of uniting all Hungary east of the Theiss, with Transylvania and Wallachia, into a modern kingdom of Dacia, leaving the west to the Turks as a barrier against Austrian aggression—but his want of children left his schemes of aggrandizement without a motive, and at his death in 1630 they all fell to the ground. The Thirty Years' War procured the Hungarian subjects of Austria a temporary respite; but Leopold, who was elected king in 1655, and succeeded his father Ferdinand in the empire three years later, stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of Bohemia, resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants recommenced, but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German mercenaries, who were quartered on the country in defiance of the constitution after the twenty years' truce, under the pretence of guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks, were carried to such a height that disaffection became universal even among those who had hitherto constantly adhered to the Austrian interest, so that (in the words of a writer[F] of the time,) "they began to contrast their own condition with that of the Transylvanians, who are not forced to take the turban but live quietly under the protection of the Turk—while we (as they say) are exposed to the caprices of a prince under the absolute dominion of the Jesuits, a far worse sort of people than the Dervishes!" As early as 1667, a secret communication had been made to the Porte through the envoy of Abaffi; but Kiuprili, who was then on the point of departure for Candia, and was unwilling to risk a fresh rupture with the empire in his absence, gave little encouragement either to these overtures, or to the more advantageous propositions received in 1670 from Peter Zriny, Ban of Croatia, and previously a famous partisan-leader against the Moslems; in which the malecontents offered, as the price of Ottoman aid and protection, to cede to the sultan all the fortified towns which should be taken by his arms, and to pay an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. The conspiracy had, however, become known at Vienna; and instant measures were taken for seizing Zriny and his Croatian confederates, Nadasti, Tattenbach, and Christopher Frangipani, who were all executed in the course of the following year. The Emperor, now considering Hungary as a conquered country, formally abolished the dignity of Palatine, and nominated Gaspar Von Ampringham, grand master of the Teutonic knights, to be viceroy of the kingdom; while the Protestants were persecuted with unheard-of rigour, and many of their ministers imprisoned in the fortresses, or sent in chains to the galleys at Naples.

The confederates of Upper Hungary had been better on their guard: and on the news of the fate of Zriny and his associates, they forthwith assembled in arms at Kaschau or Cassovia, and electing Francis Racoczy, son of the late prince of Transylvania, and son-in-law of Zriny, as their leader, bade defiance to the Emperor. The civil war continued several years without decisive success on either side; till on the death, in 1676, of Racoczy, (who had previously abandoned the popular cause,) the famous Emeric Tekoeli, then only twenty years of age, was chosen general. He was the hereditary enemy of the Austrians; his father Stephen, Count of Kersmark, having been besieged in his castle by the Imperialists at the time of his death; and while he pressed the Germans in the field with such vigour as to deprive them of nearly all the fortified places they still held in Upper Hungary, the negotiation with the Porte for aid was renewed, and being backed by the diplomatic influence of France, then at war with the empire, was more favourably received by Kara-Mustapha than the former advances of the malcontents had been by his predecessor. The war with Russia, however, prevented the Turks for the present from interfering with effect, but Abaffi was authorized to support the insurgents in the mean time, while Leopold, fearing the total loss of Hungary, summoned a diet at Œdenburg (in 1681) for the redress of grievances, in which most of the ancient privileges of the kingdom were restored, full liberty of conscience promised to the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Paul Esterhazy named Palatine. But these concessions, wrung only by hard necessity from the Cabinet of Vienna, came now too late. Tekoeli replied to the amnesty proclaimed by the Emperor, by the publication of a counter-manifesto, in which were set forth a hundred grievances of the Hungarians; and, having obtained a great accession of strength by his marriage (June 1682) to Helen Zriny, the widow of Racoczy, whereby he gained all the adherents of those two powerful houses, he summoned a rival diet at Cassovia, where he openly assumed the title of sovereign prince of Upper Hungary, exercising the prerogatives of royalty, and striking money in his own name, which bore his effigy on the obverse, and on the reverse the motto inscribed on his standards—"Pro Deo, Patria, et Libertate."

Though Tekoeli professed to act by the authority of the Porte, from which he had received a firman of investiture with the usual ensigns of sovereignty, no formal declaration of war had yet been issued from Constantinople; and many of the Ulemah protested against such a measure, at least till the twenty years' truce, concluded in 1664, should have expired. The aid openly afforded, however, to Tekoeli by Abaffi and the pasha of Buda, as well as the constant march of large bodies of troops to the Danube, afforded sufficient indication that an attack would not be long delayed; and Leopold, disquieted at the prospect of having at once to contend against his own revolted subjects, and the mighty force of the Ottoman empire, sent Count Caprara on a mission to Constantinople, in the hope of averting the storm; while, at the same time, he made overtures for an alliance with Poland, still smarting under her losses in the late Turkish war. The mission of Caprara led to no result, from the exorbitant demands made by the Ottoman ministers on behalf both of the Porte and its Hungarian allies, which amounted to little less than a total cession of the country, and a few days after the arrival of the ambassador, the despatch of the firman to Tekoeli, and the display of the imperial horsetails in the plain of Daood-Pasha, showed that the resolution of the Divan was fixed for war. The negotiation with Poland presented almost equal difficulties, from the rooted jealousy entertained by the Poles of the ambition of Austria, and the opposition of the French envoy, De Vitry, who even carried his intrigues so far as to embark in a plot for the death or dethronement of the king, and the substitution of the grand marshal Iablonowski. The firmness of Sobieski, however, whom no minor considerations could blind to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the Osmanli, overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the diet was eventually given to a league, offensive and defensive, with Austria, on March 31, 1683—the same day on which the vast host of the Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople, and directed its march towards the Danube.

The sons of Naodasti and Zriny, who had been executed ten years before, were retained as hostages, under the name of chamberlains, in the imperial household; and it fell to the lot of the former to announce to Leopold, that the legions of the crescent were pouring down on Hungary. The cheek of the Emperor blanched at the tidings; for well did he know that, till the arrival of the Poles, his disposable force amounted to scarce 35,000 men, under Duke Charles of Lorraine, who could barely make head against Abaffi and Tekoeli, while so high were the hopes of the Magyars raised of a speedy and final deliverance from Austrian tyranny, that a plot is even said to have been laid between Zriny and his sister, now the wife of Tekoeli, for seizing the person of Leopold in the palace of Vienna, and giving him up to the Tartars, who had already commenced their ravages on the frontiers. The sultan meanwhile—the cumbrous luxury of whose harem and equipages had retarded the march of the army—had halted at Belgrade, after holding a grand review of his forces, and placing the standard of the Prophet in the hands of the vizier, in token of the full powers entrusted to him for the conduct of the campaign. On the 10th of June, Tekoeli, who had crossed the Danube to welcome his potent auxiliaries, was received at Essek with royal magnificence by Kara-Mustapha, who imitated, in the ceremonial observed on this occasion, the pomp of the reception of John Zapolya by Soliman, on his march against Vienna in 1529; but after receiving personal investiture of the royal dignity conferred on him by the sultan, he returned rapidly to Cassovia, where he had fixed his headquarters. The khan of the Tartars had already arrived at Stuhlweissenburg, and was speedily joined by the vizir and the main Turkish army, which, passing the Danube to the number of 140,000 men, swept like a torrent over the rich plains of Lower Hungary: the towns, abandoned by the panic-stricken German garrisons, every where opening their gates to the partisans of Zriny and Tekoeli, in the hope of escaping the fate of Veszprim, which had been sacked by the janissaries for attempting resistance. The march was pressed with unexampled rapidity, till on the 28th the whole army was mustered under the walls of Gran; and the vizir, summoning to his tent the khan and the principal pashas, announced that his orders were to make himself master of Vienna.

The veneration with which the Turks have always regarded the memory of the greatest of their sultans, has led them not only to shrink with superstitious awe from attempting any enterprise in which he failed, but even to attach a prophetic importance to his recorded sayings. A promise attributed to him, that "an Ottoman army should never pass the Raab," had been recalled at the time of the signal defeat experienced by Ahmed-Kiuprili on that river, and his memorable repulse before Vienna had been ever held as a warning, that the Ottoman arms were destined never to prevail against the ramparts of the Kizil-Alma. These considerations, however, had little weight with Kara-Mustapha; bridges, hastily thrown over the ill-omened stream, afforded a passage to the army, (July 8,) and the march was again directed without stop or stay on Vienna. A body of Hungarians in the pay of the emperor, under Budiani, passed over to the ranks of their insurgent countrymen on the first appearance of the standards of Tekoeli; and the Duke of Lorraine, who had withdrawn his infantry to the island of Schutt and the other bank of the Danube, was worsted in a cavalry fight at Petronel by the Tartars, whose flying squadrons were already seen from the walls of Vienna. Proclamation had been made, forbidding the citizens to speak of the present state of affairs!—but the emperor and court, who had confidently reckoned on the invaders being delayed by the sieges of Raab and Komorn, no sooner learned that they had passed those fortresses unheeded, and were rapidly approaching the capital, than, seized with a panic-terror, they fled from the devoted city, on the same day with the combat at Petronel, (July 7,) in such dismayed haste, that the empress was forced to lodge one night under a tree in the open air; nor did they deem themselves in safety from the terrible pursuit of the Tartars, till they reached Lintz, on the furthest western verge of the hereditary states. The Austrian towns along the Danube were overwhelmed by the advancing tide of Turks, or ravaged by the Hungarian followers of Tekoeli, who vied with their Moslem allies in animosity against the Germans; and the light troops and Tartars, overspreading the country, pushed their predatory excursions so far up the river, as even to alarm the imperial fugitives at Lintz, who consulted their safety by a second flight to Passau. The three great abbeys of Lilienfeldt, Mölk, and Klosterneuburg, were preserved from these desultory marauders by the strength of their walls, and the valour of their monastic inmates, who took arms in defence of their cloisters; but the open country was laid waste with the same ferocity as in the invasion by Soliman, and many thousands of the country people were dragged as slaves into the Turkish camp. The regular columns of the janissaries and feudatory troops, meanwhile, continuing their advance, appeared on the morning of the 14th under the walls of Vienna; the posts of the different corps were assigned on the same day, and in the course of the following night, ground was broken for the trenches on three sides of the city.

The ancient ramparts of Vienna, which had withstood the assault of the great Soliman, had been replaced, not long after the former siege, by fortifications better adapted for modern warfare; but during the long interval of security, the extensive suburbs, with the villas and gardens of the nobles and opulent citizens, had been suffered to encroach on the glacis and encumber the approaches; and the ruins of these luxurious abodes, imperfectly destroyed in the panic arising from the unexpected celerity of the enemy's movements, were calculated at once to impede the fire from the walls, and to afford shelter and lodgement to the besiegers. Such preparations for defence, however, as the time allowed of, had been hastily made by the governor, Rudiger Count Stahrenberg, a descendant of the stout baron who, in the former siege, had repulsed the Tartars in the defiles near Enns, and an artillery officer of proved skill and valour. Most of the gates had been walled up, platforms and covered ways constructed, and the students of the university, with such of the citizens as were able and willing to bear arms, were organized into companies in aid of the regular troops, whose number did not exceed 14,000. But the flower of the Austrian nobility, with many gallant volunteers, not only from Germany, but from other parts of Christendom, were within the walls, and animated by their example the spirits of the defenders, whose only hope of relief lay apparently in the distant and uncertain succours of Poland. The Duke of Lorraine, with his cavalry, had still hoped to maintain himself in the Prater and the Leopoldstadt, (which were on an island separated from the city by a narrow arm of the river,) and thus to keep up the communication with the north bank:—but an overwhelming body of Turkish horse, (among whom were conspicuous the Arab chargers and gorgeous equipments of a troop of Egyptian Mamlukes, a force rarely seen in the Ottoman armies,) was directed against him on the 17th, and after a desperate conflict, he was driven across the main stream with the loss of 500 men, and with difficulty secured himself from pursuit by breaking the bridge. The suburb of Leopold, in itself a second city, was given up to the flames; and the Turks, erecting two batteries on the bank opposite Vienna, completed the investment on the only side which had hitherto remained open. Kara-Mustapha, in the confidence of anticipated triumph, now summoned Stahrenberg to surrender, by throwing a cartel into the city, wrapped up in linen and fastened to an arrow: and no answer being returned, the fire of the batteries on the Leopold island opened on the town; and in less than a week ten others were completed and mounted with cannon on the landward side.

