BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCXXXVII. MARCH, 1852. Vol. LXXI.

[CONTENTS.]

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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCXXXVII. MARCH, 1852. Vol. LXXI.

[MISS MITFORD'S "RECOLLECTIONS."][1]

No one can have glanced at Our Village, or any of the charming sketches of Miss Mitford, without having been struck by the peculiar elegance, the raciness, the simplicity of her style. It is as free in all its movements as that pet of hers, the Italian greyhound she has made so familiar to us all—as free and as graceful. A beautiful style is no singularity in our days, and there are many orders of such beauty; nevertheless, Miss Mitford has a dialect of her own. It is a style gathered from familiarity with the classic, and especially the dramatic poets, and with whatever is most terse and elegant amongst our prose writers, and yet applied with perfect ease to the simplest details of life, to the real transaction and the daily scene before her. You would think every one was talking in the same manner; it is only Miss Mitford who speaks this dialect. It is as if any one should learn Italian from the works of Petrarch or Tasso, or any other of their classics, and be able to apply the language he had thus acquired without the least restraint to the common purposes of life; every Italian would understand him, and seem to speak like him, and yet he would remain in exclusive possession of his own Tuscan speech.

Miss Mitford is one of those who have made the discovery that there is always a "California" under our feet, if we look for it. She detected, by her own independent sagacity, and before the truth was so generally known and so generally acted upon as it is at present, that what most interests in books is precisely that which is nearest to us in real life. She did not find it necessary to go to the Alps or the Pyrenees for her landscape, nor to Spain or Constantinople for her men and women; she looked down the lane that led from her own cottage-door; she saw the children in it, and the loaded hay-cart; she saw Arabia with all her tents in that gipsy encampment where the same kettle seems to swing for ever between the same three poles—nomadic race, eternally wandering and never progressing. She looked out of her own window, and within it her own home—always cheerful, or always deserving to be such, from the cheerful spirit of its owner; and she found in all these things, near and dear to her, sufficient subjects for her pencil. And very faithfully she paints the village scene—with, at least, as much fidelity to truth as a graceful womanly spirit could summon up resolution enough to practise. A light something too golden falls uniformly over the picture.

A work professing to be the Recollections of a Literary Life, and that literary life Miss Mitford's, could not fail to attract us. The subject is one of the most interesting an author could select; for, in addition to whatever charm it may acquire from personal narrative, the recollections in which it deals are in themselves thoughts, in themselves literature. They must always have this twofold interest—whatever they gain from the reminiscent, and whatever they possess themselves of sterling value. The subject is excellent, and we are persuaded that Miss Mitford is capable of doing ample justice to it; all we have to regret here is that she has not thrown herself completely and unreservedly into her subject; she never seems, indeed, quite to have determined what should be the distinct scope and purpose of her work. This apparent indecision or hesitation on her part is, we suspect, the sole cause of any disappointment which some of its readers may possibly feel.

Our authoress has been unwilling to launch herself on the full stream or current of her own personal reminiscences and feelings, to write what would be, in fact, little else than an autobiography; she has shrunk back, afraid of the charge of being too personal, too egotistical. A delicacy and sensitiveness very natural; and yet the very nature of her subject required that she should brave this charge. It was not a mere selection of extracts and quotations, accompanied by a few critical remarks, which she intended to give us. If this had been her sole, original, and specific purpose, we venture to say that it would have been, in many respects, a very different series of extracts she would have brought together. Now, if Miss Mitford had boldly recalled her own intellectual history—giving us the favourite passages of her favourite authors, as they were still living in her memory and affections, (for of that which has ceased to be admired the faintest glance is sufficient)—she would have produced a far superior work to that which lies before us. Or if, discarding altogether her own personal history, she had merely gone into her library, and, pulling down from the shelves a certain number of favourite authors, had selected from each what she most approved, accompanying her quotations with some critical and biographical notices, and arranging them in something like harmonious order, so that we should not be tossed too abruptly from one author to another of quite different age and character, she could not have failed, here also, of producing a work complete of its kind. In the first case, we should have had the unity and the interest of a continuous and personal narrative; in the second case, we should have had a higher order of selections and criticisms; the beauty of the quotation would have been the sole motive for inserting it; and her clear critical faculty would have been unbiassed by the amiable partialities of friendship.

As we cannot tell, however, with what anticipations the reader may open a book of this description, (which, in its premises, must be always more or less vague,) we are perhaps altogether wrong in supposing that he is likely to feel any disappointment whatever. There is much in it which cannot fall to interest him. But if he does experience to any degree this feeling of disappointment, it will be traceable to the simple fact we have been pointing out—the want of a settled plan or purpose in the work itself. No one knows better than Miss Mitford that, if a writer is not quite determined in the scope and object of his own book, he is pretty sure to leave a certain indistinct and unsatisfactory impression on his reader.

Having said thus much in the absence of a definite purpose, we ought to permit the authoress to explain herself upon this head. "The title of this book," she says in the preface, "gives a very imperfect idea of the contents. Perhaps it would be difficult to find a short phrase that would accurately describe a work so miscellaneous and so wayward; a work where there is far too much of personal gossip and of local scene-painting for the grave pretension of critical essays, and far too much of criticism and extract for anything approaching in the slightest degree to autobiography. The courteous reader must take it for what it is."

We hope to rank amongst "courteous readers," and will "take it for what it is." Recollections of a Literary Life was a title which promised too much; but there was no help for it: a title the book must have, and we can easily understand that, under certain circumstances, the choice of a name may be a very difficult matter. Whatever name may best become it, the book is, without doubt, full of pleasant and agreeable reading. A better companion for the summer's afternoon we could not recommend. That "personal gossip" of which the preface speaks, is written in the most charming manner imaginable; and it will be impossible, we think, for any one, however familiar with our literature, not to meet, amongst the quotations, with some which he will sincerely thank the authoress for having brought before him.

Having thus discharged our critical conscience by insisting, perhaps with a more severe impartiality than the case demanded, on the one apparent defect in the very structure and design of this book, we have now only to retrace our steps through it, pausing where the matter prompts an observation, or where it affords an apt example of the kind of interest which pervades it. And first we must revert to that "personal gossip," to which we have a decided predilection, and in which Miss Mitford pre-eminently excels: in her hands it becomes an art. Here is something about "Woodcock Lane." She is about to introduce her old favourites, Beaumont and Fletcher, and carries us first to a certain pleasant retreat where she was accustomed to read these dramatists. "I pore over them," she says, "in the silence and solitude of a certain green lane, about half a mile from home; sometimes seated on the roots of an old fantastic beech, sometimes on the trunk of a felled oak, or sometimes on the ground itself, with my back propped lazily against a rugged elm."

"In that very lane," she continues, "am I writing on this sultry June day, luxuriating in the shade—the verdure, the fragrance of hay-field and bean-field, and the absence of all noise, except the song of birds, and that strange mingling of many sounds, the whir of a thousand forms of insect life, so often heard among the general hush of a summer noon....

"Occasional passengers there are, however, gentle and simple. My friend, Mr B., for instance, has just cantered past on his blood-horse, with a nod and a smile, saying nothing, but apparently a good deal amused with my arrangements. And here comes a procession of cows going to milking, with an old attendant, still called the cow-boy, who, although they have seen me often enough, one should think, sitting underneath a tree writing, with my little maid close by hemming flounces, and my dog, Fanchon, nestled at my feet—still will start as if they had never seen a woman before in their lives. Back they start, and then they rush forward, and then the old drover emits certain sounds, which it is to be presumed the cows understand; sounds so horribly discordant that little Fanchon—although to her too they ought to be familiar, if not comprehensible—starts up in a fright on her feet, deranging all the economy of my extempore desk, and wellnigh upsetting the inkstand. Very much frightened is my pretty pet, the arrantest coward that ever walked upon four legs! And so she avenges herself, as cowards are wont to do, by following the cows at safe distance, as soon as they are fairly past, and beginning to bark amain when they axe nearly out of sight. Then follows a motley group of the same nature—colts, yearlings, calves, heifers, with a shouting boy, and his poor shabby mongrel cur, for driver. The poor cur wants to play with Fanchon, but Fanchon, besides being a coward, is also a beauty, and holds her state; although I think, if he could but stay long enough, that the good-humour of the poor merry creature would prove infectious, and beguile the little lady into a game of romps. Lastly appears the most solemn troop of all, a grave company of geese and goslings, with the gander at their head, marching with the decorum and dignity proper to the birds who saved Rome. Fanchon, who once had an affair with a gander, in which she was notably worsted, retreats out of sight, and ensconces herself between me and the tree.

"Such are our passers-by. Sometimes we have what I was about to call settled inhabitants, in the shape of a camp of gipsies."

After describing this camp of gipsies, and how the men carry on a sort of "trade in forest ponies," and how the women make and sell baskets "at about double the price at which they might be bought at the dearest shop in the good town of Belford Regis," she proceeds to tell us how, notwithstanding her perfect knowledge of this fact, she is induced to become a purchaser.

"Last Saturday I happened to be sitting on a fallen tree somewhat weary, my little damsel working as usual at the other end, and Fanchon balancing himself on the trunk between us; the curls of her brown coat—she is entirely brown—turning into gold as the sunshine played upon them through the leaves.

"In this manner were we disposed, when a gipsy, with a pair of light baskets in her hand, came and offered them for sale. She was a middle-aged woman, who, in spite of her wandering life—perhaps because of that hardy out-of-door life—had retained much of her early beauty: the flashing eyes, the pearly teeth, the ruddy cheeks, the fine erect figure. It happened that, not wanting them, my companion had rejected these identical baskets when brought to our door in the morning. She told me so, and I quietly declined them. My friend the gipsy apparently gave the matter up, and, claiming me as an old acquaintance, began to inquire after my health, and fell into the pleasantest strain of conversation possible; spoke of my father, who, she said, had been kind to her and to her tribe, (no doubt she said truly; he was kind to everybody, and had a liking for the wandering race,) spoke of her children at the gipsy school in Dorsetshire; of the excellent Mr Crabbe, the friend of her people, at Southampton; then she began stroking Fanchon, (who actually, to my astonishment, permitted the liberty; in general she suffers no one to touch her that is not gentleman or lady;) Fanchon she stroked, and of Flush, the dear old dog, now lying buried under the rose-tree, she talked; then, to leave no one unpropitiated, she threw out a word of pleasant augury, a sort of gratuitous fortune-telling, to the hemmer of flounces; then she attacked me again with old recollections, trusting, with singular knowledge of human nature, to the power of the future upon the young, and of the past upon the old—to me she spoke of happy memories, to my companion of happiness to come; and so—how could I help it?—I bought the baskets."

After this little excursion into Woodcock Lane, we are introduced to Messrs Beaumont and Fletcher. The quotations from these authors we should have no object in reproducing here. One thing we cannot help noticing. Both on this and on some other occasions we are struck by an omission, by a silence. Though she may think fit to represent these dramatists as her favourite companions, we are morally certain that it was a far greater than either of them who was generally her delight and her study in that shady solitude. Could we have looked over the page as she sate there leaning so amiably against that "rugged elm," we are sure that it would have been Shakspeare that we should have found in her hands. But why no word of Shakspeare? We think we can conjecture the cause of this omission; and, if our surmise is correct, we quite sympathise with the feeling that led to it. Miss Mitford is a sincere and ardent admirer of Shakspeare; she must be so—in common with every intelligent person who reads poetry at all. But Miss Mitford likes to keep her senses; has a shrewd, quiet intelligence; has little love for what is vague or violent in criticism any more than in poetry; and she has felt that the extravagant, rhodomontade style of panegyric now prevalent upon our greatest of poets, reduced her to silence. She could not out-Herod Herod; she could not outbid these violent declaimers who speak of Shakspeare as if he were a god, who admire all they read which bears his name—the helter-skelter entangled confusion and obscurity, the wretched conceit, the occasional bombast—admire all, and thereby prove they have no right to any admiration whatever. She was, therefore, like many others who love and reverence him most, reduced to silence. Some years hence a sensible word may be written of Shakspeare. At present, he who would praise with discrimination must apparently place himself in the rank of his detractors.

Miss Mitford's critical taste leads her to an especial preference of what is distinct and intelligible in all the departments of literature. To some it may appear that she is more capable of doing justice to poetry of the secondary than of the higher and more spiritual order. However that may be, we, for our own part, congratulated ourselves on an escape from that vague and mystical criticism which is so prevalent in our day. There are two words which a certain class of writers never pronounce without going off into frenzy or delirious raving. "Shakspeare" is one of these words; the "Infinite" is the other. They have made the discovery that this poet or that painter talks or paints the "infinite." They find in every obscurity of thought, in every violence of passion, the "infinite." There is no such thing as "sound and fury signifying nothing." They always signify the "infinite." If there is the "infinite" in criticism, they certainly have reached it. In Goldsmith's time, it was "Shakspeare and the musical glasses;" it is now "Shakspeare and the Infinite." We suspect that the musical glasses were more amusing, and are sure that they had quite as much meaning.

We go back to Woodcock Lane. We rather cruelly abridged our last extract, on purpose that we might have space for one other of the same description. We make no apology for clinging to this "personal gossip." Very few of the poetical quotations throughout the work have more of beauty and of pathos than the concluding paragraph of the next extract we shall give. Apropos of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, she makes us participators in her country rambles; and apropos of these she introduces us to an old friend, a walking-stick—"pretty nearly as well known as ourselves in our Berkshire village." Some sixty years ago it was "a stick of quality," having belonged to a certain Duchess-Dowager of Atholl; but the circumstance that her own mother had taken to using it, during her latter days, had especially endeared it to her.

"And then," as she observes with finest tact, "everybody knows how the merest trifles which have formed part of the daily life of the loved and lost, especially those things which they have touched, are cherished, and cared for, and put aside; how we dare not look upon them for very love; and how, by some accident that nobody can explain, they come to light in the course of time, and after a momentary increase of sadness, help to familiarise and render pleasant the memory by which they are endeared."

