66 I smiled sadly. "Ah! Michel, she loves him!" Yes; and a woman who loves is always ready to forgive. You are right, my dear. And now she will very soon know the whole truth." "Do you think he has no hope of recovery?" "None whatever, I am sure. I will say more, I am glad he has not." He stopped abruptly. They were strange words. In terror I returned to Juliette. It would be impossible for me to relate how I told her of her husband's state. I remember no more until the moment when we entered his room. Dr. Fauvel was lying in the same place where he had for six weeks borne patiently, gayly even, the most cruel suffering. His features had recovered something of the calmness and serenity which were upon them then. I felt in looking at him that he was about to die. When Juliette approached him he stretched out his arms: she fell into them without a word. He had neither asked nor obtained pardon; he had no need of it. 'Paul, you will not send me away again?" "It is no longer necessary. Very soon, yes, very soon, all will be explained. You have always known, my dearly beloved- have you not?. and you will never forget how much I loved you?" Drawing her once more to him, he covered her dear young face with tender and passionate kisses. Dr. Fauvel died the next morning at sunrise. He died peacefully, in the arms of his wife. Two days afterwards my husband and I stood near the coffin, looking for the last time on the features of him who had been to us for the past two years a very dear friend, when Michel, laying his hand respectfully upon that brow, now as smooth and white as a child's, said solemnly : "God be thanked for this peaceful death, which alone could terminate his sufferings! He was mad, and he knew it!" Saying no more, he replaced the cloth upon the head of our poor friend, closed the coffin, and led me back home. "He told me," continued Michel," that the idea first came to him during the honeymoon. Beginning with the desire, of which I have heard several times, and which many people have experienced, of dying while they were at the height of happiness, he became little by little haunted by that frightful temptation which returned to him every time he was alone with his wife. A physician himself, he comprehended his own insanity; but he knew also that if he confessed it he would be, though sound upon all other points, treated as a madman, perhaps even confined, and regarded with terror by the wife whom he loved so much. He had but one way to save her and to save himself. That course he took, and never deviated from it, as you have seen." But during his sickness?" 66 66 Completely deprived of the use of his limbs, he knew that he could do her no injury. Besides, insanity often disappears in a serious illness. His left him entirely, but gradually returned with his physical strength. You know the rest. He died willingly; his life was but one long torture, and he cannot be pitied for having escaped it." 66 "It is true," said I, sadly; and in accordance with the desire of Michel I went, thus performing the last request of the Doctor, to make known the whole truth to his widow. The terrible story did not produce the impression I had expected. To her, as perhaps for very many wives, the assurance of having been entirely and solely beloved, mitigated both her past griefs and the bitterness of the last separation. "He loved me, he loved only me," she repeated incessantly in the midst of her tears. She lives to-day, always faithful to a cherished memory and to a few months of happiness. A FEW OCTOBER DAYS. BY "THE COUNTRY PARSON." I AM sorry to say it, but true it is, that living in hotels one gets a bad view of human nature; I mean in the matter of petty selfishness. Plainly, many human beings go upon the principle expressed by that great and good man George the Fourth, "It will last my time." In many little ways one is made to see this. I have come away in this sunshiny October weather, for a little turn among Cathedral churches; a little turn, which must be the last. Never more in England can the writer visit any such church for the first time; all are well-known now. Clearly, in the mind's eye, can he call up every one; accurately indeed, but somewhat paler and less substantial than the fact. For the remembrances of things are ghostly. No more, after this last time, shall I discourse of Gothic church-architecture. Already, even the most long-suffering friends appear somewhat wearied of that topic. Already I am rather ashamed of a too accurate recollection of the measurements of length and height; and driven to pretend not to exactly know facts which are known to me with entire exactness. There is a certain pudency about a strongly-felt liking; specially one whose origin cannot be explained. And I live in a country in which various good people are of opinion that one might find something better to recollect. Let us sit down here on a large stone. How silent it is! It is the twelfth day of October. The sun is going down, a great red ball. The trees around (and there are many trees) are rich as ever. The leaves