The main point of attack, in the former siege under Soliman, had been the gate of Carinthia, (Kärnther-Thor,) and the adjoining bastions; but the weight of the Turkish fire on the land side was now directed principally against the Castle-Gate, (Burg-Thor,) lying to the left of the former, and against the curtain between the Castle bastion and that of Löbel; and on the river side from the batteries of the Leopold island against the Rothenthurm or Red Tower, at the point where the fortifications abut on the stream of the Danube. The tent of the vizir was pitched opposite the Burg-Thor, in the midst of the janissaries and Roumeliote troops, while the feudatories of Anatolia and Syria, under their pashas, were posted right and left of this central point, and the encampments of the various divisions stretched far round the city in a semi-circle many miles in extent, touching the Danube at its two extreme points of Ebersdorff below Vienna, and Nussdorff in the higher part of the stream, where a bridge thrown over the narrow channel formed a communication between the outposts on the mainland, and those on the Leopold island. The charge of this bridge was assigned to the Moldavian and Wallachian contingents, under the command of Scherban, waiwode of the latter province, and one of the most remarkable adventurers of the age. Born of a noble Wallachian family, which claimed descent from the ancient imperial house of Cantacuzene, he had earned from the Turks, not less by the reckless bravery he had displayed under the standard of the crescent in the wars of Poland, than by the consummate address with which he had steered his way through the tortuous intrigues of the Fanar, the sobriquet of Shaïtan Ogblu, son of Satan—nor was he unknown as a gay and gallant visitor to the more polished and voluptuous courts of the west. In his elevation to the throne of his native country, he was said to have been materially assisted by the criminal favour of the consort of his predecessor, the Princess Ducas:—but in the camp before Vienna he assumed the guise of extraordinary piety—a lofty cross was erected before his tent, where the rights of the Greek Church were daily celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and the priests of that communion offered up prayers for the success of the Ottoman arms against the schismatics of the Western Church![G]

On the 23d of July, two mines were fired under the counterscarp of the Löbel bastion, and though from the want of skill in the Turkish engineers, they did little damage, the alarm caused among the garrison, who called to mind the formidable use made of this species of approach in the siege of Candia, was such, that Stahrenberg issued orders that one person should be constantly on the watch in each house, to prevent the Turks from making their way into the city by these subterraneous passages. No more than forty mines, however, were sprung during the whole siege, and their effect, from the industry with which they were countermined by the garrison, was far less destructive than at Candia:—but the fire from the batteries continued without cessation, till the counterscarp and ravelin between the two bastions were reduced to a heap of ruins, and the covered approaches of the Turks, in spite of the constant sorties of the besieged, were pushed so close to the outer works that the defenders could reach the pioneers employed on the galleries by thrusting at them through the palisades with the long German pikes, the efficiency of which had been so severely experienced in the former siege. The first assault on the ravelin was made July 25—but the explosion of a mine at the instant threw the attacking column into disorder, and they were repulsed after a severe conflict, in which Stahrenberg himself was wounded. The attack was not repeated in force till the night of Aug. 3, when the troops of the pasha of Temeswar, and a select body of janissaries under their houlkiaya or lieutenant-general, rushed with such fury upon the ruined rampart, that though four times driven back, they at last succeeded in effecting a lodgement in the ravelin, and threw up parapets to screen themselves from the fire of the walls. The city, meanwhile, was repeatedly set on fire by bombs thrown from the Turkish batteries; and during the confusion arising from one of these partial conflagrations, a fresh mine was run under the angle of the court bastion, and sprung with such effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder, however, had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled among the Turks and the garrison, by a well-timed sortie, did great damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach, however, could be repaired, the janissaries, recovering from their panic, again assailed it, and, after a desperate struggle, established themselves in the ditch and front of the bastion, while the defenders endeavoured, by changing the direction of their guns, to enfilade the ground thus won by the enemy, so as to prevent their penetrating into the interior, which now lay open to them.

Great had been the panic throughout Europe at the advance of the Turks into Austria, and their appearance before Vienna. The infidel host was magnified, by the exaggerations of popular terror, to the number of 100,000 horse and 600,000 foot! And it was doubted whether, after destroying the power of the House of Hapsburg, the vizir would march to the Rhine, and annihilate the remaining strength of Christendom by the overthrow of Louis XIV., or would cross the Alps to fulfil the famous threat of Bayezid I., by stabbing his horse before the high altar of St Peter's. Even among those better qualified to take a calm view of the state of affairs, little hope was entertained that Vienna could hold out till the armies of Poland and the empire could be collected in sufficient force for its relief, if the Turks continued to press the siege with that vigour and stubborn perseverance, the combination of which in the attack of fortified places had hitherto been one of their most remarkable military characteristics. But Kara-Mustapha, deficient alike in martial experience and personal courage, was little qualified either to stimulate the fanatic ardour of the Ottomans or to guide it to victory. While within the wide enclosure of his own tents, carefully pitched beyond the range of cannon-shot from the ramparts, he maintained a household and harem of such luxurious magnificence as none of the sultans had ever carried with them into the field, the rations of the soldiers were reduced, on the pretext that the supplies expected from Hungary had been intercepted by the garrisons of Raab and the other towns on the Danube, which still held out for the emperor; and so little did he care to disguise his apprehensions for his own safety, that he visited the lines only in a litter rendered musket-proof by plates and lattices of iron! Whether he entertained the wild design, as asserted by Cantemir, (whose authority, as that of a contemporary, may in this case perhaps deserve some credit,) of throwing off his allegiance to the sultan, and erecting an independent Western Empire of the Ottomans in Austria and Hungary, or whether he was simply instigated by his avarice to preserve the imagined treasures of the capital of the German Cæsars from the pillage which must follow from its being taken by storm—he no sooner saw the imperial city apparently within his grasp, than he restrained, instead of encouraging, the spirit of the troops, endeavouring rather to wear out the garrison by an endless succession of petty alarms, than to carry the place at once by assault. The murmurs of the soldiers, who even refused to remain in the trenches, were with difficulty quieted by the exhortations of Wani-Effendi, a celebrated Moslem divine, who had accompanied the army in order to share in the merit of the holy war—while the remonstrances of the pashas and generals were silenced by the exhibition of the sultan's khatt-shereef, which conferred on the vizir plenary powers for the conduct of the war.

While Kara Mustapha thus lay inactive in his lines before Vienna, Tekoeli, who had been detached with his Hungarian followers and an auxiliary Turkish corps to reduce the castle of Presburg, which held out after the surrender of the town, had been defeated by the Duke of Lorraine, aided by a body of Polish cavalry under Lubomirski, the forerunners of the army now assembling at Cracow. All the European princes, meanwhile, with the exception of Louis XIV., who, even in the danger of their common faith, forgot not his hostility to the house of Hapsburg, vied with each other in forwarding the equipment of the host which was to save the bulwark of Christendom. The cardinals at Rome sold their plate to supply funds for the German levies; Cardinal Barberini alone contributed 20,000 florins, and the Pope was profuse in his indulgences to those who joined the new crusade. The emperor, meanwhile, from his retreat at Passau, was abject in his entreaties to Sobieski for speedy succour, offering to cede to him his rights upon Hungary if he could preserve his Austrian capital; but the zeal of the Polish hero needed no stimulus. Though so disabled by the gout as to be unable to mount his horse without help, he was indefatigable in his exertions to hasten the march of his troops, to whom he gave the rendezvous, "Under the counterscarp at Vienna." On his march into Germany, he was every where received as a deliverer; the Jesuits of Olmutz erected, at his entrance into the town, a triumphal arch, with the inscription, "Salvatorem expectamus;" and all hailed, as a sure omen of victory, the presence of the champion whose very name had become a byword of terror among the Turks. The beleaguered garrison was, meanwhile, cheered by frequent messages promising speedy relief from the Duke of Lorraine, whose emissaries, selected for their knowledge of the Turkish language, contrived to pass and re-pass securely; but an epidemic disease, in addition to the sword and the bombardment, was rapidly thinning their numbers; and Callonitz, bishop of Neustadt, who, in his younger days, had gained distinction against the Turks in Candia, now acquired a holier fame by his pious care of the sick and wounded, who crowded the hospitals and houses. The siege had been languidly carried on during the greater part of August, but at the end of the month fresh symptoms of activity were observed in the Ottoman lines; several mines were sprung on the 27th and 28th, and the fire from the batteries was so warmly kept up, that on the 29th the garrison, conjecturing that the anniversary of the battle of Mohacz had been chosen for the general assault, stood to their arms in anxious suspense. But the day passed over without any alarm, and it was not till September 4, that, having blown up great part of the right face of the court bastion by a powerful mine, 5000 of the élite of the janissaries sprang, sword in hand, with loud shouts and the clangour of martial music, into the breach thus made, and forcing their way, with the fanatic valour which had in their best days characterized the sons of Hadji-Bektash, into the interior of the bastion, planted their bairahs, or pennons, on the ruined ramparts. Stahrenberg himself, with his officers and guards, was fortunately going the rounds at the menaced point at the moment of the explosion and assault, but the Osmanlis held firm the ground they had gained; and Stahrenberg, seeing the enemy thus fairly established within the defences, directed barriers to be constructed and trenches sunk at the head of the streets nearest the breach, while thirty rockets, fired in the night from the steeple of St Stephen's Domkirch, announced the extremity of their distress to their approaching friends; and all eyes were turned to the rocky heights of the Kahlenberg, which bounded the prospect to the west, in hope of descrying the standards of the Christian army.

It was at Tuln, six leagues above Vienna, that Sobieski received, the day after this assault, a despatch from Stahrenberg, containing only the words—"There is no time to be lost!" On the 6th the Poles passed the river by the bridge of Tuln, and the king, amazed at the supineness of the vizir in suffering this movement to be effected without molestation, exclaimed, "Against such a general the victory is already gained!"—and advanced as to an assured triumph. Though far inferior in numbers to the Turks, who, after all their losses by the sword and desertion, still mustered 120,000 effective men, when passed in review on the 8th by the vizir, it was in truth a gallant army which Sobieski now saw united under his command. The Imperialists, under the Duke of Lorraine, were not more than 20,000; but the Saxons and Bavarians, led by their respective electors, and the contingents of the lesser states of the empire, with the fiery hussars and cuirassiers of Poland, formed an aggregate of 65,000 men, more than half of whom were cavalry; while in the ranks were found, besides the German chivalry who fought for their fatherland, many noble volunteers, who had hastened from Spain and Italy to share in the glories anticipated under the leadership of Sobieski. Among these illustrious auxiliaries was a young hero, who had escaped from France in defiance of the mandate of Louis XIV., to flesh his maiden sword in view of the Polish king, and who at a later period, under the well-known name of Prince Eugene, himself earned deathless fame by his achievements against those redoubted enemies, whose first great overthrow he was destined to witness.

On the evening of the 10th the two armies were separated only by the ridge of the Kahlenberg, and the thick forests covering its sides; and a still more urgent message arrived from the governor, who intimated that he had little chance of repelling another assault. "On the same night, however," (says the diary of a Dutch officer in the garrison,) "we saw on the hills many fires, and rockets thrown up, as signals of our approaching succours, which we joyfully answered in like manner ... and next day the Turks were moving, and their cavalry riding about in confusion, till about four P.M. we saw several of their regiments drawing off towards the hills, and those in Leopoldstadt marching over the bridge." The knowledge, indeed, that the terrible Sobieski was at the head of the Christian army, had spread such a panic among the Osmanli, that several thousands left the camp the same night; but Kara-Mustapha, though urged by all his officers to march with his whole force to meet the coming storm, contented himself with sending 10,000 men, under Kara-Ibrahim, pasha of Buda, to watch the Poles, while the rest were kept in their lines before the city, which was cannonaded with redoubled fury throughout the 11th and the night following. The summits of the Kahlenberg glittered with the arms of the confederates, who bivouacked there during the night, being unable to pitch their tents from the violence of the wind, which Sobieski, in one of his letters to his queen, (his "charmante et bien aimée Mariette,") says, was attributed by the soldiers to the incantations of the vizir, "who is known to be a great magician." From the top of the Leopoldsberg, the king and the Duke of Lorraine reconnoitred the Turkish camp, which lay in all its wide extent before them, from the opposite skirts of the Wienerberg almost to the foot of the ridge on which they stood, with the lofty pavilions and scarlet screens of the vizir's quarters conspicuous in the midst, while the incessant roar of the artillery rose from the midst of the smoke which enveloped the city.