This is very beautifully expressed, and it is the tone of right sentiment; truthful, natural, the unaffected sadness that tempers into a sweet and pleasant memory.

"So the stick," she continues, "reappeared in the hall, and, from some whim which I have never rightly understood myself, I, who had no more need of such a supporter than the youngest woman in the parish—who was, indeed, the best walker of my years for a dozen miles round, and piqued myself not a little upon so being—took a fancy to use this stick in my own proper person, and most pertinaciously carried this fancy into execution. Much was I laughed at for this crotchet, and I laughed too. Friends questioned, strangers stared; but, impassive to stare or to question, I remained constant to my supporter. Except when I went to London, (for I paid so much homage to public opinion as to avoid such a display there,) I should as soon have thought of walking out without my bonnet as without my stick. That stick was my inseparable companion."

The staff had met with its share of misadventures and accidents; "one misfortune, so to say personal, which befel it, was the loss of its own head;" but its loss from the pony-chaise, its fall from the chaise into a brook which had been passed through the day before, is the especial calamity here celebrated. By this time we learn with regret that the stick has become more than a whim—has grown into a useful and necessary friend:—

"I might have observed that something was amiss in our small household; that Sarah answered the bell, and that the hemmer of flounces, when she did appear, seemed flurried and fatigued. But I was thinking of Sir Philip Sydney, of the Defence of Poetry, of the Arcadia, and of my own resolution to proceed to the green lane, and to dissect that famous pastoral, and select from the mass, which even to myself I hardly confessed to be ponderous, such pages as might suit an age that by no means partakes of my taste for folios. So I said to her, 'That the afternoon being cool, and I less lame than usual, I thought we should not need Sam and the pony-chaise, but that I could manage by the help of my stick.'

"At that word out burst the terrible tidings. My stick, my poor old stick, my life-long friend, the faithful companion of so many walks, was missing, was gone, was lost! Last night, on our return from the lane, the place in the pony-chaise where Sam and I had carefully deposited it was found vacant. Already hue and cry had everywhere been made. 'And really, ma'am,' quoth she, 'there is some comfort in the interest people take in the stick. If it were anything alive, the pony or Fanchon, or little Henry, or we ourselves, they could not be more sorry. Master Brent, ma'am, at the top of the street, he promises to speak to everybody; so does William Wheeler, who goes everywhere; and Mrs Bromley at the shop; and the carrier; and the postman. I dare say the whole parish knows it by this time! I have not been outside the gate to-day, but a dozen people have asked me if we had heard of our stick. It must turn up soon. If one had but the slightest notion where it was lost!'

---

"Well! we at last sate down on our old turf seats, not far from the entrance of a field, where an accident (in the wheat-carrying, which was then in full activity) had evidently taken place; a loaded waggon must have knocked against the gate, and spilt some of its topmost sheaves. The sheaves were taken away, but the place was strewed with relics of the upset, and a little harvest of the long yellow straw and the rich brown ears remained to tempt the gleaners. As we were talking over this misfortune, and our own, and I was detailing my reasons for believing that my poor stick had found a watery grave, we became aware of two little girls, who stole timidly and quietly up to the place, and began gladly and thankfully to pick up the scattered corn.

"Poor little things, we knew them well! We had known their father died of consumption scarcely a month ago; and affecting it was to see these poor children, delicate girls of seven and five years old, already at work to help their widowed mother, and rejoicing over the discovery of these few ears of fallen wheat, as if it were the gold mines of California. A drove of pigs was looming in the distance; and my little damsel flung down her work, and sprang up at once to help the poor children. She has a taste for helping people, has my little maid, and puts her whole heart and soul into such kindnesses. It was worth something to see how she pounced upon every straggling straw, clearing away all round the outside, and leaving the space within for the little girls. The ground was cleared before the drove came near.

"Pleasant it was to see her zealous activity, and the joy and surprise of the little creatures, who, weak, timid, and lonely, had till then only collected about a dozen ears, when they found themselves loaded with more than they could carry. Their faded frocks were by her contrivance pinned up about them, filled with the golden wheat-ears, and the children went home happy.... Many a rich mother might be proud of the two gleaners that we have seen this afternoon. They so pleased and so thankful to carry their poor store to that poor home; they carried thither better things than wheat."

But for the fate of the stick, and how it was found, and what was done that day with Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, we must refer the reader to the book itself. We must now proceed to take some general survey of the far larger portion of the work, which consists of extracts, with some biographical and critical notices.

The series of quotations does not open very auspiciously: we are presented with some Irish ballads of Mr Thomas Davis, which we do not think will excite in many readers the same amount of admiration they appear to have done in Miss Mitford. We must prefer the song she has given, as by Mr Banim, the author of the Tales of the O'Hara Family. It is simple and graceful:—

"'Tis not for love of gold I go,
'Tis not for love of fame;
Though Fortune may her smile bestow,
And I may win a name,
Ailleen;
And I may win a name.

"And yet it is for gold I go,
And yet it is for fame—
That they may deck another brow,
And bless another name,
Ailleen;
And bless another name.

. . . . . .

"Oh! when the bays are all my own,
I know a heart will care!
Oh! when the gold is sought and won,
I know a brow will wear,
Ailleen;
I know a brow will wear.

"And when with both returned again,
My native land I see,
I know a smile will meet me then,
And a hand will welcome me,
Ailleen;
And a hand will welcome me."

There is a brief notice of another writer, a countryman of Mr Banim's, which is very touching. Gerald Griffin seems to have sounded every note of that gay and sad and mournful destiny which the young poet has to endure, who, with a proud, aspiring, sensitive nature, fronts the terrible commonplace of human life—who out of dreams and imagery and sentiment has to coin the means of subsistence. We see him starting from some place near Limerick, with his pocket full of plays. Alas! we see him labouring in London, almost friendless and alone, at mere literary toils, some hopeless love added to his other despondencies, till, broken down in health and courage, and despairing of success, he quits the field, and "joins the Society of Christian Brethren at Cork." No need to go back to the middle ages for romance, if the romance of life consists in suffering and the alternation of hope and despondency, or of hopes transplanted from this world to the next. The soldier and the monastery; the dramatic poet and the "Christian Brethren at Cork"—there is the same tale in both.

We have another contemporary instance brought before us, where the poetic fervour or ambition led to a far sadder retreat than this Society, whatever it may be, of Christian Brethren. John Clare, while following the plough, had looked on nature with the eye of a poet. Pity that he could not have written his poetry, and still clung to his plough. But he left the fields for life in cities, and, instead of singing for the song's sake, commenced singing for the support of wife and family. Hence came madness—in this instance, that actual insanity which the physician can catalogue and describe.

It is worth noticing that his first patron, Lord Exeter, had really entertained the design of so assisting the rustic poet that he should be able to unite his favourite pursuit with his early, healthy, invigorating occupations of husbandry. Surely there is nothing incompatible between them. "Lord Exeter," we are told, "sent for him to Burleigh, and hearing that he earned thirty pounds per annum by field-labour, settled an annuity of fifteen pounds upon him, with a view to his devoting half his time to agricultural pursuits, and half to literary pursuits." We like this idea of his noble patron; it bespeaks, we think, a very reflective as well as a generous mind. But there were patrons of a very different stamp, or rather, according to the account we have here, a number of officious, vulgar admirers of poor John Clare, who rendered the design abortive; who had nothing to offer to the village poet, but who disturbed his quiet, intelligent, safe, unostentatious, and healthy existence, by their absurd and idle curiosity. He was called away from his fields—to be looked at! "He was frequently interrupted, as often as three times a-day, during his labours in the harvest-field, to gratify the curiosity of admiring visitors." We cannot blame poor John Clare for leaving his labours in the harvest-field; it has always been the weakness of the poet to love praise too much; without this weakness he would hardly have been a poet, at least he would have been a very careless one; but we think those "admiring visitors" showed their taste and their love of poetry in a most extraordinary manner. Whatever else they felt, they felt no respect for the dignity of the man. They ought to have understood that visits of such a kind, for such an idle purpose, whatever flattering shape they may have assumed, were insults.

Miss Mitford terminates the painful history by the following singular account:—

"A few years ago he was visited by a friend of mine, who gave me a most interesting account of the then state of his intellect. His delusions were at that time very singular in their character: whatever he read, whatever recurred to him from his former reading, or happened to be mentioned in conversation, became impressed on his mind as a thing that he had witnessed and acted in. My friend was struck with a narrative of the execution of Charles the Fist, recounted by Clare as a transaction that had occurred yesterday, and of which he was an eye-witness—a narrative the most graphic and minute, with an accuracy as to costume and manners far exceeding what would probably have been at his command if sane. It is such a lucidity as the disciples of Mesmer claim for clairvoyance. Or he would relate the battle of the Nile and the death of Lord Nelson with the same perfect keeping, especially as to seamanship, fancying himself one of the sailors who had been in the action, and dealing out nautical phrases with admirable exactness and accuracy, although it is doubtful if he ever saw the sea in his life."

As might have been expected, and is both graceful and natural, the poets of her own sex occupy a considerable space in Miss Mitford's selections. In some cases the names were new to us, but the extracts given made us feel that they ought not to have been so. An Englishman may be very proud, we think, when he reflects how many highly cultivated minds there are amongst his countrywomen, minds so gentle and so intelligent, whose cultivation goes hand in hand with the truest refinement of character. Here in one chapter we have four names strung together, most of which, we suspect, will be new to the majority of readers—"Mrs Clive, Mrs Acton Tindal, Miss Day, Mrs Robert Dering"—yet the extracts in this chapter will bear comparison with those of any other part of the work. A little poem called "The Infant Bridal," is, as Miss Mitford describes it to be, one of the most perfect paintings we ever read. Its subject is the marriage of Richard Duke of York, second son of Edward IV., with Anne Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk. The bridegroom was not five years old, and the bride scarcely three. The procession, where, at the head of "belted barons" and courtly dames,

"Two blooming children led the way
With short and doubtful tread;"

the ceremony, where the venerable prelate gives his blessing to this infant bride and bridegroom, and

"Their steady gaze these children meek
Upon the old man bent,
As earnestly they seemed to seek
The solemn words intent."

Every part of the narrative is so charmingly told that we cannot consent to mar the effect by any broken quotation. It is too long to be extracted entirely.

From the poem which follows, of Miss Day's, it will be easier to break off a fragment.

"I have now to introduce," says Miss Mitford, "another fair artist into the female gallery of which I am so proud; an artist whose works seem to me to bear the same relation to sculpture that those of Mrs Acton Tindal do to painting. The poetry of Miss Day is statuesque in its dignity, in its purity, in its repose. Purity is perhaps the distinguishing quality of this fine writer, pervading the conception, the thoughts, and the diction. But she must speak for herself. As 'The Infant Bridal' might form a sketch for an historical picture, so 'Charlotte Corday' is a model, standing ready to be chiselled in Parian stone."

"Stately and beautiful and chaste,
Forth went the dauntless maid,
Her blood to yield, her youth to waste,
That carnage might be stayed.
This solemn purpose filled her soul,
There was no room for fear;
She heard the cry of vengeance roll
Prophetic on her ear.

"She thought to stem the course of crime
By one appalling deed;
She knew to perish in her prime
Alone would be her meed.
No tremor shook her woman's breast,
No terror blanched her brow;
She spoke, she smiled, she took her rest,
And hidden held her vow.

"She mused upon her country's wrong,
Upon the tyrant's guilt;
Her settled purpose grew more strong
As blood was freshly spilt.
What though the fair, smooth hand were slight!
It grasped the sharpened steel;
A triumph flashed before her sight—
The death that it should deal.

"She sought her victim in his den—
The tiger in his lair;
And though she found him feeble then,
There was no thought to spare.
Fast through his dying, guilty heart,
That pity yet withstood,
She made her gleaming weapon dart,
And stained her soul with blood."

In another chapter of her work Miss Mitford gives us a slight biographical sketch of one who needs no introduction here or elsewhere—of the now celebrated Mrs Browning. The sketch is very interesting, but the extract given from her poems is not very happily selected. Miss Mitford does not seem to have ventured to trust herself among the more daring beauties—the bolder and more spiritual flights of her friend Mrs Browning. Her taste clings, as we have said, to what is distinct and definite. Of this we have rather an amusing instance in the criticism she passes on Shelley's Alastor. There is good sense and some truth in the criticism, and yet it is not all that ought to have been said of such a poem:—

"The first time," she says, "I ever met with any of his works, this vagueness brought me into a ludicrous dilemma. It was in the great library of Tavistock House that Mr Perry one morning put into my hand a splendidly printed and splendidly bound volume, (Alastor, as I think,) and desired me to read it, and give him my opinion. 'You will at least know,' he said, 'whether it be worth anybody else's reading.'

"Accordingly I took up the magnificent presentation copy, and read conscientiously till visitors came in. I had no marker, and the richly-bound volume closed as if instinctively; so that when I resumed my task, on the departure of the company, not being able to find my place, I was obliged to begin the book at the first line. More visitors came and went, and still the same calamity befell me; again, and again, and again I had to search in vain amongst a succession of melodious lines, as like each other as the waves of the sea, for buoy or landmark, and had always to put back to shore and begin my voyage anew. I do not remember having been ever in my life more ashamed of my own stupidity, than when obliged to say to Mr Perry, in answer to his questions as to the result of my morning's studies, that doubtless it was a very fine poem—only, that I never could tell, when I took up the book, where I had left off half an hour before—an unintended criticism, which, as characteristic both of author and reader, very much amused my kind and clever host."