are thick, and green in the main; but a little touched with autumn purple, yellow, and gold. This is a quiet lane, running through an undulating landscape; a little way below flows a river, never seen till yesterday, though its name has long been familiar in "Hart-Leap Well." It is the Ure; I crossed it by a bridge of seventeen arches. The arches are small, or they would not have so counted up. A mile off, towards the west, there is a solemn gray mass; a great building, with three low square towers Ripon Cathedral. I have left it to very near the end of my Cathedral explorations, not expecting much of it; but it is a noble church, worth going far to see. And this autumn stillness and this smoky light (though there is no smoke) suit this distant view of it. It impresses the writer as few things can impress him. People who live among these things may get accustomed to them, and not mind them much. But there is no such fortune for me. Coming by railway from the north, you turn off from the track at Thirsk, between Darlington and York. Just a quarter of an hour of rapid steam travel, and here is Ripon station of red brick, and not unbefitting the cathedral city. Drive up-hill into the town; and in the market-place, an ancient square with a lofty shaft in the middle, you may find the "Unicorn," a quaint, comfortable, old-fashioned inn. Leaving it, turn to the left, walk on; and in a few minutes you come full on that western front, familiar to all students of Mr. King's admirable" Handbook to the Northern Cathedrals." There are the low square towers, low by comparison, for the gable between is nearly as high — a little more than a hundred feet. In old days, each of these three towers carried a spire of wood, leaded, which added more than another hundred feet to their height. Let us enter straightway; always see the interior of a cathedral first. Broad, light nave, timber-roofed; respectable transept; beautiful choir, with grand eastern window filled with middling stained glass, with rich tabernacle-work over the stalls, as rich as anywhere in England, with groined roof of wood, with glazed triforium, with no episcopal throne beyond a comfortable seat at the end of the stalls next the altar. Once there was a crypt, lined with human bones; but these have of late been decorously buried. There is a singular little maze of a dark crypt, under the central tower, where is a narrow hole in a wall, called "St. Wilfrid's Needle." To this day, as in former days, many women suffer themselves to be pulled through the needle. Their safe passage is assurance of moral purity; likewise of speedy marriage. A camel could not pass through the eye of that needle; but there is room for almost any human being to pass with sufficient ease. The Cathedral does not stand in a Close. There is a churchyard on the south side, and a public road, in which is the deanery, skirts it on the north." The way descends, as you reach the east end of the church, and you look up by and by, on a pretty swell of green grass, with fine trees, crowned by the Minster towers. Hard by runs Ripon's other river, the Skell; and pervading the streets in this quarter of the little town, you have many pleasant views of the ancient sanctuary. Let such as visit Ripon give all the light of an October day to the magnificent ruin of Fountains Abbey. Through rich green fields, at two miles' distance, you reach the fair domain of Studley Royal, whose noble owner throws it open to all comers every day but Sunday. There, the Skell running by its walls, and actually through some part of the buildings, stands what is probably the noblest and completest monastic ruin in England. Noble church, near four hundred feet long, almost entire save the roof; great tower; glorious cloister; all the belongings of a great religious house. How calm a retreat in the stormy Middle Ages! But no doubt there were fiery, ambitious hearts, chafing here; and people who were sick of the whole thing, and would willingly go forth into the wild outer world. When you are satiated with Ripon and Fountains, then by railway past Harrogate to busy Leeds. There is time to-day to do no more than hasten through crowded streets, and see the outside of the parish church. I found an outer door open, and penetrated into a vestry, where a very churlish person was turning over some music. A little door beyond him entered the church; and half a minute would have sufficed for him to open it and afford a glimpse of the interior. But the churlish person, in answer to a civil request, stated that it was not his business to show the church; and then went on turning over his music. On being asked whether he was forbidden to show the church, he sulkily replied, yes. Of course there was nothing to do but to retreat. If the statement was true, which I am bound to believe, the authorities of the Parish church of Leeds may be esteemed as what some people call "a caution." You pass The station is regained, and the train departs. It journeys through smoky tracts, and by ugly towns- Dewsbury, Huddersfield, Staleybridge. It is