At five in the morning of the 12th, the sound of musketry was heard from the thickets and wooded ravines at the foot of the Kahlenberg, where the Saxons were already engaged with the Turkish division under Ibrahim-Pasha; and the king, having heard mass on the Leopoldsberg from his chaplain Aviano, mounted his favourite sorrel charger, and, preceded by his son James, whom he had just dubbed a knight in front of the army, and by his esquire bearing his shield and banner, led the Poles, who held the right of the allied line, down the slopes of the mountain. The left wing, which lay nearest the river, was commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, and the columns in the centre were under the orders of the two electors, and the Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Eisenach. By eight a.m. the action had become warm along the skirts of the Kahlenberg—the Turks, who were principally horse, dismounting to fight on foot behind hastily-constructed abattis of trees and earth, as the nature of the ground was unfavourable to cavalry, and keeping up a heavy fire on the enemy while they were entangled in the ravines. The ardour of the Christians, however, speedily overcame these obstacles; and by ten a.m., their van was debouching from the defiles into the plain with loud shouts of battle; and the Turks, though from time to time receiving reinforcements from the camp, were gradually obliged to give ground. The vizir, meanwhile, remaining immovable in his tent, directed a fresh cannonade to be directed against the city, under cover of which a general assault was to be made; but the long files of camels laden with the spoils of Austria, which were sent off in haste on the road to Hungary, revealed his secret disquietude—and the troops in the trenches, effectually disheartened by the delay and privations of the siege, showed little inclination again to advance against the shattered bastions. The towers and steeples of Vienna were thronged with anxious spectators, who with throbbing hearts watched the advance of their deliverers, who pressed on at all points, "making the Turks give way" (says the diary above quoted) "whenever they came to a shock." The villages of Nussdorff and Heiligenstadt on the Danube, where several odas of janissaries, with heavy cannon, were posted, checked for some time the progress of the Austrians on the left; the Duc de Croye, a gallant French volunteer, fell in leading the attack, but a body of Polish cuirassiers were at last sent to their aid, who, levelling their lances, and dashing with loud shouts against the flank of the Turkish batteries, carried the position, and put the defenders to the sword. It was not so much a battle, as a series of desperate but irregular skirmishes scattered over wide extent of ground—the Turkish troops (who were almost all cavalry, as most of the regulars and artillery were still in the camp) gradually receding before the heavy advancing columns of the Christians. By four P.M. they were driven so close to their intrenchments, that Sobieski could descry the vizir, seated in a small crimson tent, and tranquilly drinking coffee with his two sons. At this moment, a torrent of the wild cavalry of the Tartars, headed by the khan in person, poured forth from the Moslem lines, and thundered upon the right of the Poles, only to recoil in disorder before the lances of Iablonowski and the Lithuanians, who pushed in pursuit close to a deep ravine, which covered the redoubts of the Turks. But the khan had recognized in the mêlée the well-known figure of Sobieski, whose personal presence had been as yet uncertain. "By Allah!" said he to the vizir on his return from his unsuccessful charge, "the heavens have fallen upon us; for the ill-omened kral of the Leh (Poles) of a truth is with the infidels!"

The Turks were now every where driven within their lines, and the battle appeared over for the day; but the Poles, with cries of triumph, demanded to be led to the attack of the camp, and Sobieski exclaiming, "Not unto us, O Lord, but to thy name be the praise!" directed the assault. In a moment the Polish chivalry spurred up the steep side of the ravine in the teeth of the Turkish artillery—a redoubt in the centre of the lines was stormed through the gorge by Maligny, brother-in-law of the king—the Pashas of Aleppo and Silistria, whose prowess sustained the fainting courage of their troops, were slain in the front of the battle—and, after a conflict of less than an hour, the whole vast array of the Osmanlis, pierced through the centre by the onset of the Polish lances, gave way in hopeless, irremediable confusion, and, abandoning their camp, artillery, and baggage, fled in wild confusion on the road to Hungary. By 6 P.M. the Polish King reached the tent of the vizir; but Kara-Mustapha had not awaited the arrival of the victor. In an agony of despair at the mighty ruin which he now saw to be inevitable, he gave the barbarous order (which was but partially executed) for the massacre of the women of his harem, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy; and, seizing the Sandjak-shereef,[H] mounted an Arabian camel of surpassing swiftness, and accompanied, or perhaps preceded, the flight of his army. Such was the panic haste of the rout, that, before sunset the next day, the whole host swept past the walls of Raab, the garrison of which thus gained the first tidings of the catastrophe—nor have the crimson banners of the crescent been ever again seen on the soil of Germany.

From the desultory character of the action, in which little use was made of artillery, and the headlong dismay in which the Turks at last took to flight, not more than 10,000 of their number, according to the most probable accounts, fell in the battle; of the allies, scarcely 3000 were killed or wounded. Three hundred pieces of cannon of various calibres, many of them taken in former wars by the Turks, and still bearing the arms of Poland or the empire—a countless quantity of arms, ammunition, and warlike implements of all kinds—were found in the abandoned intrenchments; and the abundance of cattle, with the amply stored magazines of provisions, afforded instant relief to the famine from which the citizens had been for some time suffering.

Surrounded by a vast crowd, who hailed him with enthusiastic acclamations as their deliverer, and thronged each other with a zeal approaching adoration, to kiss his hand or his stirrup, Sobieski entered Vienna through the breach on the morning of September 13, in company with the Duke of Lorraine and the electoral Prince of Bavaria, and with the horsetails found before the tent of the vizir borne in triumph before him; and having met and saluted Stahrenberg, repaired with him to a chapel in the church of the Augustin friars, to return thanks for the victory. As he entered the church, a priest cried aloud in an ecstacy of fervour—"There was a man sent from God whose name was John," and this text, which in past ages had been applied to the Hungarian paladin, John Hunyades, was again employed by the preachers throughout Europe, in celebration of the new champion of Christendom, John Sobieski. Far different to the entry of the Polish king was the return of the Emperor Leopold to his rescued capital. He had quitted it as a fugitive, amid the execrations of the people, who accused him of having drawn on them the storm of invasion, without providing means to ward off the destruction which threatened them; and having descended the Danube in a boat, he re-entered the city on the 14th in the guise of a penitent, proceeding on foot, with a taper in his hand, to the cathedral of St Stephen, where he knelt before the high altar in acknowledgement of his deliverance. But neither from his misfortunes, nor from his returning prosperity, had Leopold learned the lesson of gratitude or humility. He even attempted at first to evade an interview with Sobieski, on the ground that an elective king had never been received on terms of equality by an emperor of Germany: and, when this unworthy plea was overruled by the honest indignation of the Duke of Lorraine, the meeting of the two monarchs was formal and embarrassed: and Sobieski, disgusted at the meanness and arrogance of the prince who owed to him the preservation of his capital and throne, hastily cut short the conference, by deputing to his chancellor Zaluski the task of showing to Leopold the troops who had saved his empire; and departed on the 17th with his noble colleague in arms, the Duke of Lorraine, to follow up their triumphs by attacking the Turks in Hungary.

The battle of Vienna effectually broke the spell of the Ottoman military ascendancy, which for near three centuries had held Europe in awe;—and though the energies of the empire, and the efficacy of its institutions, had long been gradually decaying, it was this great blow which first revealed the secret of its impaired strength. The treaty of Zurawno with Poland in 1676, had raised the Ottoman dominions to the highest point of territorial extent which they ever attained. From the time of the reunion of the empire, after the confusion following the defeat of Bayezid I. by Timour, every reign had seen its boundaries enlarged by successive acquisitions; and if we except the voluntary abandonment, in 1636, of the remote and unprofitable province of Yemen, the horsetails had never receded from any territory on which they had been planted in token of permanent occupation. Besides the vast territories which were under the immediate rule of pashas sent from the Porte, and which the land and capitation taxes (ssalyaneh and kharatch,) the khan of the Krim Tartars, the otaman of the Cossacks, the vassal princes of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, the hereditary chiefs of the Circassian and Koordish tribes, and the rulers of the Barbary regencies, were all "under the shadow of the imperial horsetails," and paid tribute and allegiance to the sultan, who might boast, with no less justice than did the monarchs of the Seljookian Turks of old, that a crowd of princes arose from the dust of his footsteps. During the reign of Mohammed IV., the last relics of Venetian rule in the Levant had been extirpated by the conquest of Candia; the frontiers in Hungary and Transylvania had been strengthened by the acquisition of the important fortresses of Grosswardein and Neuhausel, with the territory attached to them; while Poland had been deprived of the province through which she had access to the undefended points of the Ottoman frontier, and the Cossacks, from restless and intractable enemies, had been converted into friends and auxiliaries. In the domestic administration, also, the wisdom and clemency of Ahmed-Kiuprili, supported by a corresponding disposition on the part of the sultan, who was naturally averse to measures of severity, had introduced a spirit of moderation and equity unknown in the Ottoman annals. Such was the condition of the foreign relations and internal government of the Turkish empire at the juncture immediately preceding the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili, whose life closed (as mentioned above) within a few days of the conclusion of the peace of Zurawno:—and the coincidence of this highest point of territorial aggrandizement and domestic prosperity, with the last days of the great minister who had so principal a share in producing them, would almost justify the superstitious belief, that the star of the Kiuprilis was in sooth the protecting talisman of the Ottoman state, and inseparably connected with its welfare and splendour.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The Poles were sometimes called Lechi, from Lech, the name of one of their ancient kings.

[C] Von Hammer describes him, without quoting his authority, as of lofty stature, and extremely fair complexion; but Rycaut's personal acquaintance insures his correctness.

[D] He subsequently became grand-vizir, and was killed at the battle of Salankaman in 1691.

[E] This name in western parlance would be Gabriel de Bethlen; in Hungary, the Christian follows the surname.

[F] The anonymous biographer of Tekoeli, believed to be M. Leclerc.

[G] After the defeat of the Turks, Scherban Cantacuzene opened a correspondence with the Emperor and the King of Poland, setting forth his hereditary claim to the imperial crown of Constantinople in the event of their expulsion from Europe! but his intrigues became known to the Ottoman ministry, and he is supposed to have been taken off by poison.

[H] A crimson banner was again sent to Rome as the Sandjak-shereef, as the green one of Hussein had been after the victory of Choczim.

EXHIBITIONS

British art is in a transition state. Remembering many a year past our Academy Exhibitions, and the general, the family resemblance the works bore to each other, the little variety either in style or execution; and of later years noticing the gradual change, the adoption of a new class of subjects, and more varied styles; we are yet struck with the manifest difference between the present and any other we ever remember to have seen. There is, in fact, more originality. There are, indeed, mannerists enough; and we mean not here to use the word in its reprehensive sense but they stand more alone. There are far fewer imitators—some, of course, there must be, but they are chiefly in those classes where imitation is less easily avoided. Common-place subjects will ever be treated in a common-place manner, and resemble each other. Few venture now to follow even erratic genius in its wild vagaries. Turner has no rivals in the "dissolving view" style. By those who look to one or two favourite masters, who have hitherto given the character to our exhibitions, perhaps some disappointment may be felt. Edwin Landseer has but two pictures—Sir Augustus Calleott not one; and herein is a great loss, speaking not with reference to his very late pictures, his English landscape, or even his Italian views, but in vivid recollection of his fascinating river views, with their busy boats, under illuminating skies, such as, alas! he has ceased to paint.

With regard to landscape, we progress slowly. Yet we fancy we can perceive indications there, that are of a better promise; although of the higher class of landscape there is not one this year. The promise is in the pencil of Creswick. He labours to unite great finish, too minute finish, with breadth and boldness of effect. His is unquestionably a new style; his subjects are all pleasing, bordering on the poetical; we only question if his aim at minute finishing does not challenge a scrutiny into the accuracy and infinite variety of the detail of nature, that few pictures ought to require, and his certainly do not satisfy the demand. For, after all, there is a great sameness, where there ought to be variety, particularly in his foliage: it is safer, by a greater generality, to leave much to the imagination. We do not, however, mean to quarrel with this his peculiar style, nor to limit its power. There is something yet not achieved.

Mr Maclise has likewise originated a new style, and if not altogether a new class of subjects, one so richly, so luxuriantly treated as to be fairly considered new. He has given to humour a gentle satire, and more especially to works of creative fancy an historical importance; for herein he is essentially different from all other painters of this class, that none of his pieces, we might almost say none of his figures, are, or pretend to be, real life. If it be said that they are theatrical, we know not but that the term expresses their merit; for as Sir Joshua has well observed, there must be in the theatrical a certain ideal—which is, nevertheless, the higher representative of nature. Mr Maclise has adopted the elaborate finish and lavish ornament, but with so much breadth, and powerful execution, that the display scarcely offends—and he generally seeks subjects that will bear it. As a fault it was conspicuous in his Lady Macbeth: the strong emotions of that banquet-scene are of too hurrying, too absorbent a nature, to admit either the conspicuous multiplicity of parts, or the excess of ornament which that work exhibited. It was the very perfection of the "Sleeping Beauty," and singularly enough, begat a repose; for the mind was fascinated into the notion of the long sleep, by the very leisure required and taken to examine the all-quiescent detail.