Now, if, instead of the magnificent presentation copy, read in the great library of Tavistock House, where visitors were coming in and going out, Miss Mitford had taken a little homely manageable volume down Woodcock Lane, and there read Alastor, undisturbed, beneath the shadow of the trees, she must, we think, have had to record a very different impression of the poem. She would have needed no "marker." Perhaps there would have lived in her memory an hour of intellectual pleasure as great as any that the page of the poet had ever procured for her. Though not the highest effort of Shelley's genius, Alastor is probably the most pleasing. There is no tortuosity of thought to pardon or to forget; it is one unbroken interwoven strain of music, of imagery, of sentiment. Those who have defined poetry as the luxury of thought, could nowhere find a better example to illustrate their meaning—it is all music, imagination, feeling. Oh, when the summer months come round, let us entreat Miss Mitford to try it in Woodcock Lane! How could she trust to anything she had read out of a magnificent presentation copy, in the great library at Tavistock House?

The quotation from Keats is very skilfully selected; it must please the most fastidious taste, and is yet sufficiently peculiar to suggest that no one but Keats could have written it. From the writings of W. S. Landor she might have gathered much better, and without devoting to them any larger space than she has done. If she had turned to the miscellaneous poems which conclude his collected works, she might have extracted two or three of the most polished and perfect lyrics in our language, and which have the precise qualification, in this case so indispensable, of being very brief.

Mr Landor, by the way, will be much amused to find himself praised—for what will our readers think?—for modesty! "I prefer," says Miss Mitford, "to select from the Hellenics, that charming volume, because very few have given such present life to classical subjects. I begin with the preface, so full of grace and modesty."

In the lady's mind, grace and modesty are no doubt inseparable companions; and, finding abundance of the one in Mr Landor's style, she concluded that the other must be there also. Of that other there is not an atom in all his writings, and there never was intended to be. It is a maidenly quality which he never had the remotest design of laying claim to. The very preface which she quotes is a piece of undisguised sarcasm. We doubt if there is much grace in it, certainly there is no modesty. Here is the commencement of this modest preface. "It is hardly to be expected that ladies and gentlemen will leave on a sudden their daily promenade, skirted by Turks, and shepherds, and knights, and plumes, and palfreys of the finest Tunbridge manufacture, to look at these rude frescoes, delineated on an old wall, high up, and sadly weak in colouring. As in duty bound, we can wait."

If Miss Mitford should ever read this preface again, she will pass her hand over her brow, a little puzzled where it was she saw the "modesty." She will appeal to Fanchon, who will be sitting in her lap, looking very intently over the page, and ask him what he thinks of the matter. Fanchon will laugh out obstreperously, will bark delighted, at the amiable blunder of his mistress.

We remarked that we had been occasionally struck with an omission, or a silence. It seems to us a characteristic circumstance that we hear no mention made of Lord Byron. Wordsworth and Southey, Coleridge and Shelley, get some space allotted to them, larger or smaller; but he who occupied so conspicuous a position among these very contemporaries has none whatever. It is not because he still holds a very high rank amongst our poets—though by no means the same eminence that was once assigned to him—that we notice this omission; but because his writings had so strong and peculiar an influence on most minds open to the influence of poetry, that we naturally expect to meet with his name in the literary recollections of one who, we way venture to say without any ungallant reference to chronology, must have lived in that period when Lord Byron was in the ascendant. There are few persons who, in acknowledging the happy influence of Wordsworth's poetry, would not have to commence their confession by some account of the very opposite influence of Lord Byron's. We should have said that the Byronic fever was a malady which hardly any of our contemporaries, who are liable to catch a fever of any kind from books, had entirely escaped. Miss Mitford, however, hints at no such calamity. Her excellent constitution seems to have preserved her from it. She bore a charm against all such plagues, in her clear sense and cheerful temper. She was thereby preserved from some very absurd misery—very absurd, but most indisputable misery; and she also lost some experience of a not unprofitable nature—certain lessons of wisdom which, being burnt into one, are never afterwards to be obliterated from the mind.

If the subject were but one shade more attractive, or less repulsive than it is, we would, for the benefit of such exempted persons as Miss Mitford, describe the course and the symptoms of this Byronic fever. We would describe how, some luckless day, the youth who ought to be busy with his Greek or his Euclid plays truant over the poetry of Childe Harold and Manfred; how it makes him brimful of unaccountable misery; how, as is most natural, he reads on the faster—reads on insatiate and insensate.

But what tossings and throbbings and anguish the patient endures we have no wish to depict. The one thing worth noticing is this, that although the sufferer is perfectly convinced that the whole world is, or ought to be, as wretched as himself, he has not, in all his compositions, one jot of compassion left—not one jot for any species of misery, not even that which resembles and re-echoes his own. Some calamities are said to teach us sympathy with the calamities of others—so sings Virgil, we remember—but this misery has the property of hardening the heart against any human sympathy whatever. One of these imaginary misanthropes cannot even tolerate the lamentations of another. You may listen to his outcries and denunciations if you will, but if, in your turn, you wish to bellow ever so little, you must go into the next field—go many fields off. Very curious is the hardness of heart bred out of a morbid passion of meditative discontent. Why does he live? why does he continue his miserable existence? is the only reflection which the sufferings of another man excite in our moody philosopher. For every lamenting wretch he has daggers, bowels of poison—no pity. If mankind could commit one simultaneous, universal act of suicide, it would be a most sublime deed—perhaps the only real act of wisdom and sublimity mankind has it in its power to perform.

Well, this absurd and horrible, this very ridiculous and most afflictive of morbid conditions, our clear-minded authoress never seems to have passed through. She never gave the beggar a shilling, muttering some advice to buy a rope withal. If the money were spent in that way, and more were wanted, he should have two. She never lent her friend a brace of pistols by way of consolation for his losses. Or, since ladies, even when misanthropically disposed, have seldom anything to do with pistols, she never wove or platted for him a silken bowstring, and sent it in a perfumed envelope, with compliments and instructions how to use it. All this chapter of mental history has been a sealed book to her. We, for our parts, have no desire to open or to read further in it.

The happiest step made by those whose temper and mode of thinking were likely to be formed by practical literature, was when they deserted Byron for Wordsworth, the Childe Harold for the Excursion. If we were to indulge in "Recollections" of our own, we should have much to say—and to say with pleasure—of this second epoch, this Wordsworthian era. A very beautiful Flora appeared upon the earth during this period. Life smiled again; nature and humanity were no longer divorced; one might love the solitude and beauty of hill and valley, lake and river, without hating man, or breathing any other sentiment than that of gratitude to Him who gave this life, who gave this nature.

Wordsworth was peculiarly fitted to be the successor of Byron. He had himself shared in the dark and desponding spirit of the age just so much as enabled him to understand and portray it, to assail or to alleviate. He had scanned the abyss looking down from the precipice, but his feet were well planted on the jutting rock. He threw his vision down; he stood firm himself. He drew many an inspiration from the dark gulf below; but nothing betrays that he had ever plunged into the abyss. His poetry will at all times have a genial influence, but it can never again exert the same power, or, as a consequence, excite the same enthusiastic plaudits, which it did amongst the generation who have now advanced to manhood. It then fell upon the ear of the tired pupil of doubt and discontent. It had a healing power; it was sweet music, and it was more—it was a charm that allayed a troubled spirit.

Why should any poet, it may be asked, capable of moving the human heart, exert so much more power at one period than another? He has but his book to conjure with; his book is still, and always, with us. The answer is very simple, and yet may be worth recalling to mind. The book is with us, but it is only when it first comes forth that we are all reading it at once. When numbers are reading this same book at the same time, the poet shares in the advantages of the orator: he adresses an audience who kindle each other's passions, each one of whom contributes something to the enthusiasm of the multitude, and receives back in his bosom the gathering enthusiasm of the crowd. When novelty, or any other circumstance, directs all eyes to the same page, that page is no longer read with the same calmness, the same perspicuity and judgment, that we bring to any other composition. The enthusiasm of friends, of neighbours, of the whole country, is added to our own. And thus the genuine poet may descend somewhat in public estimation, and yet retain a lasting claim upon our admiration. It was one thing to read him when all the world were reading too, talking of him, and applauding him; and quite another when the solitary student takes down his book from the shelf and reads it in its turn, and reads it separately—he and the author alone together.

One advantage of works of the description we are now reviewing, is that they bring together popular specimens of the poetry of very different ages. Miss Mitford gives us a few from Cowley, and still earlier writers. The impression they made upon us led to some trains of thought upon the manifest progress of taste, which we have not space here to pursue, and which would be wearisome on the present occasion, if we were to attempt to follow them out. But we cannot help observing that even quite secondary writers are daily producing amongst us far better verses, in every respect, than many of those which have acquired, and seem still to retain, a high traditional celebrity. We are not altogether blind, we think, to the literary foibles of our own age, although we cannot, of course, hope to appreciate them as clearly as those who come after us will do. We suspect that the poets of our own day are exposed to the charge of vagueness, of being what is sometimes called mystical, of verging too closely, in their subtilty and spiritual refinement, upon the land of no-meaning; but this is "a better bad habit" than that very mechanical manner of verse-making, so obvious in many of those specimens which are handed down to us in our "Speakers," and "Elegant Extracts," as choice selections from the old standard poetry of England. The least possible quantity of thought seems to have sufficed for their manufacture; one image suggests another, either by resemblance or contrast; and thus the writer goes on, contriving new verses, with never a new thought. If a pleasing image is introduced, it is spoilt by the incessant variations that are forthwith composed upon the same theme; if a fine expression is struck out, it is marred the next moment by the mechanical changes that are rung upon it. Here is a noble line of Cowley's:—

"Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!"

But you must read it alone: the next line ruins it—

"Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!"

Having written the word "patrician," it followed, as a rule, that he must look about for something to be called "plebeian!"

Miss Mitford has placed amongst her extracts the song by Richard Lovelace, supposed to be written when in prison, in which the well-known lines occur:—

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage."

The mind being free, there is true liberty. A very excellent theme for the poet. In the first verse, speaking of his "divine Althæa," he says,

"When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered with her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty."

This is pretty; but unfortunately the birds in the air suggest the fishes in the sea. So the next verse concludes thus:—

"When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty."

We meet here also with that poem attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, called "The Lie," which seems to have a hereditary right to a place in all poetical collections. Miss Mitford speaks of "its extraordinary beauty." It is a very extraordinary delusion that any one, with such poetry before him as the English language now possesses, should call it beautiful. It is composed of the mere commonplaces of satire, very rudely put together. The soul of the speaker is sent forth to charge all the world with corruption; the world defends itself, and then the soul gives it the lie—in other words, repeats the charge in a manner which has been felt, it seems, by many readers, to be peculiarly pungent. The first verse is by far the best, and every subsequent verse seems to grow more loose and jejune as the composition proceeds.

"Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best,
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

"Go tell the court it glows,
And shines like rotten wood;
Go tell the church it shows
Men's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie."

And so it goes on through thirteen wrangling, jangling verses. In some of them this virtuous soul makes a strange medley of complaints:—

"Tell them that brave it most
They beg for more by spending,
Who in their greatest cost
Lack nothing but commanding:
And if they make reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

"Tell zeal it lacks devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie."

There must have been surely a great charm in this "giving the lie," to have secured for verses such as these the place they have so long retained amongst our "Elegant Extracts."

But we are in danger of forgetting that Miss Mitford's selections consist of prose as well as of poetry; and yet, though these occupy a large space in her volumes, they cannot detain us long. We have little room either for quotation or for comment.

There is, however, one extract from this portion of the work, which we have all along promised ourselves the pleasure of giving to our readers. When we saw the name of Richardson, the author of Sir Charles Grandison, heading one of the chapters, our only impulse was to hurry on as fast as possible. We have no other association with his name but that of a mortal weariness, the result of a conscientious but fruitless effort to read his novels. We laboured conscientiously, and might been have labouring to this hour, if a kind friend had not relieved us from our self-imposed task, by his solemn assurance "that no living man had read them!" It was a feat that had not been accomplished for years. When, therefore, we saw the name of Samuel Richardson at the head of a chapter, we ran for it—we skipped; but, in turning over the pages, the name of Klopstock caught our eye, and we found ourselves reading some letters of the wife of the poet Klopstock which had been addressed to Richardson. They are the most charming of letters. The foreigner's imperfect English could not be replaced with advantage by the most classical elegance. One of these, we resolved, should lend its interest to our own critical notice. Here it is—

"Hamburg, May 6, 1758.

"It is not possible, sir, to tell you what a joy your letters give me. My heart is very able to esteem the favour, that you in your venerable age are so condescending good to answer so soon the letters of an unknown young woman, who has no other merit than a heart full of friendship, though at so many miles of distance.

"It will be a delightful occupation for me, my dear Mr Richardson, to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not yet published; being always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin always by fragments here and there of a subject of which his soul is just then filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready. You may think that two people, who love as we do, have no need of two chambers. We are always in the same. I, with my little work, still, still, only regarding my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time! with tears of devotion, and all the sublimity of the subject—my husband reading me his young verses, and suffering my criticisms. Ten books are published, which I think probably the middle of the whole. I will, as soon as I can, translate you the arguments of these ten books, and what besides I think of them. The verses of the poem are without rhymes, and are hexameters, which sort of verses my husband has been the first to introduce in our language; we being still closely attached to the rhymes and the iambics.

"And our dear Dr Young has been so ill? But he is better, I thank God, along with you. And you, my dear, dear friend, have not hope of cure of a severe nervous malady? How I trembled as I read it! I pray God to give to you, at the least, patience and alleviation. Though I can read very well your handwriting, you shall write no more, if it is incommodious to you. Be so good to dictate only to Mrs Patty; it will be very agreeable for me to have so amiable a correspondent. And then I will still more than now preserve the two of your own handwriting as treasures.

"I am very glad, sir, that you will take my English as it is. I knew very well that it may not always be English, but I thought for you it was intelligible. My husband asked me, as I was writing my first letter, if I would not write in French? 'No,' said I, 'I will not write in this pretty but fade language to Mr Richardson.'...