curious to discern the traces of manufacturing industry and a crowded population in a wild mountainous and moorland region. through that long tunnel under Blackstone Edge, the backbone dividing Lancaster from Yorkshire. Here, at last, is Stockport; further on is Crewe; and as the night darkens down, through a maze of flame and smoke, the famous Black Country, diving at last into a tunnel of short extent, we enter a huge station, with a roof of vast space and height, but somehow in all respects looking very dirty and squalid. This is great Birmingham. The Queen's Hotel, which forms part of the station buildings, shall be our base of operations for several coming days. It is exciting, for one who lives in a very quiet place, to stand on a footbridge that crosses the rails from side to side, and survey the ceaseless bustle of arriving and departing trains. Never surely did engines screech so awfully. Pleasant it is to diligently examine the bookstalls, and discover what form of literature is the most popular for the railway traveller of the time. These enjoyments are simple, and they cost little; some people, no doubt, would esteem them slow. But with the next morning Birmingham is left behind; and in an hour and a quarter, speeding past Bromsgrove and Droitwich, we have reached the outskirts of a considerable town. Passing out from the railway, at a mile's distance, away to the left, we discover a great square tower. First, through a somewhat squalid suburb, then through streets in no way remarkable, let us push on in that direction; till we come upon the length of a great church, with a double transept, standing in a pleasant enclosure of oldfashioned dwellings, on ground that falls away to a river. The river is the Severn. This is Worcester Cathedral. A great work of restoration has been going on here for several years past. The exterior of the church has been made fresh and new-like: the venerable is not here. Entering, you will find the west end of the nave plainly arranged for worship: the choir is in the workmen's hands, and must remain in them for another year. There is a specially beautiful reredos. The chapter-house, a decagon with a central shaft, is fine; and the cloisters are all they should be. The Guesten Hall is in ruins. An ancient hall, above one side of the cloisters, used as a school, has a fine open roof. It is here, in the north alley of the cloister, that you may read the proverbial Miserrimus over a grave. But it seems as though Wordsworth understood the word too gravely: the reference was to the reduced worldly estate of a worthy nonjuror. In the choir before the altar rests the dust of King John-nobody much caring. There is no pleasanter deanery. And on the south side of the church are many fine trees. Let us pervade the sacred precincts, and enjoy them in quietness. The simple pleasure may be permitted to the unaccustomed Scot. Such things are not, north of the Tweed: would they were! And the tide seems setting towards their diminution south of the Tweed, too. It is sorrowful; but what must be, must. One cannot help sometimes thinking, as one reads history, and reasons on what history tells of the mutations which existing institu tions have passed through, that many political and ecclesiastical and social changes may be coming; and that ple who love the dear old ways will have their painful trials, if they live long enough. But the life of the individual is short, and the life of the community is long; and it is well, to save many a heart-ache, that it should be so. Let us quietly slip away, before some things come that seem coming. peo We must be gone at last, and unwillingly turn our back upon this pleasant place. Through the city, in no way specially attractive, we gain the railway again; and, in the gathering shadows of Saturday evening, are once more in our bustling but lonely home amid Birmingham smoke. Here it was, sitting by the fireside, that a genial stranger, an Anglican priest, joined himself to the wayfarer's company; and with little preface began a fierce attack on an institution which he entitled the Kirk of Scotland. I have no objection to the accents of my native land, provided you speak Scotch throughout; but it seems needless, and is somewhat offensive, to use a single Scotch word in speaking English. Those interested in the institution in question prefer that it should be called (as indeed it invariably is, unless by a small section of Englishmen) the Church of Scotland. Such is its legal designation. And that desig nation expresses the fact about it; for it is the church of the majority of Scotch people. And if you reckon with it two communions which, though not at present conforming to it, have copied its government and worship, you reckon (as plain fact) eighty per cent of the entire population. Of the remaining twenty per cent the Church of Rome claims twelve. And the little Scotch Episcopal communion, some of whose members are silly and insolent enough to speak of their communion as the Church in Scotland, has just one Scotchman and a half in every