May we not call the style of Mr Redgrave original? perhaps more so in his execution than his subject. He has appropriated the elegant familiar. Many are the painters we might name under whose hands the arts are advancing; those we have named, however, appear to us to be more or less the chief originators of new styles. Nor does it follow from this that their pictures are always the best in any exhibition, though they may be generally found so to be. If we are to congratulate the world of art on the particular advancement of this year, we shall certainly limit our praise to one picture, because it is the picture of the year; and it is a wondrous improvement upon all our former historical attempts. Whoever has visited the Exhibition will at once know that we allude to Mr Poole's "Plague of London." There has not been so powerful a picture painted in this country since the best days of Sir Joshua Reynolds. For its power we compare it with the "Ugolino" of the President, and we do so the more readily as both pictures are now publicly exhibited. Unlike as they are, unquestionably, in many respects, and painted indeed on opposite principles, regarding the mechanical methods and colour; yet for power, for pathos, they come into competition. The subject chosen by Mr Poole was one of much more difficulty, more complication: he has had, therefore, much more to do, much more to overcome; and he has succeeded. Both, possibly, to a certain extent, were imitators, yet both possessing a genius that made the works their own creations. Sir Joshua saw Rembrandt in every motion of his hand; and Mr Poole was not unconscious of Nicolo Poussin in the design and execution of his "Plague." This is not said to the disparagement of either painter; on the contrary, we should augur ill of that man's genius who would be more ambitious to be thought original in all things than of painting a good picture. Great minds will be above this little ambition. Raffaelle borrowed without scruple from those things that were done well before him, a whole figure, and even a group; yet the result was ever a work that none could ever suspect to be by any hand but Raffaelle's. In saying that Mr Poole has seen Nicolo Poussin, we do not mean to insinuate more than that fact: others may say more; and, depreciating a work of surprising power, and that, too, coming from an artist who has hitherto exhibited nothing to be compared with it, will add that he has stolen it from Nicolo Poussin. This we boldly deny. The works of Nicolo Poussin of similar subjects are well known, and wonderful works they are; we need mention but two—the one in the National Gallery, the "Plague of Ashdod," and that in the collection of P.S. Miles, Esq., and exhibited last year at the British Institution, and which is engraved in Forster's work. We do not believe that one group or single figure in Mr Poole's picture can be shown in these or any others of Poussin. And in the conception there is a striking difference. Mr Poole's subject, though we have called it the "Plague of London," is not, strictly speaking, the awfulness and the disgust of that dire malady, but the insanity of the fanatic Solomon Eagle, taking a divine, an almost Pythean impress from its connexion with that woful and appalling mystery. This being his subject, he has judiciously omitted much of that dreadfully disgusting detail, which his subject compelled Poussin to force upon the spectator. There is, therefore, in Mr Poole's picture more to excite our wonder and pity than disgust; nay, there is even room for the exhibition of tender, sensitive, apprehensive, scarcely suffering beauty, and set off by contrasts not too strong; so that nothing impedes the mind in, or draws it off from, the contemplation of the madman—here more than madman, the maniac made inspired by the belief of the spectator in denunciations which appear verifying themselves visibly before him. It is this feeling which makes the crazed one grand, heroic, and which constitutes this picture an historical work of a high class. It is far more than a collection of incidents in a plague; it is the making the plague itself but an accessory. The theme is of the madness that spreads its bewilderment on all around, as its own of right, as cause and effect—a bewilderment that works beyond the frame, and will not let the beholder question its fanatic power. We will endeavour to describe the picture, but first, take the subject from the catalogue:—"Solomon Eagle exhorting the People to Repentance, during the Plague of the Year 1665. P. F. Poole.—'I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast; he, though not infected at all, but in his head, went about denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner, sometimes quite naked and with a pan of burning charcoal on his head.'—See DE FOE'S Narrative of the Plague in London." The scene is supposed to be in that part of London termed "Alsatia," so well described by Sir Walter Scott—the refuge of the destitute and criminal. Here are groups of the infected, the dying, the callous, the despairing—a miserable languor pervades them all. The young—the aged—the innocent—the profligate. One sedate and lovely female is seeking consolation from the sacred book, beside whom sits her father—a grand figure, in whose countenance is a fixed intensity of worldly care, that alone seems to keep life within his listless body, next him is a young mother, with her dying child, and close behind him a maiden, hiding her face, whose eye alone is seen, distended and in vacant gaze. We feel that this is a family group, perhaps the broken remnant of a family, awaiting utter desolation. Behind the group are two very striking figures—a man bewildered, and more than infected, escaping from the house, within the doorway of which we see, written in red characters, "Lord have mercy upon us," and the cross; the nurse is endeavouring to detain him. Nothing can be finer than the action and expression in both figures—the horror of the nurse, and fever energy of the escaped, in whose countenance, never to be forgotten, is the personification of plague-madness. It is recorded that such a one did so escape, swam across the Thames, and recovered. Beyond these are revellers, a dissolute band, card-playing. In the midst of the game one is smitten with the plague, and is falling back—one starts with horror at the sudden seizure—a stupid, drunken indifference marks the others—they had been waiting for a feast, which one is bringing in, who stands just above the falling figure, who will never partake of it. Quite in the background, and behind a low wall, are conveyers of the dead, carrying along a body. This describes the left of the picture. To the right, and near the middle, is a dying boy, leaning upon a man, who is suddenly roused, and rising to hear the denunciations of Solomon Eagle. At his back are two lovely female figures, sisters we should suppose, the younger one dying, supported by the sister's knee, who sits with crossed hands, as if in almost hopeless prayer. Beyond is a wretched man, with his head resting upon his hand, in a fixed state of stupid indifference; above whom are several figures, mostly of the lower grade, in the various stages of infection or recovery. They are sitting before the window of a house, through the panes of which we see indistinctly one raving, while from the same house a dead body is being let down from above, and in the background are the dead-cart and the carriers. At the feet of the figures by the house lie others, in all the langour of disease and feverish watchfulness. Among these persons are various shades of character, apparently all from nature, each one, artistically speaking, representing a class, and yet with such a stamp of individual nature, that we are satisfied they must have been taken from life. In this respect they resemble Raffaelle's beggars at the "Beautiful Gate," in their admirable generality an individuality. Two are very striking—an odd, stiff-looking old man, with a beard, whose marked profile is of the old cheat; he is observing the escape of the man on the opposite side of the picture, and the woman at his side, whose face is turned upwards, one-half an idiot, and all-wicked. We cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is, perhaps, the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared for the principal dramatis personæ; and so far we have only the calamity of the Plague, not in its scenes of turbulence, but kept down under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that, were the two principal figures obliterated, we should say the scene is yet but a preparation, awaiting the master figures to mark its true impression and feeling, constituting the subject of the picture. These principal figures are Solomon Eagle and his attendant; they are placed judiciously in the centre of the picture, in no part intercepted. Solomon Eagle hurries into the picture with a book in one hand, the other raised, as pointing to the heavens, from whence come the denunciations he pronounces: on his head is a pan of burning charcoal. He is naked, excepting his waist. His very attitude is insane—we need not look at his face to see that; the fore-finger, starting off from the others, is of mad action, and similar is the energy of the projected foot. The attitude is of one with a fixed purpose, one under an imaginary divine commission; it is of entire faith and firmness; and never was such insanity more finely conceived in a countenance. The man is all crazed, and grand, awfully grand, in his craziness. He throws around him an infection of craziness, as does the atmosphere of plague. There is a peculiar look in the eye, which shows the most consummate skill of the painter. The finger starts up as with an electric power, as if it could draw down the vengeance which it communicates. We mentioned the attendant figure—not that he is conscious of her presence. She is mysterious, veiled, a masked mystery—a walking tale of plague, woe, and desolation—a wandering, lonely, decayed gentlewoman: we read her history in her look, and in her walk. Her relations have all been smitten, swept away by the pestilence; her mind is made callous by utter misery; she wanders about careless, without any motive; a childish curiosity may be her pleasure, any incident to divert thoughts that make her sensible of her own bereavement. She stops to listen to the denunciations of the crazed prophet, and herself partakes, though callously, of his insanity—half believes, but scarcely feels. The sky is lurid, pestilential; it touches with plague what it illuminates. Such is the picture in its design. The colouring is quite in accordance with the purpose, and completes the sentiment; there is much of a green tone, yet under great variety. There is very great knowledge shown in it of artistical design, and the art of disposing lines; the groups, kept sufficiently distinct, yet have connecting links with each other; and there are general lines that bring all within the compass of one subject. Now, what, after all, is the impression on the mind of the spectator? for it is not enough to paint plague or madness: unless our human sympathy be touched, we turn away in disgust. Yet upon this picture we look with pleasure. Many whom we have heard say they could not bear to look at it, we found again and again standing before it: some we questioned; and at last they acknowledged pleasure. So are we moved at tragedy: human sympathies are moved—the great natural source of all our pleasures: pity and tenderness, and a sense of the awfulness of a great mystery, are upon us; and though pleased be too light a word, yet we are pleased; and where we are so pleased, we are made better. We feel the good flowing in upon us; and were not the busy scene of the multitudes in an exhibition, and the general glare, distracting, and discordant to the feeling such a picture is calculated to convey, we could enter calmly and deeply into its enjoyment. We have given, at much length, a description of the picture, because we think it a work of more importance than any that has, we would say ever, been exhibited upon the Academy walls—one of more decided commanding genius. There are faults in it doubtless, some of drawing, but not of much importance. We look to the mind in it—to its real greatness of manner, and we believe it to be a work of which the nation may be proud; and were we to look for a parallel, we must go to some of the best works of the best painters of the best ages. We were surprised to find that so small a sum as L 400 was set upon the picture—and more so that it was not sold. We regret that there is no power in the directors of our National Gallery to buy occasionally a modern production. Is there, in that gallery, one work of a British painter in any way equal to it?

There are only two pictures by Mr Maclise—they sustain his reputation.

"The Actress's reception of the Author."—"He advanced into the room trembling and confused, and let his gloves and cloak fall, which having taken up, he approached my mistress, and presented to her a paper with more respect than that of a counsellor when he delivers a petition to a judge, saying, "Be so good, madam, as to accept of this part, which I take the liberty to offer." She received it in a cold and disdainful manner, with out even deigning to answer his compliments.'-Gil Blas, c. xi."

The picture here is the luxuriantly beautiful and insolent prima-donna; we could wish that much of the picture, many of the "figures to let," were away. There is a continuous flowing of graceful lines, in this one figure, with much breadth, that give it a largeness of style, extremely powerful. She luxuriates in pride, insolence, and beauty. The expression is perfect; nor is it confined to her face—it is in every limb and feature. The poor despised author bows low and submissive—and is even looked at contemptuously by a pet dressed monkey, pampered, and eating fruit: a good satire; the fruit to the unworthy—the brute before the genius. There is the usual display, the usual elaborate finish; but it is perhaps a little harder, with more sudden transitions from brown to white than commonly to be found in Mr Maclise's works.

"Waterfall at St. Nighton's, Kieve, near Tintagel, Cornwall." A lovely girl crossing the rocky bed of a stream—attended by a dog, who is leaping from stone to stone. The action of the dog, his care in the act of springing, is admirable, and shows that Mr Maclise can paint all objects well. This is of the high pastoral: the lonely seclusion of the passage between rocks, the scene of the "Waterfall," is a most judicious background to the figure, which is large. It is most sweetly painted.

We are glad to see Mr Ward, R. A., again in the Exhibition. His "Virgil's Bulls," is a subject poetically conceived. The whole landscape is in sympathy, waking, watchful sympathy, with the bulls in their conflict. Not a tree, nor a hill, nor a cloud in the sky but looks on as a spectator. All is in keeping. There is no violence in the colour, nothing to distract the attention from the noble animals—all is quiet, passive and observant. A less poetical mind would have given a bright blue, clear sky, and sparkling sunny grass; one more daring than judicious, might have placed the creatures in a turbulent scene of storm and uprooted ground; Mr Ward has given all the action to the combatants—you shall see nothing but them, and all nature shall be looking on as in a theatre of her own making. The subject is no less grand on the canvas than in the lines of the poet.