"I wish, sir. I could fulfil your request of bringing you aquainted with so many good people as you think of. Though I love my friends dearly, and though they are good, I have, however, much to pardon, except in the single Klopstock alone. He is good, really good—good at the bottom—in all the foldings of his heart. I know him; and sometimes I think, if we knew others in the same manner, the better we should find them. For it may be that an action displeases us, which would please us if we knew its true aim and whole extent. No one of my friends is so happy as I am; but no one has had courage to marry as I did. They have married as people marry, and they are happy as people are happy.

"How long a letter is this again! But I can write no short ones to you. Compliments from my husband," &c., &c.

There are several of these letters, and all distinguished by the same tenderness and charming simplicity; and the sad fate and early death of the writer of them are brought home to us very touchingly.

We have shown enough to justify our opinion, that every reader, whatever his peculiar taste may be, will find something to interest him in these volumes; and if, we repeat, he feels the least degree of disappointment, it will only be because he compares them with that imaginary work which he believes Miss Mitford might have written.

[STRUGGLES FOR FAME AND FORTUNE.]

PART III.

CHAPTER X.

I saw nothing of Catsbach for a whole week, but continued my study of Hamlet, in perfect reliance that the so long wished-for opportunity was at hand. Miss Claribel also was very constant at our rehearsals. My mother's delight and admiration of us both knew no bounds; but though she still wept at Ophelia, it was evident that the philosophic Dane was her favourite. In gratitude for my exertions to revenge my father's death, she forgave any little demonstration of rudeness I made towards the Queen; and indeed was always greatly rejoiced when I shook the cushion out of the arm-chair in the energy of my expostulation with that ancient piece of furniture, which generally did duty for the wicked Gertrude. In fact, nothing could go off better than the whole play; and boxes, pit, and gallery, all represented by one enraptured spectator, were unanimous in their applause. There was one of the performers, however, who did not seem to share in the enthusiasm. Miss Claribel appeared discontented with the effects of her finest points, and began to hint her doubts as to our ultimate success. "The words are perfect in both of us," she said, "the actions appropriate, and all Hamlet's own instructions to the players scrupulously obeyed"—

"Well," I interrupted, "what is there to fear? You see how our audience here is affected."

"It is that very thing that gives me uneasiness. Nature on the stage is quite different from nature off it. Whether it ought to be so or not, I don't know; but it is so, and that is enough. We give the passion of these characters as they affect ourselves, but a real actor must give them as they affect others. We ought to study the perspective of grief or rage, and give it so as to be seen in the true light, not where Mrs de Bohun is sitting on that sofa, but where crowds are seated at the farther end of a theatre; and therefore the great and almost insurmountable difficulty of a tragedian is to keep such a proportion in his performance as not to appear absurdly exaggerated to people close at hand, or ridiculously tame to the more distant spectators."

"You would, then, act by an inspiration from without, and not from the divine fire within?" I answered, with a tone of indignation.

"No, no," she said; "keep all the fire you can; only let it be seen and felt by all the audience. But if you trust on each representation to the fiery impulse of the moment, you will sometimes find it glow too much, and sometimes it will probably be hidden in smoke. The genius feels the passion and grandeur of a great Shaksperian creation, perhaps as entirely as Shakspeare himself, but it is only the artist who can place it before others. A poet could see the Venus of Canova in a block of marble, but it was the hammer and chisel of the sculptor which gave it its immortal form. I feel with regard to this very Ophelia that I know every phase of her character; that I can identify myself with her disappointments and sorrows; but the chances are, after the identity is established, that I end by making Ophelia into Miss Claribel, and not Miss Claribel into Ophelia."

"No, for you speak Shakspeare's language in Ophelia's situation, and with Ophelia's feelings."

"But with Miss Claribel's lips, and shakings of the voice, and tears in the eyes, which arise from the depths of Miss Claribel's nature; and, in fact, I now feel convinced that, in order to succeed on the stage, a flexibility of character that enables one to enter into the minutest sentiments of the personage of the drama, is by no means required, but only such a general conception of the character as preserves the Shaksperian heroine from the individualities of her representative; and gives to an intelligent pit, the spectacle not of a real, living, breathing woman, born of father and mother, but of a being of a more etherial nature—human, yet not substantial—divine, yet full of weakness—the creation of a splendid imagination, and not the growth of mortal years, or supported by 'human nature's daily food.'"

My mother went on with her knitting in a most hurried and persevering manner—a habit she indulged in whenever she was puzzled. I might have followed her example if I had had the knitting needles in my hand, for I did not see the drift of these perplexing observations. Miss Claribel saw our bewilderment, and translated her dark passages into ordinary prose by saying that her oration had been a lecture against mannerism, or the display of the individualities of an actor instead of a clear development of the character represented. "It was also a theory," she added with a smile, "that mannerism often arises from a too close appropriation of a character, which makes a performer assimilate it with his own."

"From all which I conclude," I said, with a mortified air, "that in spite of black bugles and silk stockings, I shall still be Mr Charles de Bohun, and not Hamlet, prince of Denmark."

"'The hands are not the hands of Esau,'" she replied, "'but the voice is the voice of Jacob.' Still there is no reason to despair, nor even perhaps to augur a disappointment, for nobody can form an opinion either as to success or failure till the experiment has been fairly tried, and I trust we shall now not have much longer to wait."

"But with these misgivings—to call them by the gentlest name—I wonder, Miss Claribel, you still insist on trying your fortune on the boards."

"I made a vow, under very peculiar circumstances," she replied, "that I would support myself by my dramatic powers; and though a fortune of millions were to fall at my feet to-morrow, I would show those who derided my ambition that it was justified by my talents. I will be an actress, and the first on the stage!"

When I saw the play of her features, and heard the calm, subdued energy of her voice, I felt little doubt that her prophecy would be accomplished. I, however, began to feel some very lively doubts as to Hamlet, and it required several criticisms from my mother, and a great deal of stamping and grimacing before the mirror, to restore me to the enjoyment of the sunshine of self-respect. At last Catsbach returned. He sent to announce his arrival, and to say he would join me that evening, and bring with him a literary friend, who might be very useful to me in my dramatic career. They came. "Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr Wormwood, the orator and poet," said Catsbach, shaking me by the hand very warmly himself. "You will be the best friends in the world; and Wormwood has been very anxious for a long time to make your acquaintance." The stranger bowed low, and so did I; not without a strong tickling of my vanity at the wideness of my reputation. We sat down, and I could contemplate my visitor at full leisure. He was a little man, of whom the prevailing feature was a nose of astonishing prominence, that overshadowed not only the remaining features of his face, but the whole of his person. It formed the central point of his whole organisation, and was, in fact, Mr Wormwood, without the help either of face or figure. His brow retreated in apparent alarm, pulling the eyebrows with it nearly to the top of the skull; his chin also had retired into his neck, and there was nothing visible but the one prevailing feature—a pyramid in a waste of sand. The sudden retrocession of his brow was only seen in profile; and as he was bald, and treated all the exposed skin of his head as forehead up to the very crown, he presented a very intellectual appearance in the eyes of those with whom high brows are considered "the dome of thought, the temple of the soul." His side hair was carefully combed off, so as to expose as great an expanse as possible; and it was evident that great pains were bestowed on the picturesqueness and poetry of the appearance—a small thin man, rather shabbily drest, and with manners duly compounded of civility and pomp.

"I am delighted to know you, Mr De Bohun. I form a very high estimate, indeed, of your genius and accomplishments; though I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing any of your works."

"I am indebted to the good opinion—too much indebted, I fear—of our friend, Mr Catsbach," I replied.

"By no means. You have had a play ignominiously rejected by a brutal and unjudging world. Sir, I honour you on the triumph, and congratulate you on the success."

The man seemed quite serious as he spoke; so I looked for some explanation to his friend.

"Wormwood has achieved the same victory on several occasions," said Catsbach; "and on carefully going over his plays, according to the severest principles of art, he finds that they were ludicrously and inhumanly laughed at, or still more inhumanly refused a place on the stage, in exact proportion as their merits lifted them above the intellectual level of an audience, or the narrow understanding of a manager."

"Exactly so," said Wormwood; "and you will find it uniformly the case. Success in literature is almost the surest sign of an author's imbecility; and, à fortiori, public neglect a sign of his genius and erudition. I have already heard that your tragedy is refused; I hope to congratulate you on your Hamlet being hissed off the stage."

"Really, sir," I said, somewhat nettled, "I scarcely understand whether you are in jest or earnest; and I sincerely hope to escape your congratulations on my Hamlet, as I am not aware of any right I have acquired to them on the fate of the play."

"Was it not returned on your hands, sir? Catsbach certainly gave me to understand that you had attained that mark of eminence; but if you are still in danger of being accepted, and performed, I must withhold the expression of my praise till I see whether an audience will be more propitious than the manager, and overwhelm your tragedy with derision and contempt, as I have no doubt it deserves." After accompanying this with a smile, which he evidently meant to be propitiatory and complimentary, he seemed to retire for shelter behind his nose, and employed himself in throwing on each side any of the straggling locks that intruded on the sacred domain of his expansive brow.

"What sort of fool is this you have brought?" I said to Catsbach, availing myself of the temporary seclusion of our visitor behind the promontory I have described.

"A tremendous author, I assure you. A poem in forty books, called 'The Brides of Solomon,' which nearly ruined him, for it never sold, not even to the cheesemongers; a 'History of the World previous to its Creation, an Epic in Seven Days," which it would take seven years to read, was his next; then a dozen plays on the Roman Emperors—a play to each—which were never acted; so now he is a prodigious critic in the Hog in Armour, and talks German mysticism, and gives dissertations on the Philosophy of Historic Research in a review of Tom Thumb. I thought it as well to secure his help; for, if you succeed, we can do without him; and if we fail, he will find out a pleasant reason, and enlist you in the corps."

"That would be an honour I don't aspire to, and the use of such assistance I cannot see."

"Pooh! Never mind the fool. Give him some brandy; let him talk; he may be useful, and the day of trial is near at hand."

"You've got a theatre?" I inquired.

"Theatre, orchestra, company, and all," said Catsbach; "so let us light our cigars, and hear some critical drivel."

Mr Wormwood, as if he had heard our conversation, emerged from his shady situation, and turning his full face towards us, commenced a dissertation on his principles of art, which, being founded on, and exemplified by, his own writings, was a most comfortable doctrine for candidates for fame, and made a pelting with oranges and apples little less agreeable than a crowning with garlands and a shower of bouquets.

CHAPTER XI.

"This will be a busy week, big with the fate of more than Cato or of Rome," said Catsbach next day. "I have secured, for a very moderate sum, the use of a theatre down the river; and dresses, advertisements, and decorations are promised us on the most splendid scale. All the second-rates I have already retained, being, in fact, the regular company of the establishment; and I assure you they are all in the highest state of excitement about the new Hamlet and your friend Miss What's-her-name's Ophelia."

"Her name is Miss Claribel," I replied; "and I can't imagine how you take so little interest in a person whom I consider so wonderful, as to have forgotten it."

"Pardon, my dear fellow, I meant no offence either to her powers or your discernment; but I probably forgot what you called her, from a very strong idea I entertain that her name is fictitious. Don't you remember the Montalbans and De la Roses of the Stepney Star? Her name is Jones."

"How? Have you made any inquiry?" I exclaimed, rather astonished myself at the interest I took in the personal history of the beautiful actress.

"O! that's it, is it?" said Catsbach, with a shrug. "What! She has played Ophelia to the perfect satisfaction of Polonius. She knows you are heir of the De Bohuns."

"Polonius! My dear Mr Tooks, what can you possibly mean? You remember that Polonius is the father of Ophelia."

"Well, I suppose Miss Claribel has a father also, or some person who takes a tender interest in her prosperity. They are very often captains in the army, those Poloniuses of modern life; and are a little more strict in exacting an adhesion to promise, than the courtier of Elsinore. I therefore advise all Hamlets to be very cautious how they put pen to paper, or request a lady to be an astronomical heretic as to the sun and stars, but never to doubt their love; for, when Polonius is too old or too ill for work, there is generally a Laertes or two who are masters of fence, and very careful of their sisters' settlements."

"You try to put suspicions into my head. I will not yield to them. I feel sure you would not harbour the slightest doubt of her perfect openness and sincerity, if you only saw her for, half an hour."

"Possibly enough, if I only saw her for half an hour: what a few days might do, is a different question. In the mean time, I will bet your bill to Montalban that she turns out a deceiver, worming her way into your mother's favour by false representations, and into her son's, by arts which it does not need many months of the Stepney Star to bring to perfection."

"Done!" I said; "with all my heart! I would stake all I have on her perfect truth. See her, and judge for yourself."

"I shall see her at the theatre in plenty of time to prevent any mischief; but, in the meanwhile, I rely on your assistance to-night at a ball in Grosvenor Square, where I positively require you to complete the band."

Our agreement was so binding that it was useless to offer any opposition. I began to look on my flute as a frightful instrument of degradation, and thought what a different position I ought to have filled on my first introduction to the society of Grosvenor Square. The position of the temporary orchestra, at the window of the middle drawing-room, gave me a view of the whole company, both in the front room, which was very large and lofty, and the more commodious and luxuriously fitted up third apartment, at the left of where I sat. A city Crœsus was the giver of the feast,—a short thin man, very pale and very silent, who stood at the centre door, and bowed coldly and formally to his visitors as they were announced. His lady-wife, on the other hand, was as gorgeous as feathers and silk could make her; an immense expanse of humanity, covered with at least an equal expanse of pride, for she sailed through the apartments as if the weight of empires, or at least the price of kingdoms, lay on her shoulders; and round her gathered, at respectful distance, the lesser plumb-holders of the commercial world, like a set of yachts and merchantmen round a first-rate at Spithead. Mrs Willox was quite aware of the position she held, and made no secret that a cousin of hers had married an Irish baronet, and that her aunt was the widow of a city knight. Connected to this extent with the aristocracy, she felt she had a right to look down on Mr Willox, who had begun his career as purser in an Indiaman, and accordingly she looked down upon him from morn to night. At my left hand stood two gentlemen, pilloried so immovably in white neckcloths that they could not turn their heads without an effort that made them red in the face. Two young patricians they were from the India Docks, whose conversation was very loud about their shootings in Scotland, and hunting-boxes at Melton. This enlivening conversation, though apparently addressed to each other, was in reality intended for me. So fond of admiration are some of our weaker brothers, that they will angle for it even from a professional player on the flute. They soon saw that I attended to what they were saying, and they launched out into various subjects, evidently for my improvement and edification. "Sir Peter, and Lady Potts, and Miss Emmeline Potts," were announced in stentorian sounds, and Mr Willox made his customary bow.