hundred, or oneseventy-fifth part of the population. It is plain that if that little communion represents the Church of Christ in Scotland, Scotland must be in a bad way. But one who knows Scotland well may venture to say, that in this respect Scotland will never be in a better. Words cannot express the amused contempt with which the hard, common-sense Scotch understanding regards all sacerdotal claims. Let not the writer be misunderstood by such as take the trouble of understanding him at all. He is a high-churchman; as much so as any loyal son of the Church of Scotland can be. And if you read the doctrinal standards of that church, you will discern that their doctrine is quite high enough on the two or three testing points, which will not be discussed on this page. And the writer is a national churchman: while in Scotland he belongs to the Church of Scotland, in England he conforms loyally to the Church of England: no Anglican-born can love that grand church better than he, nor can enjoy her worship more devoutly. But like many more, he holds that there is no church-government which is so exclusively right as to make every other church-government wrong. He holds that the Catholic Church manifests itself in each different country in that form which is congenial to the nature of the people who dwell there; and he is perfectly sure that a democratic national church suits the Scotch race, as a hierarchical suits the English. He therefore believes that the Church of Scotland is the right thing in Scotland, and the Church of England the right thing in England. And he acts on that belief; as the best and wisest in the land do. Let a word be permitted here by way of parenthesis. I beheld with profound disgust the elation of some good folk when a certain archbishop and a very uncertain bishop lately conducted divine service in a Scotch parish church. They did so at the first look it seemed merely a natural and fit thing that men to whom the law of the land has given a certain position in England, should, coming to Scotland, obey the law of which they are the creatures, and conform to the church by law established there. But the sturdy founders of the Scotch church (some of whom for conscience' sake refused bishoprics) would not have sounded a jubilant trumpet because a couple of prelates had (as it seemed) recognized their church. If the prelates recognize the church, it is merely a matter of course. If they do not, who cares a penny? Not so, I return to the fireside at Birmingham. Again I see the face of the unknown Anglican parson who, addressing a total stranger, fiercely attacked that stranger's church. His views were determinate. An exalted yet kindly personage, who, obeying her coronation vows, conforms to the national church of the portion of her kingdom she lives in, must forthwith be sent away. I am not clear if she was to be pensioned off; but in any case packed off. She was a Presbyterian. Not so, was the reply: Presbyterian in her Presbyterian country; Episcopalian in her Episcopal. She was an Infidel. was the reply. It is within the personal knowledge of many, that a more devout and conscientious Christian does not breathe: faithful in little as in much, pure in life, choosing the right as few monarchs ever did; and if at all she have a weakness, it is a weakness which appeals to the sympathy and love of every worthy human being — the never-failing faithfulness to one beloved memory: Domine salvam fac Reginam! "Well," was the genial Anglican's reply," Well, she is an Infidel, or a Presbyterian, or something of that kind!" At this point in the debate I arose and departed. I saw my non-acquaintance again in the distance; but I spoke to him no more. By and by I retired to my chamber, musing deeply on the outrageous nonsense some mortals will talk. It was a curious Sunday, the next day. I have just come in from morning church, and am sitting by the fire in a great apartment, somewhat deserted of guests to-day. I went to St. Philip's. It is a handsome church; somewhat richly decorated internally; probably as much has been made of the interior as can be made of a church which is not Gothic, and which has galleries on three sides. The service was most pleasingly done. Reverently entered a large surpliced choir. Why will not people see that to put a surplice (which costs fourteen shillings) on a little boy, is by far the cheapest way of dressing him so as to make him presentable? I say nothing of the manifest fitness of the decorous robe, nor of its symbolical nature; though I feel and acknowledge both, and would have every choir surpliced if I could. At the College Chapel in the University of Glasgow, you may see the only vested choir in the Church of Scotland. Scarlet are the robes of the men, they wearing their student-gowns: purple the robes of the boys, for which there is no such excuse or pretext: they wear the robes just because it is fit and decorous. But pretty as was St. Philip's Church, and good its service, one was made to feel that many people do not care for these: hearty and attractive preaching