We had fully intended to have omitted any mention of Mr Turner's strange productions; but we hear that a work has appeared, exalting him above all landscape painters that ever existed, by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Believing, then, that his style is altogether fallacious, and the extravagant praise mischievous, because none can deny him some fascinations of genius, which mislead, we think it right to comment upon his this year's works. Their subjects are taken from abstracts from a MS. poem, of which Mr Turner is, we presume, himself the author; for though somewhat more distinct and intelligible than his paint, they are obscure enough, and by their feet are as much out of the perspective of verse, as his objects are of that of lines. "The opening of the Wallhalla," is by far the best, indeed it has its beauties; distances are happily given: most absurd are the figures, and the inconceivable foreground. The catalogue announcement of No. 129 startled us. We expected to see "Bright Phœbus" himself poetically personating a doge, or a midshipman; for it points to the "Sun of Venice going to Sea." His "Shade and Darkness; or, the Evening of the Deluge," is the strangest of things—the first question we ask is, which is the shade and which the darkness? After the strictest scrutiny, we learn from this bit of pictorial history, that on the eve of the mighty Deluge, a Newfoundland dog was chained to a post, lest he should swim to the ark; that a pig had been drinking a bottle of wine—an anachronism, for certainly "as drunk as David's sow," was an after-invention: that men, women, and children, (such we suppose they are meant to be) slept a purple sleep, with most gigantic arms round little bodies; that there was fire that did not burn, and water that would nearly obliterate, but not drown. But more wonderful still is the information we pick up, or pick out bit by bit, as strange things glimmer into shape. "Light and Colour, (Goethe's Theory)—The Morning after the Deluge—Moses writing the book of Genesis." Such is the unexpected announcement of the catalogue. But further to account for so remarkable a jumble as we are to behold, Mr Turner adds the following verses:—

"The ark stood firm on Ararat: th' returning sun
Exhaled earth's humid bubbles, and, emulous of light,
Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise,
Hope's harbinger, ephemeral as the summer fly,
Which rises, flits, expands, and dies."

Fallacies of Hope, MS.

This is unquestionably one of the "Fallacies of Hope"—for it is quite hopeless to make out, the sun smoking his cigar of colour, and exhaling earth's humid bubbles; yet we do see a great number of "bubble" heads, scratchy things, in red wigs, rolling and floating out of nothing into nothing. There must indeed have been very wondrous giants in those days; for here is an enormous leg, far beyond the "ex pede Herculem," rising up some leagues off far bigger than whole figures close at hand. But we learn the wonderful fact, that the morning after the Deluge, Moses, sitting upon nothing, possibly the sky, wrote the book of Genesis with a Perryian pen, and on Bath-post, and that he was so seen by Mr Turner in his own peculiar perspective-defying telescope—for so "sedet, eternumque sedebit," in the year 1843. We know that in this account of it we a little jumble past, present, and future; but so we the better describe the picture; for when the Deluge went, Chaos came. That we may the more easily recognize the historian, a serpent is dropping from him, hieroglyphically. Can Mr Turner be serious? or is he trying how far he may perpetrate absurdities, and get the world to believe them beauties, or that his practice is according to any "theory of colour!" His conceptions are such as would be dreams of gallipots of colours, were they endued with life, and the power of dreaming prodigies.

There is unquestionably an impetus given to historical talent—and there is good proof that such talent is not wanting in this year's Exhibition; Mr Patten has chosen a very grand subject from the Inferno of Dante. "Dante, accompanied by Virgil in his descent to the Inferno, recognizes his three countrymen, Rusticucci, Aldobrandi, and Guidoguerra"—Divina Commedia, Inferno. The subject is finely conceived by Mr Patten. Virgil and Dante stand upon the edge of the fiery surge; they are noble and solemn figures. There is an abyss of flames below, that sends upward its whirling and tormenting storm, driven round and round, by which are seen the three countrymen. They are well grouped, and show the whirling motion of the fiery tempest; we should have preferred them more foreshortened, and such we think was the vision in Dante's mind's eye—for he says—

"Thus each one, as he wheel'd, his countenance
At me directed, so that opposite
The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet."

There is great art in placing the large limb of one of the figures immediately over the fiercest centre of fire—it gives interminable space to the fiery sea—an this part of the picture is very daringly and awfully coloured. We rather object to the equal largeness and importance of all the figures; and perhaps the bodies are too smooth, showing too little of the punishment of flame—they are too quiescent. Dante says, "Ah me, what wounds I marked upon their limbs!" And Rusticucci, who addresses Dante, thus describes their bodies:

"'If woe of this unsound and dreary waste,'
Thus one began, 'added to our sad cheer
Thus peel'd with flame.'"

The persons of such sufferers should be Michael Angelesque—punishment and suffering should be equally large. We venture to suggest this criticism to Mr Patten, because the subject is grand, and there is so much good in his manner of treating it, that he will do well to paint another picture of it.

Mr Etty has no less than seven pictures. His "In the Greenwood Shade" is by far the best. Cupid and sleeping nymphs—the rich and lucid colours, softly losing themselves in shade, and here and there playfully recovered, very much remind us of Correggio. We should more applaud Mr Etty for his general colouring, than for his flesh tints; nor have his figures in general the soft and luxuriant roundness which grace and beauty should have—the faces, too, have often too much purple shadow. We have before remarked that, painting too closely from the model, he exhibits Graces that have worn stays. And surely he often mistakenly enlarges the loveliest portion of the female form—the bosom—whose beauty is in its undefined commencement, its gentle and innocent and modest growth. How happily is this hit off by Dryden in his description of Iphigenia sleeping, to the gaze of the clown Cymon:—

"As yet their places were but signified." While so many pictures of acknowledged merit are rejected for lack of room, it is scarcely fair, perhaps, for one artist to exhibit so many. Mr. Eastlake has, however, been too liberal to others in his forbearing modesty; we could wish he had not confined himself to one. He might offer the lioness's answer, were not his picture one most tenderly expressive of all gentleness. It is an old subject, but treated in no respect after the old manner. The boy is faint and weary, on the ground. Hagar, with a countenance of sweet anxiety, is giving the water, with a care, and with a view to the safety of the draught. There is a dead, dry, burnt palm-tree lying on the ground, poetically descriptive. The expression of both figures is perfect, and they are most sweetly, tenderly painted. If we might make any objection, it would be that the subject is not quite poetically treated as to colour. It may be, and we have no doubt it is, most true to nature in one sense. We can believe that such a country would have such a sky, and such appearance in foreground and distance; but that very truth creates to our mind's eye an anachronism—it brings down the tale of antiquity to very modernism—it robs it of its antique hue—it shows it too commonly, too familiarly. As we read it, we do not so see it; we are not so matter-of-fact. There is an ideal colouring that belongs to sentiment—our minds always adopt it. We have not as yet correctly worked out that theory, and therefore it is not enough in our practice. More particularly in this subject do we require something ideal in the manner, for few are equally true in the characters as in the external scene. Here, certainly, neither Hagar nor Ishmael are of their nation and country. It is too lovely a picture to wish touched. The remarks we venture upon may be applied to most modern pictures of ancient subjects, and may be worth consideration. There are two other pictures, very beautiful pictures, too, in the Exhibition, which have, we think, this defect—"Jephtha's Daughter, the last Day of Mourning. H. O. Neil;" and "Naomi and her Daughter-in-law. E. N. Eddis." The first, Jephtha's Daughter and her attendant maidens is a group of very lovely figures, extremely graceful, all breathing an air of purity; it is loveliness in many forms; for its conception as to chiaroscuro and colour, is most skilfully managed; but it has this present day's reality, and we only force ourselves to believe it Jephtha's Daughter. Exquisitely beautiful, too, is the affectionate, the very loving, Ruth. Orpah, too, is sweet, but the difference is well expressed—"Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her." There is an unaffected simplicity about these figures that is quite charming, a simplicity of manner well according with the simplicity of character; but has not the picture in colouring too much of this day's familiar air? In historical design both these pictures are a decided advance in art. We are giving promise.

We could wish that Mr. Martin would not ruin his greatness by his littlenesses. There is often a large conception, that we overlook to examine interminable minutiæ of parts, and mostly parts repeated; his figures are always injurious. His "Canute the Great rebuking his Courtiers" would have been a fine picture had he contented himself with the real subject—the sea. It is, indeed, crude in colour, and the coldness to the right ill agrees with the red heat on the left; but still, in chiaroscuro, it would have been a fine picture, if completed according to his first intention, but Canute and his courtiers spoil it. In the first place, they make, by their position and ease, the awful overwhelming sea safe. It is, as Longinus remarks, the plank that takes away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put the times of Canute quite out of our heads—a collection from a book of fashions—Ladies' Magazines—in their velvet gauze and tiffany, in colours that put the sun to shame, and make him blush less red; and the little, minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness, for they tempt us to count the sands. All this arises from a mistaken view of the sublime, that we have before noticed in Mr. Martin. It is very strange that an artist of his undoubted genius should err in a matter so essential to the greatness at which he aims.

Would that we could say a word in of Mr Haydon's one historical picture, "The Heroine of Saragossa." She is most unheroic certainly, stretching across the centre of the picture with a most uncomfortable stride, with what a foot! and a toe that looks for amputation—a torch suspended out of her hand, held by nothing—not like "another Helen," to "fire another Troy," but purposing to fire off a huge cannon, without a chance of success; for not only do not her fingers hold the torch, but her face is averted from the piece of ordnance, and her feet are taking her away from it. She is splendidly dressed in red, and without shoes or stockings—a great mistake, for such a foot might have been well hid. She is the very worst historical figure we have ever seen in a picture of any pretensions; there is another figure that only attempts to hold a pistol. The whole is a most unfortunate display of the vulgar historical. The unfortunate woman has two heads of hair, and both look borrowed for the occasion. How very strange it is that an artist who could paint the very respectable picture of the "Raising of Lazarus," now at the Pantheon, should not himself be sensible of the glaring faults of such a picture as this; and we may add, the large one exhibited last year. Mr Haydon understands art, lectures upon it, and is, we believe, enthusiastic in his profession. Does he bring his own works to the test of the principles he lays down? The misconception of men of talent with regard to their own works is an unexplained phenomenon.

Edwin Landseer, R. A., exhibits but two pictures, both excellent. Of the two, we prefer the smaller, "Two horses drinking"—nature itself. Lord Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, remarks, that the fore-horse of a team always has his ears forward, on the alert, while the rest mostly, throw theirs back. This watchfulness Landseer has observed in the eye of the animal; the eye of the one, protected by the horse nearest to the spectator, has a quiet, unobserving look; the eye of the other is evidently on the watch. A cunning magpie is looking into a bone. The picture is beautifully coloured.

Mr Redgrave's three pictures are exquisitely beautiful, and in his own truly English style. "The Fortune Hunter,"

"Neglects a love on pure affection built,
For vain indifference if but double-gilt."

A screen separates the deserted one from the courting pair. The contrast in expression of the two fair ones is as good as can be. The "vain indifference" is not as many, treating this subject, have made her, deformed, old, and ugly, for that would have removed our pity from the suffering one, showing the man to be altogether worthless, and the loss an escape; on the contrary she is of a face and person to be admired; but she looks vain and void of affection. We like not so well his "Going to Service;" but his "Poor Teacher," is most charming; it is a most pathetic tale, though it be one figure only, but that how sweet! A lovely girl in mourning is sitting in deep thought waiting for her scholars; on the table is her humble fare, and of that she takes little heed. She is thinking of her bereavement, perhaps a father, a mother, a sister—perhaps she is altogether a bereaved one—a tear is on her cheek. These are the subjects, when so well painted; that make us love innocence and tenderness, the loveliness of duty, and, therefore, they make us better. The habitual sight might rob a villain of his evil thoughts—such human loveliness is the nearest to angelic—indeed it is more, for we must not forget the exceeding greatness, loveliness, of which human nature is capable. Divine love has given it a power to be far above every other nature, and that divine love has touched the heart, and speaks in the countenance of the "Poor Teacher."

Mr Creswick has this year rectified the fault of the last. His greens were thought somewhat too crude and too monotonous. "In culpam ducet culpæ fuga"—the old foot-road is scarcely green enough. All Mr Creswick's pictures have in them a sentiment—nature with him is sentient and suggestive. The very stillness—the silence, the quiet of the old foot-road is the contemplative of many a little history of them whose feet have trod it: such is the character of "The Terrace." But the most strikingly beautiful is "Welsh Glen"—

"The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods wild scatter'd clothe their ample sides."