"That Emmeline Potts," said one of my instructors, "is no go. She has been trying it on with Harry Buglefield of the Guards; but the father won't fork out the coin, and Harry fights shy. He told me so himself when I was selling him my brown filly last season in Leicestershire."

"He ought to give her a hundred thousand down," said the other, "and the rest when he's run to earth; but he's a jaded old screw, and can't last long. I would advise Harry to wait."

"He says he's very willing to wait if his creditors could be persuaded to wait too. A fine generous fellow as ever lived; and a very intimate friend of mine. He has never paid me a farthing for the brown filly, though he sold her to his uncle, Lord Silliveer, at a profit of a hundred and fifty."

"Mr Hoddie, and the two Miss Hoddie's!" bawled the footman at the drawing-room door, and the individuals announced sailed into the room. Dancing was now in full force, so that I missed the first appearance of the party, but I heard the criticism of the two arbiters of fashion on my left.

"That Malvina Hoddie is the vainest little fool in England," said the senior Petronius, whose name was Baggles, to Mr Hooker—both in the West India trade—as expectant heirs and successors of their respective fathers. "She believes every word that a fellow says to her, and tells her father all the soft speeches from her partner, as if they were proposals of marriage. Hoddie is therefore for ever sending letters to ascertain what men's intentions are, as, after the very warm manner in which his little darling was informed that the hope of meeting her was the only thing that kept Mr So-and-so from committing suicide, if not murder, it is impossible to doubt that Mr So-and-so cannot intend to leave matters as they are."

"What an old fool," replied Mr Hooker. "Why didn't you tell me this before? for I met her last night in Harley Street, at the Molasses'; and when she put up her absurd little face to my shirt pin, when we were in the middle of the Row Polka, and asked if I didn't think love in a cottage was better than a gay and festive scene like this, I said, 'Ah! certainly, if you had the choice of the partner of your bliss.' 'Do you mean it?' she lisped, and looked very hard at me. 'Certainly,' I said. 'Papa will be so delighted,' she continued, and swung round, with her chin fairly resting on my shoulder; and when the dance was over, tript up to the old snob, on which I took the opportunity of rushing out of the house."

"You'll get a note to-morrow morning, to a certainty, demanding what your next step is to be; and then, if you shuffle out, they will be very industrious in circulating a report that you have been ignominiously rejected."

"There she goes," exclaimed Hooker, "dancing with Hugs of Blackwall. I hope she'll catch him, for it would be very awkward if she spread any nonsensical report about my having either proposed for her, or being rejected."

"It might be very unpleasant, old fellow," replied Mr Baggles, "if it reached the good people at Muswell Hill."

"Mr, Mrs, and Miss Pybus!" shouted out the St Peter of the drawing-room door; and the well-remembered name gave me such a shock that in a moment my accompaniment attenuated itself into a feeble whistle, and suddenly the music stopped. I looked at Catsbach, who returned my look with no very complimentary expression, as he discovered that the astonished dancers, and, in fact, the whole brilliant assemblage of the fair and brave, had fixed their eyes on the performers. The whistle, also, in which I had concluded my musical exercise, was so irresistibly ludicrous, that there was a wonderful display of white teeth, and a not very inaudible laugh.

"What's the matter with the band?" inquired Mr Willox, coming up, red with rage. "Mr Conductor, you must have, at all events, one very poor performer in your number, which, considering the sum you charge, I consider inexcusable—quite inexcusable, sir. I insist on your turning him out, or, at all events, telling him to be quiet the rest of the evening."

"Encore!" exclaimed Mr Catsbach, striking his bow across the fiddle. "Donner und blitzen!—der teufel!—now, den!" and the dancing was once more resumed. So I sat silent and horror-struck, with my flute lying quietly on the ledge of the music-desk before me. I had blackened my eyebrows, and wore a false beard, with a tuft on the lower lip. There was no chance of recognition, and I had a curiosity to see the gentleman who had been so generous and friendly at the examination of Puddlecombe-Regis school. I was anxious, also, to see the beautiful little girl who had made such an impression on the hearts of all the scholars, and deepest, perhaps of all, on mine.

"Very odd," continued Mr Baggles, renewing the conversation with his friend, "that we should be speaking of the Pybuses at the very moment they made their appearance. Emily, I suppose, would never forgive you if she thought you cared a straw for Malvina Hoddie?"

"She would be very severe," replied Mr Hooker. "She's very sharp, and can say such cutting things." At which words he seemed to shudder, as if at some appalling recollection of her powers of repartee.

"Why don't you read Punch and Joe Miller, and learn to retort? She's very young, and ought to be put down."

"She doesn't think sixteen so very young; and as she is the pet at home, and an immense heiress, it is not so very easy to gain a victory over her, if you were as witty as the Honourable Bob Chockers of the Blues."

"Your true plan is to keep in with the father. He is a jolly old ass, and very fond of high society. If you were a lord, you might have Emily for the asking."

"I know a good many lords," replied Mr Hooker, "and that's the next thing to being one myself. But here comes Emily and the ancients."

O, the change that two years produce on a girl of fourteen!—two years of health, and wealth, and education! There came towards us, from the outer drawing-room, a figure as perfect as ever was revealed to sculptor—with intelligence and sweetness radiating from a countenance such as no sculptor could ever fix in marble. She did not walk, she touched the floor with her feet, and seemed to repress a bound at every step, that would have sent her dancing in like a Hebe holding forth a wine-cup, or like one of the nymphs of Venus, who are all far prettier, I beg to say, than Venus herself—tripping forward and scattering roses on the pathway of the goddess. Never did I see so radiant a beauty, combined (when you examined the features, the firm lip, and high imperial brow) with as much dignity and power. The dignity and power were hidden, to be sure, below the transparent veil of her sixteen summers; but there they were, ready to expand when that veil was removed—a dissolving view, as it were, where the solid outlines and severe majesty of a Grecian temple were already faintly visible over the disappearing lineaments of a bower in fairyland. From this glorious apparition I looked to Mr Hooker—good features, but inexpressive; eyes blue and feeble; nose finely chiselled, but effeminate; lips well shaped, but uneducated; and a bearing mock-easy, mock-aristocratic—loud, conceited, contemptible! I could have killed him with ineffable delight.

Her father was unchanged; the same stately presence, the same benevolent smile, the same appearance of having Golconda in one pocket, and the Bank of England in the other, and a chuckle in his voice as if his throat was filled with guineas. How is it, thought I, as I looked at the father and daughter, that wealth always softens and refines the woman, while it only swells out and amplifies the man? In the man, we see the counting-house resisting, or ill accommodating itself to the drawing-room. There is either an uneasy effort to escape from the ledger, or a still more painful attempt to convert it into a book of fashionable life. He has had fights about sugar in the morning, disquisitions with underwriters, reports of bankruptcies in Ceylon, of short crops in Jamaica, or a fall in the funds in Mexico, and he finds it impossible to give himself up entirely to the careless enjoyment of an evening assemblage of friends, and yet cannot relieve his mind by making the objects of his thoughts the subject of his conversation. So he takes to political talk, by way of doing the genteel, and discusses Lord George, or Sir Robert, or Lord John, in the violent effort he makes to escape from indigo and muscovadoes. With the daughter how different! Here wealth merely represents the absence of those petty and worrying annoyances which narrow the circle of thought, when a grim vision of the weekly bills is seldom long absent from the mind. She has magnificence, luxury, refinement all round her, and imbibes a grace from the very furniture and ornaments of her room. A blue sea with its tossing waves, by Stanfield, insinuates its life and freshness into her habitual thoughts—vases from the antique, statues from Canova, and flowers from Chiswick, are her daily and homely companions. Her nature gets raised to what it works in; and though her mother is not very intimate with Lindley Murray, and her father has some strange ideas about the letter H, she is as graceful, as pure, and elegant, as if she could trace up her lineage to the Plantagenets.

"O, such a funny thing!" said Mr Hooker, as Emily came up to where he stood. "Your very name made a conquest of one of the fiddlers, and he broke down the moment you came in. He'll get such a wigging from his commander-in-chief."

"Was it only one?" inquired Emily. "I thought the whole band had come to a stop."

"The poor young fellow with the flute put 'em all out," replied Hooker. "He went off in such a scream, as if the drawing-room was hurrying right into a tunnel. He has never held his head up since."

"Poor man," said Emily; "which is it?"

"That foreign-looking, bewhiskered lad, with the pale face next to us. A bad job for him, I guess."

"O no! As you say my coming in was the cause of his misfortune, I must try and not let it be too serious."

In spite of all my efforts to appear ignorant of the conversation, I found my cheeks growing alternately red and white, as anger or confusion got the upper hand. I took up my flute, and had thoughts of suddenly leaving the room—of knocking Mr Hooker down—of introducing myself to Mr Pybus; but before I could make up my mind what to do, I felt that her voice was addressed to me. I felt it, I say, for I did not look to where she was. I looked upon vacancy, and must have had an intellectual expression on my countenance congenial to that interesting employment.

"He doesn't hear me," she said to Hooker. "Perhaps he doesn't understand English."

"Hollo! you sir," said the gentleman, "don't you hear the lady speaking to you? Do you only sprichen Dutch or parley-vous?"

His hand was laid roughly on my shoulder to call my attention to his speech. I half sprang up, shook off his hand as if it had been a toad and was on the point of saying or doing something very absurd, when I was checked by the alarmed look of Emily, who evidently thought I was going to commit murder on the unfortunate object of my wrath.

"The dooce is in the fellow," said Mr Hooker; "he couldn't look more lofty were he a prince in disguise."

"Will you pardon me, madam, that I did not hear you when you did me the honour to address me?" I said.

"I merely regretted that your flute played false a few minutes ago, and prevented me from the pleasure of hearing its accompaniment. It seems a beautiful instrument. I suppose the keys are very apt to get out of order?"

"Yes; and the slightest tremor in hand or breath is fatal."

"Of course, that holds good in all musical performances. Have you professed music long?"

"Not long."

"It requires immense practice to excel in it—longer time and harder study than would make a first classman at Oxford, I have heard it said; and, after all, the reward of it is very poor."

I sat horror-struck. Did the girl recognise me, and twit me with the profession I had chosen, as well as the career I had refused?

"No profession is poorly paid," I replied, "that brings with it independence and self-respect."

"O, surely not. Do you give lessons?"

"No."

"Ah! many people refuse to become teachers from false pride, and a notion that it degrades. I don't think so. Do you?"

What was I to say? The girl certainly had discovered me in spite of beard and eyebrow. I looked at her full in the face. No—there was no consciousness there. Nothing but kindness, and a strange look of compassion, with which it was impossible to take offence, for there was an appearance of deep interest in it, which was flattering to my self-love.

"Madam, I have never hitherto thought of having pupils."

"O, but you will now. I have long been anxious for a flute accompaniment to my piano. I will speak to papa."

"Miss Pybus," whispered Mr Hooker, "if you have had a long enough conversation with that fiddler, will you fulfil your promise of dancing with me this dance?"

"Certainly," she said—"I never draw back from my promise;" and I was left alone. In one of the pauses of the dance I saw her speak to her father. He expanded into a smile like a gigantic sunflower, and chucked her under the chin, and away she went, still followed by that beaming smile. I grew tired of watching the happiness of Mr Hooker, and was about to slip noiselessly away—Mr Pybus glowed up to where I stood.

"My daughter tells me you have no objection to give her a few lessons on music, and accompany her on the flute," he said.

"I am not aware, sir," I began. But at this moment I saw Emily's eye fixed on me as she moved towards us in the dance.

"Well, well, if she's quite satisfied with your proficiency, I am. Come up on Friday to Muswell Hill, Holly-Hock House—Mr Pybus. Here's my card; we have a party on that evening, and you can begin by accompanying the piano. Hire a cab, and let me know your expenses. We shall not fall out about terms."

"I really, sir, scarcely know—"

"O, any one will point out Holly-Hock House," said the father. "The cabman is sure to know it."

"I am so happy you have agreed to come," said the daughter, who had again careered within earshot of our talk. "I shall expect you on Friday."

What was to be done? I bowed—and the bargain was closed.

CHAPTER XII.