is with the mass the great thing after all. The church, in the heart of Birmingham, with a crowded population around, was dismally empty; about one-sixth filled. I counted a consid erable part of the congregation, and six sittings were unoccupied of each seven. Yet the musical service, and the anthem, and the honorable and reverend preacher, had been advertised by great posters. The sermon was not at all striking, but it was simple and good, and delivered in a quiet and unaffected manner: if the congregation were not the better for it, the fault was their own. Much as the writer loves and enjoys a choral service, he is not sure that he would like it every Sunday. In a cathedral it appears the right thing; in an ordinary church the real seems sacrificed to the aesthetic; devotion to musical enjoyment. Far be it from me to say that this is felt by such as habitually join in such worship: this is the impres sion of an outsider, very familiar with choral worship, but always joining in it with the feeling that it is not his own, but (as it were) a special and exceptional treat and luxury. And another thought comes across one, enjoying these ornate services. We, in the north, are striving now after a somewhat more attractive ritual. Is it really worth while? One is discouraged by seeing that people who possess an ornate ritual seem to care little for it. I do not speak of the dull, who cannot appreciate it; even those who do appreciate it soon come to take it all as a matter of course. Laboriously put people on a higher level; they grow accustomed to it, and the actual enjoyment is gradually toned down to just the old degree. Having gained the higher level, we think we shall sit down and rest: why not sit down and rest now? We are just as happy here as we shall be anywhere. And how much must be fought through to gain the higher level! Not merely hard and discouraging work; but misapprehension, misrepresentation, obloquy, strife, loss of friends. Quiet men, desiring no more than peacefully to slip through life, doing their work in their great Taskmaster's eye, find themselves shown up by name in clever and sarcastic, sometimes lying and malignant, articles in newspapers. Human beings, themselves incapable of frankness or magnanimity, persist in suspecting such of far farther and wickeder ends than they avow. Unhappy associations exist in confused minds between things that have nothing to do with one another. You really want to have an organ: to get your people to stand at praise and kneel at prayer: to persuade them to pause in silent prayer on entering church; and the like on leaving it, instead of rushing out as though the sacred edifice were on fire. But from these facts some will have it that you desire to abolish the New Testament, or else that you are "half a Roman Catholic' (how I hate the phrase); and peaceful mortals, shrinking from strife, sensitive to abuse, sore at being suspected with cruel injustice, come to sigh a weary sigh, and to sit down sorrowfully, declining the thankless task of the moral pioneer. Humble as is the present writer, desiring no better than to "prosper in the shade" and be let alone to work hard, he has seen himself denounced in print as (I.) a Socinian; (II.) a Broad Churchman; (III.) a High Churchman; (IV.) a Low Churchman; (V.) a Half Roman Catholic; (VI.) a Puritan, desiring that all cathedrals should be pulled down and red brick meeting-houses built instead; (VII.) a dishonest Trimmer between different opinions; (VIII.) a virulent accuser of the church to which he belongs; (IX.) a wicked man who " has got his church to sing the Te Deum' (a well-known Socinian composition); (X.) a person who performs marriages in church with full choral accompaniments; " (XI.) a person who is always going to see cathedrals; (XII.) an Infidel who writes in Fraser's Magazine; (XIII.) a person who got his church to call a hymn-book a Hymnal. He has known printed papers bearing the like charges to be diligently circulated in his parish with a zeal worthy of a better cause; though he is not aware that they have ever done him any harm. Might not insignificance be allowed to pass unnoticed? these troubles befall the molehill, what shall become of Ben Nevis ? What wonder if many are cowed into a sorrowful reticence? Or, having spoken, wish they had held their tongue? And if At the afternoon service that day did the writer go to St. Martin's. It was a noble church, and may again be made one; but evil hands were laid on it in the lowest season of architectural taste; and (save the beautiful spire) its builders would not know it. It has been cased outwardly in red brick; and the clerestory (still apparent from within) has been externally roofed over. Entering, you see what the church may yet be. There is a narrow centre alley, broad side-aisles, with galleries, especially offensive. Right in front of the altar is set the pulpit, of dark oak, with reading-desks in front. The congregation was small : the service was poorly done. But with all the disadvantage of the empty church, the clergyman gave a