What sketcher has not frequently come upon a scene like this, and, with a delight not unmixed with awe, hoped to realize it—and how many have failed! How often have we looked down upon the quiet and not shapeless rocky ledges just rising above and out of the dark still water; while beyond them, and low in the transparent pool, are stones rich of hue, and dimly seen, and beyond them the dark deep water spreads, reflecting partially the hues of the cliffs above—and watched the slender boughs, how they shoot out from rocky crevices, and above them branches from many a tree-top high up, hanging over; while we look up under the green arched boughs, and their fan-spreading leafage—every tree, every leaf communing, and all bending down to one object, worshipping as it were the deep pool's mystery! Here is the natural Gothic of Pan's temple—and out from the deep pass, golden and like a painted window of the sylvan aisle, glows the sun-touched wood, illuminated in all its wondrous tracery. In such a scene—where "Contemplation has her fill"—the perfect truth of this highly finished picture is sure to renew the feeling first enjoyed—enjoyed in solitude: it should have no figure but ourselves, for we are in it—and it has none. The colouring and execution are most true to nature; if we would wish any thing altered, it would be the sky, which is a little too light for the deep solemnity of all below it. Exquisitely beautiful as are these scenes from Mr Creswick's pencil, we doubt if he has reached or knows his own power. He has yet to add to this style the largeness of nature. We should venture to recommend to his reading, again and again, those parts of Sir Joshua's Discourses which treat of the large generality of nature.

Stanfield is, as usual, remarkably clear, more characteristic of himself, his manner, than of the places of his subjects—ever the same coloured lights and shadows. His compositions are well made up, there is seldom a line to offend. In "Mazorbo and Torcello, Gulf of Venice," however, the right-hand corner is extra-parochial to the scene—is unbalanced, and injures the composition. The scenes, as views, are very sweet, and have more repose than he usually throws into his pieces. This sameness of colouring, and scenical arrangement and effect, are no less conspicuous in the works of Mr Roberts, most of which are, however, very beautiful. Very striking is the view of "Ruins on the Island of Philoe, Nubia." It is not the worse for the absence of the general polish. We seem to be on the spot—the effect is so simple, the art is unobserved. We have to wonder at departed glory, at hidden history, and we do wonder. Why is it that Mr Danby, whose pictures of the "Sixth Seal," and the "Deluge," none that have seen them can forget, exhibits but one piece, and that, though very beautiful, not from the boldness of his genius? It is a quiet evening scene—the sun setting red towards the horizon, the sky having much of nature's green tints, her most peaceful hues, some cattle are standing in the river—the left is filled up with trees, which, beautiful in form, want transparency. There is a heaviness in that part too powerful; it attracts, and therefore disturbs the repose. Mr Lee has not very much varied his subjects or manner this year. His scenes are evidently from nature—great parts appear to have been painted out of doors, being fresh and true. Not altogether liking some of his subjects, we cannot but admire the skill in their treatment, the warm glow in the colouring, and true character of some of his woods running off in perspective are most pleasing. He does not aim at sentiment. He often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is superior to him always, in subject, in composition, and in variety. He has great skill in the transparency and clearness of his tones. We think his pictures would be vastly improved if painted in a lower key. His "Scenery near Crediton, Devonshire," is remarkably good; perhaps the sky and distance is a little out of harmony with the rest. There are three pictures by Mr Müller, two very effective—"Prayers in the Desert"—but we are more struck with his "Arabs seeking a Treasure." The sepulchral interior is solemnly deep; the dim obscure, through which are yet seen the gigantic sculptured heads that seem the presiding guardians; the light and shade is very fine, as is the colour; the blue sky, seen from within, wonderfully assists the colour of the interior. There is great grandeur in the scene, and it is finely treated. His other picture, No. 1 in the Exhibition, is so very badly placed over the door, that we do not pretend to judge of it, because, Mr Müller being a good colourist, we do not recognise him in what we can see of this "Mill Scene on the Dolgarley."

Mr Collins has improved greatly upon his last year's exhibition. "A Sultry Day," though at Naples, and a "Windy Day," in Sussex are not the most pleasant things to feel or to think of. Mr Collins has succeeded in conveying the disagreeableness of the "windy day," and it is the more disagreeable for reminding us of Morland: luckily he has not succeeded in conveying the sultriness. On the contrary, to us, No. 217 breathes of freshness and coolness. It is a very sweet picture; water, boats, and shore, beautifully painted. It is well that Mr Kennedy has but one picture—"Italy"—for he paints by the acre. It is a great mistake—and, while so many pictures of merit are rejected for want of room, some injustice in his doing so. Nor does his subject, which is meagre enough, gain any thing by its size. There is merit in the grouping—not a little affectation in the poor colouring and general effect. Surely he might have made a much prettier small picture of a subject that has no pretensions to be large. Were "Italy" like that, we should totally differ with him, and not subscribe to his quotation—

"I must say
That Italy's a pleasant place to me."

There is a very good picture by J. R. Herbert, A., if it were not for its too great or too common naturalness. The subject is the interview with the woman of Samaria. There is good expression, simplicity of design, but violence of colour. The subject demands a simplicity of colouring. Surely in such a scriptural subject, the annunciation, "I that speak unto thee am He," should alone be in the mind; but here the accessories are as conspicuous as the figures. Yet it is a picture of great merit.

There are two pictures of historical subjects, (not in the artistical sense so treated,) which attract great attention. "The Queen receiving the Sacrament," by Leslie; and "Waterloo," by Sir W. Allan, R.A. We are aware of the great value of this manner of pageant painting; it is perhaps worth while to sacrifice much of art to portraiture in this case. Viewing the necessity and the difficulty, we cannot but congratulate Mr Leslie—notwithstanding the peculiarity of the dresses, and the quantity of white to be introduced, this is by no means an unpleasantly coloured picture. There is much richness, in fact; and the artist has, with very great skill, avoided a gaudy effect. So the Battle of Waterloo must derive its great value from the truth of the portraits. It is any thing, however, but an heroic representation of a battle. Perhaps the object of the painter was confined to the facts of a military description, of positions of brigades and battalions—to our unmilitary eyes, there is wanting the vivid action, the energy, the mighty conflict—possibly only the ideal of a battle—-which may, after all, be in appearance a much more tame sort of thing than we imagine. There is a necessity, for historical value, to see too much. There is Mr Ward's "Fight of the Bulls:" the whole earth echoes the boundary and the conflict; it is one great scene of energy. But the great fight of men conveys none of this feeling. It is not imposing in effect—it looks indeed rather dingy, the sky and distance cold, and not remarkably well painted—a battle should have more vigorous handling, something of the fury of the fight. If, however, it be matter-of-fact truth; that in such a subject is all important, and should be painted. A battle, any battle, may be another thing.—"Sir Joshua Reynolds and his Friends" is an excellent subject, if all the portraits are from authentic pictures; at a future day it will be of great value, although it is not very agreeable as a picture.

Either the portraits have less effect than they usually have, or there are fewer of them this year. We must give the palm to Mr Grant. He combines many excellences—perfect truth, unaffected simplicity, and most judicious and ever-harmonious colouring. It may not perhaps be far wrong to say, that he is the very best portrait-painter this country has known since Vandyck; certainly he appreciates, and has often deeply studied, that great painter. We have long considered Mr Grant's female portraits by far the best—the present exhibition raises him as a general portrait-painter. The perfect unaffected ease of his attitudes is a very great thing. Here are three pictures in a line, portraits, the sitters all seated—and yet how striking it is, that there is only one that sits—Mr Grant's "Lord Wharncliffe." How sweet and natural, how beautiful as a picture, are "The Sisters!" The conventional style of portrait is undoubtedly good, and founded on good sense—but genius will seize an opportunity, and be original—such is the character of Mr Grant's portrait of "Lord Charles Scott, youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch." The boy stands like a boy, every limb belongs to him; he is all life—the flesh tints in the face are as perfect as can be. The attitude, the dress, so admirably managed. It has all the breadth, and power, too, of Velasquez, with all modern clearness. And what a charmingly coloured picture is the portrait of "Lady Margaret Littleton!" And close at hand, right glad were we to see the noble portrait of the "Professor of Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh," the αυτος εχεινος, by R. S. Lauder, an artist whose works we think have not always been done justice to in the Academy—yet how seldom do we see pictures of such power as his "Trial," from the "Heart of Mid-Lothian," and his "Ravensworth!" There is another portrait painter that is very original—Linnell; and such is he, in the "Portraits of the Three eldest Children of Robert Clutterbuck, Esq." There are so many smooth and soft pictures at the exhibitions which we must look at very near, that the habit is acquired of seeing all in that manner. To those who should so see this of Mr Linnell, it will appear odd, sketchy, unfinished—recede, and it is of very great power, and comes out wonderfully with all the truth of nature. It is an out-of-door scene. The children in most natural positions, and separate from the background, which is quite true in effect, with surprising force. It is very well coloured, and the manner, though not so at first, at length pleases. We like to see much done with little effort, as soon as the eye has recovered from the examination of laboured work.—How many works of great merit that we should wish to mention! and perhaps we ought to notice some of demerit; but we must forbear; the bad and the good must repose together—if there can be repose in an exhibition room. Why has not Mr Uwins painted another "Fioretta," worth all the crude, blue, red and yellow processions he ever painted? And why—but we will ask no questions but of the "Hanging Committee:" why do they offend the eyes of spectators, and vex the hearts of exhibitors, by hanging little pictures out of sight? It is insulting to the public and the artists. Surely, if the works be not fit to be seen, boldly and honestly reject them. It is an injury to misplace them. Many of the pictures so placed, are evidently intended to be seen near the eye. You do not want to furnish the walls with pictures. If so, do advertise that you will sacrifice some of your own to that purpose. You may find a sufficient number of "Amateurs" ready to immolate their reputation for art, of little value; but you should consider with what an aching heart the poor painter sees the labour of many a day, and many a cherished hope, as soon as the Academy opens, raised to its position of noted contempt. Nor should you have a "Condemned Cell"—such is the octagon-room termed. You render men unhappy—and superciliously seem to think, you pay them by a privilege of admission. Admission to what?—to see your well-placed merits, and their own disgraced position. We are happy to see an appeal to you on this subject in the Artist's Magazine, and eloquently written—and with good sense, as are all the notices in that work. That or some other should be enlarged to meet the requirements of art. Now we are indeed making hotbeds for the growth of artists. They will be thick as peas, and not so palatable—youths of large hope and little promise—some aiming beyond their reach, others striving and straining at a low Art-Union prize. Patronage can never keep pace with this "painting for the million system." The world will be inundated with mediocrity. This fever of art will terminate in a painting-plague. What is to become of the artists? Where will you colonize?

Now let us purpose a plan. Let the members of the Academy come to this resolution that instead of exhibiting some 1300 pictures annually, they will not admit into their rooms more than the 300—and so cut off the 1000—that the said 300 shall all have good places, and shall be the choicest works of British talent. Let them signify to the public that they will show no favour, and that they will be responsible for the merit of the works they mean to invite the public to see. They need not doubt the effect. Great will be the benefit to art, artists, and to patrons of art.

SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY—SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.

This twentieth exhibition opens, according to the catalogue, under the auspices of Marcus Tullius Cicero; but why or wherefore the world who read the quotation mottoes of catalogues, must ever be at a loss to discover. "I think," said the wordy Roman, "that no one will ever become a highly distinguished orator, unless he shall have obtained a knowledge of all great things and arts." Therefore, you, the British public, are requested to walk in and see the show. We wish this motto affectation were put an end to—the Royal Academy are sadly puzzled year after year to hit upon a piece of Latin that will do, and their labour in that line is often in vain. And certainly this intimation from Suffolk Street, which might be very useful to a young barrister preparing for the circuit, is now to the "matter in hand" nihil ad rem. But have not we heard that motto before? We believe it was the last year's, and is we suppose to become an annual repetition in secula seculorum. The exhibition is, however, very respectable; we fear it is not so well attended as it deserves to be. The fact is, that the Academy, with its innumerable works, becomes, before it is half gone through, a very tiresome affair. What with straining at raw crude colours, and pictures out of sight, the public, who feel they must go there, have had enough of work for weary eyes; and imagining the other gallery to be inferior, go not to it. Yet, after a little rest, they would, we are sure, feel gratified in Suffolk Street. If there are but half-a-dozen good pictures, they are worth going to see, and certainly this exhibition has its very fair proportion of works of merit, and interest. Nor is there any lack of variety. We have only to make remarks upon a very few, not at all wishing to have it believed that we have selected either the best or the worst. There is novelty in some of Mr Woolmer's pictures. He seems, however, undetermined as to style; for his pictures are here very unequal. In one or two he is imitating Turner, but it is to have "confusion worse confounded." And singularly enough, in such imitations, his subjects are of repose. "A Scene in the Middle Ages, suggested by a visit to Haddon Hall," is very pleasing. The style here is suggestive, and judiciously so; he generalizes, and we are pleased to imagine. We see elegant figures walking under shade of trees, clear refreshing green shade; the composition is graceful, and fit for the speculative or enamoured loiterers. Perhaps the foreground is too ambitious—too much worked to effect. If this be done for the sake of contrast, it is a mistake of the proper effect of, and proper place for, contrast. In such a scene of ease and gentleness, all contrast is far better avoided; it always has a tendency to make active; and is to be applied in proportion to the degree of life and activity that may be desirable. His "Castle of Indolence" is much in imitation of Turner. The poet uses a singular expression,

"O'er which were shadowy cast Elysian gleams."