I must have been asleep when Catsbach came home, if that night he came home at all. Frightful dreams haunted me all night. A thousand demons came down on me, like the Guards at Waterloo, all playing on broken-winded flutes. Twenty Hamlets, all in sable hat and tumbled silk stockings, whistled "To be, or not to be," through the same detestable instrument. Then I dreamt of Emily Pybus, and instantly she turned into Miss Claribel in the costume of Ophelia. All the scenes of my past life jumbled themselves up into one confused mass. Well-known faces looked in upon me from all sides of the room—Mr Montalban, the old schoolmaster at Puddlecombe, the examiners, Miss de la Rose, and Fitz-Edward—all piping and screaming on that inevitable flute. It showed that a deep blow on my vanity had been inflicted by my failure at Mr Willox's ball. I tried when I awoke to remember whether I had taken opium, I felt so feverish and confused; but the excitement was caused by my injured self-love; and, waking as well as sleeping, I entertained a frantic hatred against Mr Hooker. I determined to take counsel of Catsbach, to whom I had hitherto confided all parts of my history, with the sole concealment of names. I resolved to lay the whole case before him, and ask his advice how to proceed. Should I go to Muswell Hill and take the very office of tutor in music which I had already so indignantly refused in literature and classics? I found I was very much changed since then—or rather that Emily was more attractive, as a pupil, than I had thought her at fourteen years old. There was romance also in becoming acquainted with her in a fictitious character; and I felt less degraded as an unsuccessful musician than I had felt as a disappointed schoolboy. But Catsbach should decide upon it all. In the morning, however, a note was put into my hands—"The incident last night," he said, "makes it too dangerous for us to attend at private parties. You will never be able to preserve your incog. I have got some intimation of the whereabouts of Ellinor. You won't see me for two days. Meantime, go on with rehearsal with Miss Claribel, and on Thursday take her to Chatham. The 'Paragon Royal' will be in ecstasy at your approach, for I have said you will give them five pounds and a supper after the play. I shall be there in plenty of time for the overture, but at present I am off to Guildford, where I suspect my charmer keeps a school. The mistress has been described to me as a perfect angel; and what can be a closer description of my Ellinor? Take care of Miss Claribel's arts. Beauty is a fading flower. So am I.—Augustus Tooks." I followed the advice contained in this letter, and perfected myself in Hamlet. Miss Claribel herself began to have hopes of my success; and my mother, in the midst of her rapture with my performance, only insisted more and more on a strict preservation of my incognito. My uncle, she said, was about to return to England. She did not know how he might like to hear that his nephew had gone upon the stage. The Paragon Royal had scarcely a grander sound than the Stepney Star. Critics might be hostile; for all literary people, she heard, were unjust; and, at all events, I was to appear as Julian Gray till my position was fairly assured, and I could announce myself as the Shakspeare and Garrick of modern times. I smiled at all these cautions; I smiled at the hostility of the critics; I frowned at the possibility of a failure; I started when I heard her allusion to my uncle; in fact, I found that I was a regular playactor, and that I went through the gamut of stamps and facemakings exactly like Messrs Martingdale and Fitz-Edward. Miss Claribel laughed. "You rehearse very well," she said, "even when you are not repeating your part. You have immense command of feature, as much, I should say, as Grimaldi; but then he never attempted the tragic."

"I don't quite understand your meaning, Miss Claribel," I said, looking as dignified as Coriolanus when he banished the Romans. "Do you mean that I grimace too much?"

"Certainly, if you grimace at all. There is no surer sign of a man being a mere actor, than a reliance on scorning lips and upturned eyebrows. It is not natural. The words and passion must force their own way from the heart, and make their mark on the countenance at the moment of the burst. When you see a man throw himself back with his arms stretched out, his one leg forward, his mouth gaping, and his eyes ready to fall out of his head, in expectation of a ghost or some other dreadful sight, he is a mere conventional figure of fright, with no terror or apprehension whatever within. He should wait for the apparition; he should show the pit the first glimpse he gets of it; through his eyes they should see the undefined horror grow into consistency; and without the palpable presence either of the murdered Banquo or of Hamlet's father, they should feel a graveyard air about them, and see the dreadful shadow take shape and form. This is not produced by starts and grins."

"Then, in heaven's name! how is it produced?"

"By feeling it, by seeing it, by believing it."

"I feel it, see it, believe it, and my eyebrows ascend, my mouth opens, my arms stretch out."

"So they would if you saw a house on fire. These are the hereditary exponents of surprise and fear; but a ghost creates a different feeling; it ought to be differently expressed: not surprise—it is above it: not fear—for neither Macbeth nor Hamlet are capable of such a feeling; but awe—something very different from any other state of mind they ever experienced before. They should move little, speak low, make no faces, and, above all things, show that the sentiment comes from within. It will find its way, by sympathy, to the pit. They will see the propriety of making little noise in presence of a murdered general or a buried king. Martingdale roars as if he were in presence of a murdered bull, and was triumphing over its death. He bellows as if he felt he had conquered a rival, and now had all the noise to himself. But more: I would invest the whole character of Hamlet with an atmosphere of the supernatural. No man who had held parley with the dead, and was marshalled on to a great act by invisible hands, should ever be without an impression of the awful presence. I would make him throw inquiring glances round, even in his talk with the gravedigger. That ghost should never leave the eyes of the pit; present or absent, the supernatural should rule the stage. When Hamlet is silent, he should be distrait—inattentive to what is going on, and holding inward converse with his unearthly visitor. Don't you think he went really mad? To be sure he did. Who wouldn't, if night and day he were haunted by a ghost, commanding him to commit a murder, to revenge a father, to break the heart of the girl who loved him? Of course he went mad, though I don't found that belief on the crumpled state of his stocking, but on the broad ground that no man can see ghosts, and hear strange voices from the other world, and see a dreadful action forced on him of which he doesn't know the result, and yet remain as firm in his pulse, and collected in his faculties, as a chairman of Quarter Sessions, or an alderman at a city feast."

"I fear, Miss Claribel, you form such an estimate of an actor's requirements, that you will never fulfil your own expectations." I spoke with a slight tone of displeasure.

"You are very severe," she replied; "but I will fulfil my own expectations, for they are not very high. I will enter into Ophelia's feelings—they shall enter into me; and I and Ophelia shall be one and indivisible."

"Now, you are not afraid of the 'mannerism' you spoke of some days ago?"

"It is the rock people who enter into a character are apt to split on; but I will endeavour to bear Juliet and Desdemona, and Viola, all with a difference."

"We shall see," I said, in no good humour. "On Thursday we shall go down to the Paragon Royal. My mother will go and be spectatress of the fight; and, come what may, I will show the world a true reading of the noble Dane." Miss Claribel smiled, and so did my mother, exemplifying the numerous meanings that can be conveyed by that position of the lips. Miss Claribel's was the more beautiful mouth, but I liked the expression of my mother's more.

I pass over the preparations, the journey, the disappointment at the sight of the ugly street and hideous building in which our fortunes were to be tried. At six I was dressed and on the stage, Miss Claribel in her dressing-room, my mother in a stage-box; not a soul in the pit, nobody at the door; two orange-women standing beside their baskets near the orchestra, and the whole house, as seen by me through a hole in the green curtain, deserted and uncomfortable in the extreme. The manager, a most polite little gentleman, who was great in comedy, and enacted the part of Osric, was at my side. I pointed out the discouraging aspect of the theatre. "O, you'll see in half an hour," he said, "crowds filling every seat. My Osric is a poor part, but very popular."

Polonius joined us, an old man, who at Christmas was a great favourite as Pantaloon in the pantomime.

"It will be a great house, I feel sure," he mumbled through his toothless gums. "Old Jack Ivory as Polonius is sure to draw." Not one of them attributed the expected multitude in any respect to the debutant in Hamlet, or the beauty of the Ophelia.

"The worst thing I see about it is, that the band with your friend, the foreign gentleman, has not arrived," said Count Osric; "and if a Paragon audience are disappointed, they always throw ginger-beer bottles at the manager's head. I wish we had opened in Coriolanus: I should have worn a helmet."

"I feel quite certain my friend, Mr Catsbach, will not disappoint us," I said; "and from the present appearance of the boxes, pit, and gallery, I think I may congratulate you on the small number of bottles you will have to sustain."

"Wait a little, I beg, my dear sir; Osric has never failed me yet, and the artisans and mechanics are not able to appear here much before seven."

"The nobility and gentry?" I inquired.

"O, some of the garrison will come in after mess, at half price, in time to make bets on the fencing scene."

"I am glad they take so deep an interest," I began.

"Lor' bless ye! they very often jump on the stage and take a turn with Laertes themselves; and once a very curious thing happened: Two of the young officers gave ten shillings apiece to the Hamlet to tire Laertes down. Hamlet was an excellent fencer. He wouldn't on any account accept the button on any part of his clothes—there was no palpable hit—the whole house took a great interest in the Shaksperian drama, and half-crowns were posted in all parts of the boxes on the bout. I was afraid the buttons might come off the foils, and made them exchange their rapiers for single-stick. Laertes at last planted a hit on Hamlet's nose, and upwards of £20 changed hands on the occasion. Hamlet drew every night after that for three weeks, until the colonel-commandant interfered, and we were driven from the bard of Avon to the "Miller and his Men." There is no freedom for the legitimate drama; but I hope to-night, sir, the tragic muse will be reinstated on these boards. I expect a great house, for I have let it be pretty generally known that you are a master of fence."

"If the worst comes to the worst," said Polonius, "and the fiddlers don't make their appearance, I think old Jack Ivory can always appease a storm. Pray, sir, do you play on any instrument?"

"The flute," I said, hesitatingly, and with a look of inquiry what the object of his question could be.

"That makes it quite safe," replied Polonius; "you shall accompany me by way of an overture, for there ain't a man in England gets more applause in 'Hot Codlins' than myself."

I tried to laugh, as if I considered the proposition an excellent joke; but I have every reason to believe the wretch was serious. I began to perceive that every person engaged on the stage, though only to deliver a message, thinks himself the principal performer; he also is of opinion that there is no disparity of rank upon the boards, but that what the clown does, may also be done by the tragedian. I have no doubt Diavolo Antonio looked down on Edmund Kean. I was on the point of renewing the conversation, when an enormous noise at the pit-entrance attracted my notice. A thrill of gratification came into my heart. All regard for Shakspeare is not yet extinct, in spite of fencing Hamlets and ignorant managers. The rush into the pit was prodigious. I looked through the green curtain once more. Her Majesty's ship, the Periander, 44, had been paid off that morning, and the gallant crew and their wives filled every bench. The majority of the valiant defenders of their country were polygamists to the most undeniable amount, and seemed rather proud of the extent to which they broke the law. Those who rejoiced in single blessedness limited themselves to one wife. The trebly blessed were numerous, and the boatswain had six to share his heart and fortunes. Here I perceived the manager's perils, but not from ginger-beer. There were cans of gin and rum, that would have supplied a tavern for a week. Single bottles of whisky were brandished in the air, as on festive occasions landsmen wave their hats; and in a short time the calls for music became overpowering, and the manager sent secretly for a company of marines and a division of the police.

"If that hairy-cheeked foreigner doesn't come," said Osric, with unaffected fear, "there will be a row, like the boarding of an enemy's ship. They always think us foreigners when we wear slashed doublets; and in the war time they shipped off my predecessor, who was acting a Parisian marquis, in a cartel that was just starting with a batch of French prisoners to be exchanged. The poor man died in the hulks at Toulon, for he had been counted against an English captain, and they kept him in captivity because the captain refused to return."

I looked at my watch: it only wanted ten minutes to seven, and the storm rising every moment. If Catsbach plays me false, I shall rescue my mother, I thought, and fight my way into the street. I looked at my sword; it was of silver-gilt tin, and couldn't have committed manslaughter on the body of Tom Thumb. A universal cheer proclaimed an arrival; and I declare the first scrape of the fiddle was the sweetest music I ever heard. It gave quite a new turn to the behaviour of the sailors. They ordered "God save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia," and then roared lustily for a hornpipe. Catsbach gratified them in whatever they asked. At last they called for a gangway to be placed from the orchestra on to the stage, and proposed commencing the dramatic proceedings of the evening by a miscellaneous country dance. This, however, was not accorded—the little bell rang—and the serious overture began.

At this moment Mr Wormwood, out of breath, and enraptured apparently with my approaching triumph, caught me by the hand. "Let me introduce you," he said, "to the three greatest critics in Europe. We have hurried from London to see your debût. I have the highest opinion of your genius, and feel sure you will be most unanimously and ignominiously cat-called—as we were."

The three gentlemen bowed, and retired into the stage-box beside my mother, to write a description of my reception. I was too indignant to speak, and suddenly the curtain rose, and the play began. The ghost was received with the most vociferous applause, and seemed to strike the naval mind as the liveliest personage in the play. His silence was considered a remarkably comic piece of character, and evidently assumed to cover his forgetfulness of the words. Many exhortations were offered to him to take another spell at the book, or spin them a yarn out of his own head. Allusions were also made to his obesity, which evidently did not accord with the forecastle's idea of a ghost; and when, in spite of all the advice and suggestion that had been offered him, he maintained an imperturbable silence, they got into a violent state of indignation at having been defrauded of the speeches; for they could not believe it possible for a personage to stalk across the stage and look so very solemn without having anything to say. Whereupon Count Osric went forward and soothed them by a solemn promise that in some of the succeeding scenes the ghost would be as talkative as they chose. Satisfied with this, they received the opening scene of the court of Denmark with several rounds of applause, which were duly responded to by each of the performers on the stage.

With a dignity befitting the crown-prince of a gallant nation, I maintained my position on the left of the king, and made no recognition of the welcome offered me in so tumultuous a manner. I observed an orange glide within a few inches of my face, and splash on the back of the royal chair; but affairs advanced so rapidly from this point that I had no time to take notice of the insult. When the king had arrived at about the middle of the first speech, a quarrel took place in the pit between two captains of the maintop, and a challenge was rapidly exchanged. A sudden whistle from the boatswain called attention to the interesting fact, and the play was suspended for a few minutes till the belligerents gave and received the satisfaction which their injured honours required. While the two captains were belabouring each other, to the admiration of all the audience, the manager slipt up to where I was standing, and whispered, "I feel greatly obliged for the five-pound note, and also for the three guineas you have left for the supper to-night; but my advice to you is to slip off the stage as fast as you can; convey the lady who accompanied you to the coach-office—and——"

"Why?" I said. "This riot will soon be over."

"A worse is coming; for a dreadful disappointment has occurred. Do as I advise you, or I won't answer that we shan't all be ducked in the river—lady, too, if she's found out to belong to your party."

"And not a word of my part yet spoken! Perhaps they will be stilled when they hear the voice of Hamlet."

"My dear sir, they've taken a disgust to you already. If you spoke, they would throw the benches at your head. There! one of the men is going to give in, and I must announce that the play is changed for three farces and some rope-dancing."