What meaneth Thomson? He further calls the hue, "a roseate smile," and is reminded of Titian's pencil. By all which hints and expressions we conclude that the poet saw this "pleasing land of Drowsyhead" as through a coloured glass, subduing all the exciting colours of nature to a mellow dreaminess. No strong, no vivid colours are here—all is the quiescent modesty, the unobtruding magic of half-tones. What shall we say of such a Domain of Indolence being painted without shade or shelter; with violent contrasts of dark and light, and of positive forcing colouring? All repose is destroyed. Then again we see too much; there are too many parts, too many figures, too many occupations: indication that the territory was peopled would have been enough; this is more like a fête champêtre. Besides, the scene itself is not one to give delight to contemplate; it is not suggestive of pleasant dream, but looks out on an ugly, swampy, fog-infected country. The only "Indolence" we see has been devoted to the execution, for it is slovenly to a degree. We find the same fault, though not to the same extent, with his "Scene from Boccaccio." It sadly wants repose, and affects colouring which is neither good for itself, nor suitable to the subject. His "Subject from Chaucer" has the same defects. Mr Woolmer is decidedly a man of ability; but we think he has strange misconceptions with respect to colours, their sentimental effect and power.

There is a "Scene from the Arabian Nights," by Mr Jacobi, which, though it is an attempt, and by no means an unsuccessful one, at an accidental effect of nature, which is generally to be avoided, is extremely pleasing. It is a portrait of great loveliness, grace, and beauty—we look till we are in the illusion of the Arabian tale—the foot of the Beauty is not good in colour or form; and the distance is a little out of harmony. There is considerable power; such peculiar light and shade, and colouring, offered great difficulty to keep, up the effect evenly—and the difficulty has been overcome. Mr Herring greatly keeps up the character of this exhibition in his peculiar line. His "Interior of a Country Stable" is capitally painted, even to the ducks. The old horse has been evidently "a good 'un;" goats, ducks, and white horse behind, all good, and should complete the scene—we may have "too much for our money." The cows and occupation going on within, in an inner stall, are too conspicuous and a picture within a picture, and therefore would be better out. His black and roan, in the "Country Bait Stable," are perfect nature. A picture by Mr H. Johnston, "The Empress Theophane, begging her husband Leo V. to delay the execution of Michael the Physician," is well designed; has a great deal of beauty of design, of expression, and of general colour, but not colour of flesh—nor is the purple blue of the background good.

We take it for granted that artists are often at a loss for a subject, and that they often choose badly we all know; but a worse than that chosen by Mr G. Scott, we do not remember ever to have met with. It is entitled "Morbid Sympathy," forming two pictures. In the one the murderer is coming from the house where he has just committed the diabolical act; in the other he is visited. The man is an uninteresting villain and his visitors are fools. The object of the painter is doubtless a good one; it is to avert that morbid sympathy which has been so conspicuously and mischievously felt and affected for the worst, the most wicked of mankind. But to do this is the province of the press, not the pencil. It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not deter murderers, who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at these, would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to show—nor will it keep back one fool, madman, or sentimental hypocrite from making a disgraceful exhibition. We are not sorry to notice this failure of Mr Scott's, because we would call the attention of artists in general to "subject." Let a painter ask himself before he takes his brush in hand, why—for what purpose, with what object do I choose this scene or this incident? Can the moral or the sentiment it conveys be told by design and colour?—and if so, are such moral and such sentiment worth the "doing." Will it please, or will it disgust? We mean not to use the word "please" in its lowest common sense, but in that which expresses the gratification we are known to feel even when our quiescent happiness is disturbed. In that sense we know even tragedies are pleasing. We may, however, paint a martyr on his gridiron, and paint that which is only disgusting; the firmness, the devotion through faith of the martyr, are of the noblest heroism. If to represent that be the sole object, and it succeeds, such a work would rank with tragedy, and please.

PAINTING IN WATER COLOURS.

We have visited the two societies of painters in water colours. In these there are two antagonist principles in full practice—while some are endeavoring to imitate, and indeed to go beyond the power of oil colours, others are going back as much as may be to the white paper system; imitating in fact the imitation which painters in oil have taken up from the painters in water colour. We must, of course, expect from this no little extravagance both ways—and we are not disappointed in the expectation. We will first notice the elder institution. In this, certainly, there are fewer examples of the power of colour system—but not a few in the weaker system. We noticed last year that Mr Copley Fielding was making great advances in it. His practised and skilful hand causes that style to have many admirers. Poor John Varley—we look with interest at his last work. His early ones were full of genius. He was an enthusiast in art. There is very great beauty in his "View on the Croydon Canal previous to the making the rail-road." An admirable composition—the woods and water are very fine. There are some very good drawings by D. Cox, which will greatly please all who like to see much told with little labour. Prout fully sustains his reputation. Amidst much detail he is always broad and large. There is a most true effect of haze in Copley Fielding's fine drawing of "Folkstone Cliff." There is an affected absence of effect in his "Arundel Castle"—the blues and yellows are not in harmony—and all has an uncomfortable, unsubstantial look. Eliza Sharpe's "Little Dunce" is a delightful drawing. It is only the old dame that can ever be angry with a little dunce—and she puts on more than half her anger; and this is a glorious little dunce, that we would not see good for the world—the triumph of nature over tuition. This charming little creature has been happy her own way, has been wandering in her own "castle of indolence," and perhaps, too, philosophizing thus—Well, I have been naughty, but happier still than if I had been good. So is the goodness we force upon children often against nature—we love to see nature superior. Eliza Sharpe must have been of the same way of thinking, and it is archly expressed. Her Una and the lion is large and free—the face of Una nor quite the thing. We have a "Castle of Indolence" by Mr Finch, gay with "all the finches of the grove," but the country does not look indolent, nor the country for indolence. Hunt's boys, clever as ever. The sleeping boy, with his large shadow on the wall, is most successful. The companion, the boy awake, is a little of the caricature. His "Pet," a boy holding up a pig, natural as it is, is nevertheless disgusting; for such a toy will ever be the biggest beast of the two. Mr Hills has several excellent drawings of deer; but there is one, so perfect that it is quite poetical—a few deer, in their own wild haunt, heathery brown, and almost treeless, the few spots of stunted trees serving to mark the spot, separating it from similar, and making it the home. It is furthest from the haunts of man. It looks silence. The animals are quite nature, exquisitely grouped. The quiet colouring, unobtrusive, could not be more nicely conceived—it is the long Sabbath quiet of an unworking world. The picture is well executed. It is one that makes a lasting impression.

Mr Oakley's "Shrimper," a boy sitting on a rock, reminds us of some of Murillo's boys; it is as good in effect, and better in expression, than most of the Spaniard's. "After the second Battle of Newbury," by Cattermole, is a well-imagined scene, but is defective in that in which we should have supposed the artist would not have failed. It is not moonlight. "Tuning," by J. W. Wright, is a good proof that blue, as Gainsborough likewise proved, is not necessarily cold. His "Confession," with the two graceful figures, is very sweet. "The Gap of Dunloe," W. A. Nesfield—has fine folding forms—the distance and rainbow beautiful—it is, however, somewhat hurt by crude colour, and too much cut up foreground. The Vicar and his family supply work to many an artist of our day. Mr Taylor's is very good—Moses pulling the reluctant horse, is a good incident. We do not quite recognize Mrs Primrose, and could wish the daughter had more beauty. We never could very much admire Mr Richter's coarse vulgarities—and they are of gross feeling, and we think, caricatures without much humour; but his sentimentalities are worse. His "Sisters," a scene from the novel of "The Trustee," is but a miserable attempt at the pathetic. Mr Gastineau's "Bellagio" is a beautiful drawing, has great breadth and truth; but the water is certainly too blue.

EXHIBITION OF NEW SOCIETY IN WATER COLOURS.

Generally speaking, this Society is mostly ambitious of carrying water colour to its greatest possible depth and power, and certainly, in this respect, the attainment is wondrous. In design, and other character, this society more than keeps its ground. We remember last year noticing Miss Setchell's little picture, as one of the best of the year; we have still a perfect recollection of the most lovely pathetic expression of the poor girl. We were greatly disappointed that no work of Miss Setchell adorns the walls. There is a picture, however, which, if it did not move us equally, at once arrested our attention, and again and again did we return to it. The character of it is not certainly moving, as Miss Setchell's, it is altogether of a different cast—it is one for thought and manly contemplation. The subject is "Cromwell and Ireton intercepting a letter of Charles the First," by L. Haghe. Cromwell is standing reading a letter—Ireton adjusting the saddle in the recess of a window, near which Cromwell stands, is a table with a flagon, the scene is an inn in Holborn. The attitude of Cromwell is dignified ease and resolution. In his fine countenance we read the full history of the "coming events"—we see all there, that we have learned from history. The very curtains and stick seem to the imagination's eye convertible into canopy and sceptre. There is great forbearance in the painting—we mean that there is just enough, and no more, of water-colours' ambition. More depth would have injured the effect. It is a very striking picture; well finished, and with a breadth suited to the historical importance of the history. Mr Warren's "Christ's Sermon" is of the ambitious school. If we contrast the quiet, solemnly quiet, tone of that sermon of beatitudes, with the coloured character of the picture, we must condemn the inappropriate style. We should say it is immodestly painted; the picture and not the subject, obtrudes. The head of Christ is weak. It is a picture nevertheless of great ability, but with a gorgeous colouring ill suited to the subject. But we must speak with unqualified admiration of a little picture by Mr Warren—the "Ave Maria." It is a lady kneeling before a picture of a saint in a chapel. The depth and power is very surprising, and much reminds of Rembrandt, with the exception of the picture of the saint, which struck us at first as too light by a great deal, so much so that we noted it down as a glaring defect, but returning to the picture, we looked, not only till we were reconciled, but to an admiration of what we had considered a fault. It is the poetry of the subject. We see not the face of the petitioning figure, we only feel that she is there, and devoutly petitioning, and the brightness of the patron saint, with its simple open character of face and figure, comes out as a miraculous manifestation. We must not mistake—the "Ave Maria" does not mean that it is to the Virgin the petitioner prays; it is to a male saint.

Mr E. Corbould still is in the full ambition of water colour power. "Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee," is an example of the inappropriateness of this manner to solemn sacred subjects. The Mary is very good—not so the principal figure, it has a weak expression: some parts of this picture are too sketchy for others. His "Woman of Samaria" is a much better picture, has great breadth and grace. It is rather slight. His "Flower of the Fisher's Hut" is very pretty—a lady in masquerade. Absolon's "Uncle Toby" is well told, and with the author's naïveté. Mr Topham's farewell scene from the "Deserted Village," is, we think, too strong of the mock-pathetic—a scene of praying and babying.

There are many pictures we would wish to notice, but we must forbear: we cannot, however, omit the mention of a sea-piece, which we thought very fine, with a watery sky; a good design,—"North Sunderland Fishermen rendering assistance after a Squall."

THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.