I saw the pit looking rather excited, and Bill Hatches was declared the winner. I was hurrying off the stage to change my clothes. I was stopt by Mr Wormwood and his friends. "Your attitude, my dear friend, offended them at once. It was sublime. Princes should always stand on tiptoe; it was above their comprehension. They have stamped you a great and original genius with the seal of their unqualified disapprobation. I congratulate you heartily, and feel sure of your unanimous reception in the brotherhood we have established, called the Unappreciables—entrance fee one guinea—and undying hatred to successful mediocrity."

"I have no time for such offensive absurdity," I said, and hurried away, in imitation of the whole of the Danish court, which had gone off to dress for the rope-dancing and the farce. I merely slipped my cloak over the spangled grandeurs of Elsinore, and was rushing towards the dressing-room of the ladies, to warn Miss Claribel, and place her along with my mother in safety from the predicted storm, when I heard Count Osric, now dressed as a heavy father, in a domestic drama of George I.'s time, addressing the audience, which was for a moment hushed in grim repose to hear what he had to say.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "such a grievous calamity has befallen this establishment, that it is impossible on this occasion to proceed with the play of Hamlet."

"Pipe all hands to quarters," shouted a voice at the end of the pit; "prepare for boarding;" and the obedient crew stood up, ready to cast themselves over the side of the pit, and carry the orchestra and stage, bottle in hand.

"The fact is, that a serious mishap has occurred to the representative of the innocent and beautiful Ophelia."

"'Vast with all that palaver," cried a hundred voices. "Why don't you clap all sail on her, and bring her into line?"

"She has this moment eloped with one of the fiddlers," resumed the manager, "and we throw ourselves on your indulgence, to allow us to withdraw the immortal Hamlet, and offer you 'Hot Codlings,' by your old friend Jack Ivory, in its place."

"Scoundrel!" I said, and seized the manager by the neckcloth, as he came behind the scenes after this eloquent address. "What do you mean by such ribald impertinence, inventing such an infamous lie to save your wretched theatre, and more wretched carcass, at the expense of Miss Claribel's reputation?"

"It's a perfect truth, sir; they're off; the dirty foreigner led her out of the theatre, and told me not to expect them again. I'll hold him answerable for all damage."

I contented myself with giving the heavy father a hearty shake; sent round for my mother to join me behind the scenes; and amazed, bewildered, horror-struck, and sick at heart, conducted her to the coach-office, leaving the manager to sustain the assaults of his exasperated audience as he best could.

"Miss Claribel has deceived us," said my mother.

"Not me," I said bitterly, "I suspected her to be no better than she should be, from the strange notions of acting she entertained. Besides, Catsbach warned me of her from the beginning; and betted he would prove her to be an impostor and hypocrite. He has won his bet."

"I can't believe it yet," replied my mother; "but time will show."

"If Catsbach ever comes into my presence," I said, "I will horsewhip him like a hound."

"My dear," said my mother, "I am afraid you admire Miss Claribel too much yourself."

"Psha!" I replied, "I hate her, and Catsbach more; and if I ever see them, I will tell them so."

CHAPTER XIII.

I saw them often and often after that, but never told him anything of the sort. On waking next morning, I saw the bugled satins and silver-buckled shoes of the Prince of Denmark, in which I had performed my hurried retreat to London, lying near my bed. They were like basilisks, and offended my eyes, though they did not altogether strike me dead. Disappointed in my hopes of theatric glory, I held a calm consultation with myself on the state of affairs. It took several days to come to a final resolve, for there were many counsellors who interested themselves in the question, and held fierce debates on every point laid before them. Above all, there was the Hope of nineteen, and the Vanity of a spoilt child. How warmly they argued the matter against the cold objections of common sense and experience, I need not tell. Most people have gone through the dreadful process of awakening to the knowledge of their own inferiority. The pertinacity of that spirit of self-inquiry, that strips off a man's delusions one by one, "till fold after fold to the piercing air," his mediocrity, dulness, and insufficiency are all laid open, brings with it, at one time or other of our existence, a wholesome lesson that alters our whole being. There are probably not two neighbourhoods in England that do not boast of embryo Shakspeares and future Lord Chancellors—clever, flippant, superficial young fellows, who, relying on the real abilities which they possess, and comparing themselves only with the sober old curate, the uncultivated surgeon, the turnip-growing squire, and a bevy of old maids and dowagers, believe that, when the world is opened to their ambition, they will retain the same superiority in that wider field which they have undoubtedly achieved at home. Their aspirations being greater than their powers, they gain fresh food for their self-conceit, from the failures of other men; and, comparing what they fancy they can do with what they see actually done by others, they look down with ill-disguised contempt on authors whom they can only half understand, and betake themselves to criticism before they have learned to write. The more foolish of them, and the vainest, persist in their fancied superiority, or attempt to drag down others to the miserable level to which they feel they have sunk themselves. The wiser and honester shake off these sable stains, measure their stature with that of the great and good, and give up the race before they have either become broken-winded or are made a laughing-stock to the spectators. I took a pair of scissors and deliberately reduced the small-clothes of Hamlet into shreds. I removed the buckles from His Royal Highness's shoes, and used them as comfortable slippers. But I did more: With self-devoting hands, I laid Hengist and Horsa on the fire; saw the noble speeches of heroes and heroines ascend the chimney in smoke, and sat and watched the shrivelled-up paper as it alternately glowed and blackened on the top of the coals. It was delightful; and I felt happier than if I were bowing from a private box, amidst the unanimous acclamations of the Stepney Star.

A week had elapsed since the display at the Paragon Royal. I started up all of a sudden, rushed up stairs, dressed as if for an evening party, took my flute in my pocket, and was going out of the house.

"What are you going to do?" said my mother, alarmed at the excessive energy of my proceedings.

"I'll tell you when I come back," I said. "I am going to look out for honest occupation." A cab hurried me rapidly to Muswell Hill. We entered a handsome gateway. Mr Pybus was at home, and I was ushered into the drawing-room. There was nobody in the room when I entered. Two candles were burning on the mantel-piece, and left the other portions of the magnificently furnished and large apartment completely in shade. I had announced myself merely as a gentleman who wished to see Mr Pybus. I had hoped for a private interview, in which to explain to him, if possible, the reasons of my past conduct, and ask him to accept me as a clerk in his counting-house. My pride was broken at last, and I never entertained either a thought or a wish that he would renew his offer of sending me to the university. I determined even to accommodate myself so entirely to my altered prospects, as to undertake the office of music-master to his daughter. I was immersed in these meditations, when I was suddenly conscious of a presence at my side. It was Emily, who had slipt in over the luxurious carpet, without her footfall being heard.

"I expected you last week," she said, without the least apparent surprise at my altered appearance; for I had discarded, of course, the false beard and mustaches that preserved my incognito in Grosvenor Square. "You are faithless to your engagement with papa; but I felt sure you would come."

"At one time I had determined never to present myself at your house; but late events have opened my eyes to the folly of my conduct. I am come to thank your father for his great kindness."

"Not at all: it's all my doing and mamma's; and now we take a greater interest in you than ever. It was a dreadful business that murder of poor Hamlet at the Paragon."

"You amaze me!" I began. "How have you possibly heard of that ridiculous catastrophe?"

"O! we know all about it—and about the Hengist and Horsa, and the Stepney Star. Some bill, or other extravagance of yours, has come into papa's hands in the way of business, and he has paid the full value of it to Mr Montalban. So he laughs, and says he is your creditor now; and if you don't give good lessons, he will put you in prison."

"I wasn't aware that my proceedings were of so much importance," I said, "as to have required such a number of spies to find them out." I suppose I frowned.

"You needn't be angry again," she replied. "You will be soon beginning to remember that your name is De Bohun."

"That, at all events," I said, with a lingering feeling of pride, "is a satisfaction of which it is impossible to deprive me."

"Don't be too sure of that," replied Emily, with a gay and slightly sarcastic laugh. "We may have as many dramatic surprises here as in a tragedy. But, in the mean time, till papa comes up from the dining-room, do accompany me on the flute."

She flew rather than walked, towards the piano, seated herself in a moment, and dashed into a florid piece of music, which it required all my skill on the instrument to keep up with. "Bravo!—bravo!" she said, at intervals; "you play beautifully. This is better than Hamlet. What would Fitz-Edward say—or Miss de la Rose?"

I stopt. "Will you save me from insanity," I said, "or prevent me from thinking you a witch, by telling me how you know all those horrid names?"

"Perhaps I'm a clairvoyante—perhaps you are magnetised; but go on—I can't lose the concert."

So we played—turned over page after page—tried overtures, and operas, and dances—and took no note of anything, except what we were engaged on. Suddenly I was aware that we were no longer in the dark—the room was comfortably lighted. We were also no longer alone. While absorbed in our music, several persons had entered the room, and were standing behind our chairs in deep attention.

"Capital!—capital!" cried a well-known voice, laying a hand roughly on my shoulder; "better a hundred times than your attempts on Shakspeare, or your triumphs at the Paragon Royal."

I looked round, and saw my friend Catsbach, or rather Mr Tooks, for he was shorn of his foreign ornaments, and was an honest, plain-faced, handsome English gentleman.

"You don't know Mrs Tooks," he continued. "Ellinor, my love, give your hand to Mr de Bohun."

Miss Claribel stood before me, radiant with beauty, and leaning on Mr Tooks's arm.

"You are his Ellinor?" I stammered, endeavouring to recall the story of Catsbach's woes. "You left him at the door of the church—he advertised for you in vain—went in search of you to a boarding-school at Guildford—"

"And found her, my boy, in the act of going on the stage as Ophelia—wrote a penitent letter to this good lady, her aunt, Mrs Pybus—was accepted as a returned prodigal—and here I introduce you to our family circle:—my uncle, Mr Pybus—my cousin, Emily—my grandaunt, or grandmother, I forget which, Mrs Bone, from Bath; for she is my relation through my wife. And, now that we are all at home, we had better consult what is best to be done." We did consult, and the result was satisfactory. I declined the army—I declined the university—I accepted the chair in Mr Pybus's office, vacated by my friend Tooks. I was to continue my accompaniments in music, and my lessons in Latin and mathematics every Saturday, and determined to begin on the very next morning.

The whole party were delighted, especially the old woman from Bath, who, after a minute inquiry into my father's Christian name—the curacy he held—the name of his father, and dates of births and marriages—fell on my neck in the midst of supper, and claimed me for a second or third cousin. Oh! the agony of this last blow! What! part with my connection, through twenty descents, with the Norman knights—the English nobles—the heroes, warriors, statesmen—who illustrated our family tree!

"I never had any relations of the name of De Bohun," said the old lady; "but I remember my husband's uncle, which was George Bone, which was senior partner in the firm, Bones, Brothers, in Milsom Street, the dentists, took lofty notions into his head, and sold his share of the business. He brought up his children with very fine ideas, and was always engaged making out pedigrees proving he was somebody else. So his son went the same way, and called himself De Bohun, and never took any notice of his cousins, Philip and Sampson, which carried on the business—which Ellinor is daughter of Sampson, who died when she was a baby. And at last this Mr De Bohun, as he called himself, he sent his son to Oxford, and a fine gentleman he was, and believed all the rubbishy old names that his father and grandfather had written out on parchment, and married the sister of that good Colonel Bawls, which he looked down on, we used to hear, because she wasn't a De Bohun; and so, my dear young man, you see you are a near relation of Ellinor and me, and we are truly happy to make your acquaintance."

I am afraid I did not respond so warmly as was expected to this family recognition. Emily touched me on the shoulder—"Never mind," she said, "whether your name be De Bohun or not. Behave as if it were De Mowbray. It will make no difference to any of us here."

A day or two reconciled me to my fate, especially as Saturday came very rapidly round, and sometimes forced itself into the middle of the week. I devoted myself to my new pursuits—was as attentive a clerk as if I had never heard the name of a theatre—rose gradually to a confidential post in the counting-house—and saw the origin of the interest taken in me by Mr Pybus. He was agent for my uncle, the general, and had instructions and authority from him to advance whatever might be required for the comfort of my mother or my advancement in life. I need not tell how kindly I was treated by the Indian warrior when he came home on a special mission to the Government—how I refused his offer to accompany him back to the scene of his command—and how he winked and poked me in a facetious manner in the ribs as he perceived the cause of my wishing to remain in England. Modesty had now taken possession of me in place of the vaulting ambition which had so often made me fall on the other side. I never ventured to put into words the sentiments that filled my heart with regard to Emily Pybus. A clerk in her father's office—a dependant on my uncle's bounty—a rejected author—a broken-down stage-player—I considered myself too far below her in position to aspire so high.

But time rolled on—the Saturdays came round with unfailing regularity; and when I was twenty-three, my kind old uncle, who had distinguished himself greatly by some prodigious increase of the Company's revenue, and probably his own, wrote me a letter to say he entirely approved of my conduct—that he had accepted a baronetcy, and got a clause inserted in the patent insuring the reversion of the title to me;—and, in short, about three months ago, we sent round to our friends a couple of nice little calling-cards, tied together with a silver thread, on which was printed Mr and Mrs Charles Bone, Wilton Place, Belgravia.

[SKETCHES FROM THE CAPE.][2]

In the year 1841, a young Englishman, without fortune, friends, or prospects in his own country, not unwisely resolved to seek all three in a land where the race of life is run upon a less crowded course than in thickly-peopled Britain. He embarked for the antipodes. His ship must have sailed on a Friday—unless, indeed, we may attribute the mishaps and disasters she encountered to a deficient outfit and an incompetent captain. Compelled to put into Portsmouth to amend bad stowage, she next cast anchor—after being buffeted by storms, wearisomely becalmed, and visited by the small-pox—in a Brazilian port, there to take in live-stock and fresh provisions. Once more at sea, it was soon discovered that these—for whose reception three weeks had been idled away at Bahia—would scarcely last three weeks longer. So a pause must be made at the Cape. The ship was a tub, the captain a bungler, the lighthouse (since removed) was invisible where most needed. The vessel struck on the rocks of Table Bay, upon which, all night long, the breakers furiously hurled her to and fro. The darkness was profound, the ship full of water, rescue seemed hopeless, the boom of the signal-guns was drowned by the roar of the storm. At last succour came. Five gallant fellows perished in bringing it, but perished not in vain. Crew and passengers were taken off the wreck. Life was saved, but goods were lost. After five tedious months, which, with ordinary skill and foresight, should have brought the young emigrant to his final destination, he found himself stranded at the Cape, instead of landed at New Zealand; his clothes, money, letters—all he possessed, in short—buried, fathoms deep, beneath the stormy billows of the South Atlantic.