Having recently given some account of Sir Joshua, his Discourses, his genius, and his influence upon the arts in this country, we visited this gallery, where as many as sixty of his works are exhibited, with no little interest. The North Room is occupied by them alone. Have we reason to think our estimate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as a painter, not borne out by this exhibition? By no means. Our first impression from the whole collection, not seeing any particular picture, is of colour. And here Sir Joshua appears inventive; for though he not unfrequently imitated Rembrandt, there is, on the whole, a style that is far from Rembrandt, and is not like any other old master; yet we believe, for it was the character of his mind so to do, that he always had some great master in view in all he did. But he combined. Hence there is no little novelty in his style, and not seldom some inconsistencies—a mixture of care and delicacy, with great apparent slovenliness. We say apparent, for we are persuaded Sir Joshua never worked without real care and forethought; and that his apparent slovenliness was a purpose, and a long studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim—Ars est celare artem; but he did not always succeed, for he shows too evidently the art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking carefully at these pictures, we see intention every where: there is no actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has been supposed; that there is, in reality, careful drawing and colouring, at least in many of his pictures, under that large and general scumbling and glazing, to which, for the sake of making a whole, he sacrificed the minor beauties. And we believe that many of those beauties were not lost when the works were fresh from his easel, but that they lave been obscured since by the nature of the medium and the materials he used. That these were bad we cannot doubt, for we plainly see that some of these pictures, his most laboured for effect, are not only most wofully cracked, (yet that is not the word, for it expresses not the gummy separation of part from part,) but that transparency has been lost, and the once-brilliant pigments become a caput mortuum. Hence there is very great heaviness pervading his pictures; so that even in colouring there is a want of freshness. A deep asphaltum has overpowered lightness and delicacy, and has itself become obscure. Sir Joshua did not leave his pictures in this state. It is as if one should admire, in the clear brown bed of a mountain river, luminous objects, stone or leaf, pebble or weed, most delicately uncertain in the magic of the waving glaze; and suddenly there should come over the fascination an earthy muddying inundation. In estimating Sir Joshua's mind, we must, in imagination, remove much that his hand has done. Nor was Sir Joshua, perhaps, always true to his subject in his intention of general colouring. His "Robinettas," and portraits, or ideals of children, are not improved by that deep asphaltum colouring, so unsuitable to the freshness, and may we not add, purity of childhood. And there appears, at least now in their present state, that there is too universal a use of the brown and other warm colours; Rembrandt invariably inserted among them cool and deep grays, very seldom blue, which, as too active a colour, is apt to destroy repose, the intended effect of deep colouring. Titian uses it for the sake of its activity, as in the Bacchus and Ariadne and how subdued is that blue! but even in such pictures there are the intermediate grays, both warm and cold, that the transition from warm to cold be not too sudden. We cannot say that Sir Joshua Reynolds did not introduce these qualifying grays, because the browns have so evidently become more intense, that they may have changed them to their own hue.

There are some pictures here which have either lost their glaze by cleaning, or never had it, and these have a freshness, and touch too, which others want; such is the case with "Lady Cockburn and her Three Sons"—a very fine picture, beautifully coloured, and well grouped, very like nature, and certainly in a manner of Vandyck. We remember, too, his "Kitty Fisher," and regret the practice which, with the view of giving tone, often took away real colour, and a great deal of the delicacy of nature. The very natural portrait of "Madame Schindelin," quite in another manner from any usual with Sir Joshua, shows that he was less indebted to his after theory of colouring than people in general have imagined. The most forcible picture among them is the "Ugolino." It is well known that the head of Ugolino was a study, and not designed for Ugolino, but that the story was adopted to suit it; yet it has been thought to want the dignity of that character. Ugolino had been a man in power; there is not much mark in the picture of his nobility. It has been said, too, that the addition of his sons is no improvement in the picture. We think otherwise: they are well grouped; by their various attitudes they give the greater desperate fixedness to Ugolino, and they do tell the story well, and are good in themselves. The power of the picture is very great, and it is not overpowered by glazing. On the whole, we think it his most vigorous work, and one upon which his fame as a painter may fairly rest. We have a word to say with respect to Sir Joshua's pictures of children. That he fully admired Correggio, we cannot doubt—his children have all human sweetness, tenderness, and affection; but it was the archness of children that mostly delighted our painter—their play, their frolic, their fun. In this, though in the main successful, he was apt to border upon the caricature; we often observe a cat-like expression. "The Strawberry Girl" has perhaps the most intense, and at the same time human look. It is deeply sentient or deeply feeling. The "Cardinal Beaufort" disappoints; so large a space of canvass uncouthly filled up, rather injures the intended expression in the cardinal. Has the demon been painted out, or has that part of the picture changed, and become obscure? But we will not notice particular pictures; having thus spoken so much of the general effect, we should only have to repeat what we have already said.

The Middle Room is a collection of old masters of many schools, and valuable indeed are most of these works of art. There is a small landscape by Rembrandt, "A Road leading to a Village with a Mill," wonderfully fine. It is the perfect poetry of colour. The manner and colouring give a sentiment to this most simple subject. It is a village church, with trees around it. This is the subject—the church and trees—all else belongs to that—we see dimly through the leafage—we read, through the gloom and the glimmer, the village histories. The repose of the dead—the piety of the living—all that is necessary for the village home, is introduced—but not conspicuously—and nothing more; here is a house, a farm-house, and a mill—a village stream, over which, but barely seen, is a wooden bridge—the clouds are closing round, and such clouds as "drop fatness," making the shelter the greater—a figure or two in the road. There is great simplicity in the chiaroscuros, and the paint is of the most brilliant gem-like richness, into which you look, for it is not flimsy and thin, but substance transparent—so that it lets in your imagination into the very depth of its mystery. No painter ever understood the poetry of colour as did Rembrandt. He made that his subject, whatever were the forms and figures. We have made notes of every picture, but have no room, and must be content with selecting a very few. Here are two fine sea-pieces by Vandervelde and Backhuysen. We notice them together for their unlikeness to each other. In the latter, "A Breeze, with the Prince of Orange's Yacht," there is a fine free fling of the waves, but lacking the precision of Vandervelde. There are two vessels, of nearly equal magnitude, and not together so as to make one. We are at a loss, therefore, which to look at. It is an offence in composition, and one which is never made by Vandervelde—often by Backhuysen; and not unfrequently are his vessels too large or too small for the skies and water. "The Breeze, with Man-of-War," by Vandervelde, is, in its composition, perfect. It is the Man-of-War; there is nothing to compete with it—the gallant vessel cares not for the winds or waves—she commands them. It is wondrously painted, and as fresh as from the easel. Here are three pictures by Paul Potter—the larger one, "Landscape, with Cattle and Figures," how unlike the others! "Cattle in a Storm," is a large picture in little. The wind blows, and the bull roars. It is very fine, and quite luminous. The other, "Landscape, with Horses and Figures," looks, at first view, not quite as it should; but, on examining it, there are parts most exquisitely beautiful—the white horse coming out of the stable is perfect, and, like the Daguerreotype portraits, the more you look with a good magnifying-glass, the more truth you see. There is no picture in this room that excites so much attention as the "View of Dort from the River."—Cuyp. It is certainly very splendid. It is a sunny effect; the town is low—some warm trees just across the river, near which, half-way in the stream, is a barge, the edges gilded by the sun—further off is a large vessel, whose sides are illuminated—above all is a thunder-cloud, very effectively painted. The picture has been divided, and rejoined, and is very well done. It would perhaps be better if it were cut off a little beyond the large vessel, as the opposite sides are not quite in harmony, one part being cold, the other extremely warm. There is a companion by Cuyp, which has been engraved for Forster's work, "A River Scene—Fishing under the Ice." It is very fine: if not quite so luminous as the former, it is in better tone altogether. We must move on to—

THE SOUTH ROOM

With the exception of two pictures of the modern German school, this room contains the works of English artists not living. Only one of the German school is a picture of any pretension, "Christ blessing the Little Children"—Professor Hesse. The reputation of this painter led us to expect something better. We must consider it apart from its German peculiarities, and with respect to what it gains or loses by them. As a design, the story is well and simply told. As a composition, it is a little too formal, lacking that easy flowing of lines into each other, which, though eschewed by the new school, is nevertheless a beauty. The expression in the heads is good generally, not so in the principal figure. There is throughout a character of purity and tenderness—it is a great point to attain this. But none of this character is assisted by the colouring, or the chiaroscuro. The colouring, though it has a gold background, is not rich, for the gold is pale, even to a straw colour, and the pattern on it rather gives it a straw texture. We presume it is meant to represent the dry Byzantine style of colouring, purposely avoiding the richer colours; as power is lost, by this adoption, it is impossible to give either the tones or colours of nature—there is no transparency. To preserve this old simplicity, softening and blending shadows are avoided, by which a positive unnaturalness offends the eye; hence the hands and feet not only look hard, but clumsy—they may not be, but they look, ill drawn. The figures, indeed, look like pasteboard figures stuck on; there is a leaden hue pervading all the flesh tints. It fails, too, in simplicity and antique air, which we suppose to be the objects of the school. For there is too much of art in the composition for the former, too little quaintness for the latter; and indeed its perfect newness of somewhat raw paint prevents the mind from going back to ancient time; and that failure makes the picture as a whole, a pretension. It does not, then, appear to gain what that old style is intended to bestow—and it loses nearly all the advantages of the after-improvements of art—of its extended means. It rejects the power of giving more intensity to feeling, of adding the grace of nature, the truth and variety of more perfect colouring, by the opaque and the transparent, and does not in any other way attain any thing which could not have been more perfectly attained without the sacrifice. The collection of the British school contains good and bad—few of the best of each master. West's best picture is among them, his "Death Of Wolfe"—everyone knows the print; the picture is good in colour and firmly painted, and contrasts with some others where we see the miserable effect of the megillups and varnishes which our painters were wont to mix with their colours. We should have been glad to have seen better specimens of Fuseli's genius—we suppose we must say that he had genius. The best piece of painting of his hand in the room is the boy in Harlowe's picture of the "Kemble Family;" a picture of considerable artistic merit, but ruined by the coarse vulgarity of a caricature of Mrs Siddons. How unlike the Lady Macbeth! The corpulent velvet dark mass and obtruding figure is most unpleasant. It is much to be regretted Mr. Harlowe did not redesign that principal figure. There are several landscapes of Gainsborough's, and one portrait—the latter excellent, the former poor. There is much vigour of colouring and handling in the "Horses at a Fountain;" but as usual, it is a poor composition, and of parts that ill agree. The mass of rock and foliage are quite out of character with the bit of tame village scene, and the hideous figures. Here, too, his "Girl and Pigs," for which he asked sixty guineas, and Sir Joshua gave him a hundred. We do not think the President had a bargain. There is not one of Wilson's best in this collection. The "Celadon and Amelia" is dingy, and poor in all respects. It verifies as it illustrates; for Thomson says,

"But who can paint the lover as he stood?"

Very coarse is Opie's "Venus and Adonis." He had not grace for such a subject—nor for "Lavinia." We should have been glad to have seen some of his works where the subjects and handling agree. We are sorry to see Hogarth's "March to Finchley" so injured by some ignorant cleaner. His "Taste in High Life" is the perfection of caricature. We have not the slightest idea what Constable meant when he painted the "Opening of Waterloo Bridge." The poor "Silver Thames" is converted into a smear of white lead and black. "Charles the First demanding the Five Members," surprised us by its power—its effect is good. Here is no slovenly painting, so common in Mr. Copley's day—the general colour too is good; and the painting of individual heads is much after the manner of Vandyck. There are some pictures on the walls which might have been judiciously omitted in an exhibition which must be considered as characteristic of English talent.

As the British Gallery is for a considerable period devoted to works of English art, and as so many other exhibitions offer them in such profusion, we would suggest that it would be more beneficial to art, and to the success and improvement of British painters, if the original intention of the governors of the institution were adhered to, of exhibiting annually the choicest works of the old schools.

MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART III.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

Shakspeare.

The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle continued, however hopelessly, in the provinces, just enough to swell the losses of noble life, and the conflagrations of noble property. To these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become valueless by the issue of assignats, which no one would take, or confiscated in the general plunder of the banks, whose principals had been thrown into prison, on suspicion of being worth robbing. All was bankruptcy.

The duchess made a slight attempt, evidently a painful one, to explain to us, as strangers, the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was simply, that "the emigrant noblesse, who had already experienced so much heroic hospitality from their English friends, thought that the time was come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from France are dreadful," said she, "and it will be our duty to show, that as we have enjoyed prosperity, we can submit to suffering. We must prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in happier times, and, as we once supposed, for happier times."

A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while; at length she resumed—"We must not return to our own country, at least until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those words, few as they were, were uttered with many a pause, and in the low tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her. The girl rose, hesitated, and sank again. "Clotilde, my love, here are none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our country." As she spoke, the duchess took her contribution from her hand; it was a drawing of some size, and of singular elegance—an Arcadian festival. It was sent round the room with universal admiration; and the ice thus once broken, a succession of proficients followed, bringing the produce of their talents; some, miniatures—some, sketches of French and Swiss scenery—some, illustrations of Racine and the French theatre; and, of course, many with embroidery, and the graceful works of the needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary, and was not a little surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French arts, as admirable oil-paintings, carvings in ivory, marble busts, and bas-reliefs, casts of antique vases and groups, and even models of the chief temples and palaces of antiquity. The leisure of the chateau was often vividly, and even vigorously employed; and while the youths of the great families were solely directed to military prospects, the females often acquired solid and grave accomplishments. In short, we had among us as many artificers, not a few of them delicate and lovely, as could have furnished a Tower of Babel, if not built it; but our fabric would have had one exception, it would have had no "confusion of tongues;" for tongues there were none to be heard among us—all was silence, but when some work of striking beauty, and this was not unfrequently the case, was handed round with a murmur of applause.