To this calamity are we indebted for the spirited volume before us. The proverb about "an ill wind" exactly fits the occasion. After a while a ship was chartered for those who chose to proceed to New Zealand. Mr Cole was not of the number. He had conceived a liking for the Cape Colony, and proposed remaining there. He did so for five years, with what amount of profit we are not informed, but evidently passing his time pleasantly, and departing with regret. He made himself well acquainted with Cape life in most of its phases, and amongst all classes; and he has cleverly transferred to paper the vivid impressions he received.

How Mr Cole occupied himself during his residence at the Cape does not appear from his narrative. His active disposition, as well as his own statement of his slender means, forbids the supposition of rambling for mere amusement's sake. Whatever his employment, he travelled much, and visited most parts of the colony, preferring the rural districts to the towns. The first glimpse he gives of South African scenery is pleasing enough. With a fellow-passenger he drives out to Rondesbosch, "the Richmond of Cape Town," a pleasant cluster of handsome houses, with large gardens. Thence, along an excellent road, to Wynberg, another agreeable village.

"Beyond Wynberg the road loses its trim, pretty, artificial appearance, and becomes more African and barren. No, not barren either; for who could apply such a term to land covered with an innumerable variety of Cape heaths in full bloom?—aloes, wild stocks, and a thousand other delicate and lovely plants, making a natural carpet, more beautiful than all the corn-fields and gardens of civilisation. This road leads to Constantia, famed for the delicious wine to which it gives its name."

A history of celebrated vineyards would be a work attractive alike to the antiquarian and to the bon vivant. Strange that it has never been written, considering how many it would interest. Its author would not fail to note the peculiarity of certain small spots of ground, differing to all appearance in no way from hundreds of thousands of neighbouring acres, save in the quality of their grape juice. Near at hand, the Rhine ascending, St John's Mount furnishes an example. Far south of the line, thousands of leagues removed, Constantia's hill repeats the marvel.

"There are but three farms, situated on the side of a hill, where the grape producing this beautiful wine grows. It has been tried, but without success, in various other parts of the colony. Even a mile from the hill, the wine is of a very inferior description. The hill is named after the wife of one of the former governors of the Cape—whether from the lady's too great fondness for its productions, history sayeth not. The Constantia wine-farmers are rich men, and have elegant and well-furnished houses, surrounded by gardens and their vineyards. The names of the three farms and their proprietors are—High Constantia, Van Reenen; Great Constantia, Cloete; Little Constantia, Coligne. A visit to them is a treat."

So thought Jones, a thirsty Cockney, who shared the buggy with Mr Cole. The "pikeman" grinned as they paid the toll and inquired the way to the renowned vineyards. "He hoped," he said, "they'd look as well when they comed back." A demand for an explanation was met by the deprecatory reply, "that he meant no offence, but had see'd many look very different arter swallowing the sweet stuff up there—that's all." Whereupon Jones, indignant, savagely whipped the hired nag, and they soon reached Great Constantia.

"We visited the vineyards, which are kept beautifully neat and trim; and we then went to the storehouses, which are models of cleanliness. Here we tasted a dozen varieties of the delicious wine; and I began to have an exact idea of the pikeman's observation. Nothing can be more seductively delicious than the purest and best Constantia. I may remark, however, that I have never tasted a perfect specimen of it in England. The greater quantity of so-called Constantia, sold in London, is sweet Pontac, a very inferior wine, grown all over the Cape colony—at least, wherever there are wine farms.

"We afterwards visited the other two farms, and found everything equally handsome, liberal, clean, and well-ordered; and we tasted all the varieties of each of these also. I now began to have a very clear idea of the pikeman's meaning."

So did Jones, perhaps, when, with fishy eyes and uncertain gait, he climbed the buggy, assumed the reins, and drove homewards, shaving every gate he passed through and corner that he turned. At a certain distance from the vineyard he informed his companion that the sweet wine was "stunning," and, having expressed that opinion, astounded him by the announcement that he had ordered three butts of the best to be sent to his (Cole's) lodgings, which consisted of two very minute rooms. Besides the difficulty of stowing so large a store of liquor, Mr Cole made no doubt it would be booked to him, and was equally certain he should have to pay for it, Jones being a shipwrecked passenger, and copperless Cockney, already in his debt. His first impulse was to pitch Jones out of the gig; his second, to countermarch and countermand. But Jones, positively refusing to return, drove valiantly onwards.

"After driving for about an hour along what seemed to me a very circuitous route, we were approaching the entrance to some grounds, very like those we had quitted. On coming still nearer, Jones remarked that 'he did not recollect passing this d——d place before.' I did. So I suggested that I would just run in and ask the way. I left him for a minute, and returned with full instructions as to our route, and with much persuasion managed to keep my friend to the right road to Cape Town. I had no fears about the wine now, for we had returned to Constantia, and I had countermanded the order. Jones knew nothing about it next day."

Much valued by the wine-merchant, Cape wines, as a class, and with the single exception of Constantia, are odious to the English consumer. Theirs is the dog's misfortune;—they have a bad name, which the growers do their best to keep up by sending to the mother-country the worst product of their vines. Mr Cole frequently pointed out to them the bad policy of this. The answer he got was, that Cape wine is in such disesteem that it is bought in England without distinction of vintage or class, the worst fetching as good a price as the best. Yet, according to Mr Cole, there is a vast difference in the qualities; and even the best are susceptible of great improvement, if properly managed. On the subject of wine-growing at the Cape, he makes some shrewd observations, which, if ever the unlucky colony is restored to tranquillity and delivered from dread of Kafirs, may be well worth the consideration of speculators conversant with that class of cultivation.

"There is a great similarity between the Cape and the Madeira grape. Both are cultivated much in the same manner, and in both the natural acidity is great; but the grand point of difference between the two is in the time of gathering the grapes. In Madeira they are not gathered till so ripe that many begin to fall, and are withered from over-ripeness: these, of course, are rejected. By this means a smaller amount of wine is obtained from a vineyard than would have been produced had the grapes been gathered earlier; but the quality of the wine is improved beyond conception. Every grape is full, ripe, and luscious, and the wine partakes of its quality. Nothing can prove more clearly the necessity of the grape being fully, and even over ripe, than the difference of the wine produced on the north side of the island of Madeira, where this perfection of the grape can scarcely be attained, and that grown on the south side: the latter is luscious and rich; the former is Cape, or little better. Now, at the Cape, the object of the farmer always is to get the greatest quantity of wine from his vineyard; and consequently he gathers his grapes when they are barely ripe, and none have fallen or withered; whereby he fills his storehouses with wine full of that acidity and vile twang which all who have tasted shudder to recall. Some of the wine-growers in the colony have lately pursued a different course, and with vast success."

English colonists these, not Dutch, for the boers are wedded to old systems. Had the first settlers at the Cape been Frenchmen from Rheims and Bordeaux, instead of Dutchmen unused to more generous drink than swipes and Geneva, the vintage of South Africa might now be renowned instead of despised. One of Mr Cole's fellow-passengers was a Frenchman, from Champagne, a smart, active fellow, who had followed all sorts of occupations, from teaching French to commanding a privateer. Shipwrecked and penniless, but far from dejected, he prevailed on a companion in misfortune, an Englishman, who had means, to take a wine-farm, and him for a partner. The Cape champagne they made was excellent, and often since, Mr Cole pathetically declares, when swallowing extract of gooseberries at a public or private dinner-table, in England, he has sighed for a bottle of their vintage. He sums up the subject as follows:—

"From observation and experience, I am inclined to think that a company might be profitably established, here or at the Cape, for cultivating the vine in the colony, and importing its produce to Europe; but they must send out their own labourers and superintendents, carefully selected from the best vineyards in Germany or France; take care to adopt the Madeira plan of gathering the grapes; agitate for a reduction of the duty on the wine, which is too high; and do all they can to get rid of their greatest obstacle—a bad name in the market."

Disguised as sherry or Madeira, who can tell how much Cape he annually swallows? Port wine, too, is adulterated with a red Cape called Pontac. Were the cultivation of the African wines improved, and the best qualities imported, there is no reason why we should despise, in its neat dress, that which we have so often accepted under Spanish or Portuguese colours. And certainly it would be more satisfactory to drink the produce of a British colony than that of countries who show so little disposition to reciprocate the liberality of our tariffs, and our immense consumption of articles of their growth. Nor is the vine the only plant which, with proper care and encouragement, might, in Mr Cole's opinion, and with every appearance of probability, be raised at the Cape, to an extent that would greatly diminish the necessity we are now under of purchasing from the thankless foreigner.

"On the very spot where the village of Somerset now stands, TOBACCO was first raised in the colony, under the care of a Dr Makrill. Like almost everything else, it grew and flourished admirably in a Cape soil, and is now raised in considerable quantities in various parts of the colony. It is called Boer's tobacco, to distinguish it from the various species of the imported weed. Here, again, the want of proper energy, so constantly observable in the colonists, whether Dutch or English, is displayed. Every man smokes—and immense numbers also chew—tobacco. The Hottentots of both sexes take heaps of snuff—not, by the way, up their nostrils, but in their mouths!—and yet tobacco has to be imported to a considerable extent into a country which might not only grow enough for its own wants, but sufficient to supply half the world besides. Every one admits the fact; but the answer is, 'Want of labour,' that eternal complaint of South Africa. There is much truth in it; but there is a considerable 'want of energy' also."

There is no manifest reason why, with care and good cultivation, we should not grow cigars at the Cape, such as might successfully vie—if not with the regalias of the Havannah—at least with the indigenous cabbage, and with the coarser Cuban and South American weed. If an ardent sun be one essential for obtaining a fine description of tobacco—and we are led to suppose so by considering the latitudes whence the best sorts come, and the inferiority of those grown in Europe—there is no want of it in certain districts of Cape Colony. At Fort Beaufort the heat is so terrible that the sentries' buttons are said to melt and drop off. But it is a delightful peculiarity of the Cape climate, that, even in these desperately hot places, it is always healthy. As regards the "want of labour," alleged by the colonists as an excuse for neglecting many valuable sources of profit, it is only to be repaired by encouraging a steady stream of emigration from the mother country to the Cape. The general and most important impression left upon the reader's mind by Mr Cole's book—which, although light and often playful in style, contains valuable information, and is the book of a sensible man—is, that, with its fertile soil and beautiful climate, it ought to become a most prosperous and flourishing country. Immigration and good government are all it wants. Of course, neither of these has it any chance of obtaining so long as Lord Grey rules its destinies; but we may venture to hope that he will not do so long. The Cape, Mr Cole justly observes, has never been a "pet" colony with our Colonial administration. Incompetent governors, threats of convict importations, and Kafir wars, have rendered it unpopular with every class of emigrants. And, doubtless, they have all, more or less, contributed to the apathetic indolence and discouragement which, as we gather from Mr Cole's volume, is to be noted in most of the colonists. With the Dutch, apathy may be in some degree constitutional; but it is not natural to Englishmen; nor is it to be explained by any enervating or sickly properties of the climate. As to the sheep-farmer, he is the very incarnation of laziness.

"He turns out of bed about eleven, huddles on a pair of trousers, with the shirt he slept in; thrusts his feet into a pair of shoes, pulls a wide-awake hat over his head, and his toilet is complete. He then sticks a short pipe into his mouth, loiters about the homestead, and talks to Hottentots not more lazy than himself, from the simple reason that that were impossible; takes a cup of coffee, and perhaps a chop; smokes and dozes away the whole day; looks at the sheep as they come home in the evening; 'slangs' the herds, eats mutton again, and calls it 'dinner;' smokes again, and drinks 'smoke,' (Cape Smoke is a sort of brandy;) pulls off his shoes, hat, and nether garments, and turns in again, to snooze till eleven the next day, and then gets up, and goes through the same process once more."

When the white man sets such example, what can be expected from the black? The Hottentots are the general servants of the colony, both farm and domestic, at least in all the eastern districts. Shocking bad ones they are, but yet they get good wages, abundant food, and are engaged without being asked for a character, which indeed were superfluous trouble, one very bad one fitting them all.

"A Hottentot," says Mr Cole, "is the most improvident, lazy animal on the face of the earth. He will work for a month, and, as soon as he has pocketed his wages, leave his master, and be drunk whilst he has a solitary sixpence left. He is a living paradox; a drunkard, and a thief, and yet one that can practise abstinence, and never rob his master. Sometimes you may trust him with anything of any value, whilst in your service, and he will not pick and steal. After he has left you, he will as soon appropriate your Wellingtons (if he calls to see his successor in office) as wear his own shoes. He is the dirtiest fellow on earth, and will clean neither your rooms, your boots, nor your knives and forks, unless you are eternally driving him to his work; yet he will wash his hands with the utmost care before he touches the food he is preparing for your dinner, though he has the greatest natural antipathy to the contact of cold water."

These Hottentots have an ugly habit of leaving their master in a body, without apparent cause, or previous notice. It is their way of taking a holiday. They are sure to find employment, when willing again to work; the demand, even for such labour as theirs, being much greater than the supply. As yet civilisation has done little for them. As to the result of missionary efforts, Mr Cole estimates it as exceedingly small. There is considerable discrepancy between his statements on this head and the glowing reports occasionally issued by missionary societies, of their successful labours amongst the heathens of Africa. Briefly, but forcibly, Mr Cole shows up the humbug and delusion of the system. From personal experience he declares himself convinced that, out of every hundred Hottentot Christians, (so styled,) ninety-nine have no notion of a future state.