really admirable sermon. There had been (I thought) somewhat too much of the gushing in his reading of the prayers; but only good could be said of his preaching. Black-robed and banded, in the garb familiar to the Scotch eye, without a scrap of manuscript to guide, with unfailing fluency, with clearness, point, interest, and heart, he riveted the writer's attention from first word to last. The day was Oct. 15. If I were the patron of a good living, I know who should have it. If the patron of such a living would be guided by me, he would inquire at St. Martin's, Birmingham. I know not the preacher's name, nor even whether he be one of the regular curates. But I am sure I am not mistaken in saying I heard a zealous, able, and good man that day. Again at evensong to St. Philip's. Now it was well filled. Again the music was beautiful. There were three clergymen: a young man with a long cassock and a short sur plice (may they be a great comfort and help to him) intoned the prayers in a loud and specially pleasant voice. I beheld him with interest and sympathy, and thought of All Saints in London. Let nothing be said of the sermon: it was well-meant. That clergyman's vocation is not that of a preacher. It was not the doctrine that was amiss: there was nothing said of a doctrinal nature to which I could not say, Amen. It was the decent debility. Then the young man with the short surplice said the blessing near the altar steps: with hands clasped on his breast as he said the first part of it; and, as he said the latter part, holding up his right hand with two fingers extended, in a fashion very familiar in many places, but still infrequent in Anglican churches. I gazed, and thought of the photograph of one of the two prelates of Glengarry Church. Walking home, I wondered with great wonder how a bishop could stand up before a camera and sham the solemn act of blessing. If such a photograph were taken, the bishop should have been unconscious of the fact. Perhaps he may have been. It may be said, in passing, that the face of that really illustrious man, often beaming with good humor, bears an unhappy expression in that famous picture. I fear that a stranger, ignorant of the language, would have deemed the bishop was hurling a curse. But, as the blessing would do little good, the curse would do no harm. Thus the Sunday evening passed away-the uncongenial Sunday evening at an inn. The tables in the great sitting-room were strewn with newspapers; but the writer begs to say he did not read any of them. He raises no question of right or wrong, but he knows what is good for him. Let there be one sabbatical day, in which to get away from the weary worry! Surely the world is with us quite enough, at least. Next day was sunshiny and pleasant. Birmingham is still the base of operations. A very good thing about Birmingham is, that it is so easy to get away from it. Soon after ten o'clock we glide forth from the huge shed, and follow the line which in my schoolboy days was called the Grand Junction. Stop for a little space amid the smoke of Wallsall; then passing forth from the awful blasted tract north of Birmingham, we are at the quiet little city of Lichfield. Let us cross a field by a little foot-path; then, through narrow streets, make for the spot marked by three spires, the only English church which has three spires. Straight on on the left the market-place, with a solemn and even hang-dog statue of Samuel Johnson; then there is a little lake, on whose waters the spires are reflected, a wooded bank beyond enclosing the Close. Climb a small ascent and you behold it, Lichfield Cathedral, not of the greatest in size, but unsurpassed by any in beauty. Pass along the south side: here is that rich western front, familiar to most people by many pictures and photographs. Enter; and let it be leisurely enjoyed: the writer's last cathedral. I spare architectural details: they interest few. Beautiful nave: lovely choir: pulpit of open metal-work set against one of the shafts that carry the central spire, looking upon the nave. Verger of special civility and intelligence shows the place with subdued but inexpressible pride. The church is open to all, unlike the church of Leeds. And it was pleasant to see many poor people walking about the solemn place; walking softly, conversing in whispers, not because any one was near them, but because the church constrained them so to do. Let us go out and walk round the sacred walls. The present bishop has abandoned the rural castle where the bishops of Lichfield dwelt for ages, and abides in the palace in the Close, long abandoned. I applaud his taste and judgment. Let not a bishop seek to set up in baronial retirement as a bran-new nobleman: but abide, as the chief minister of his diocese, under its chief church's shade. Here, sit down on this low wall, the boundary of the Close, near the east end of the Cathedral, hard by the palacegate; and gaze long upon the church, and drink in the genius of the place, with its saintly stillness. The ground is deep with yellow leaves, falling fast. Though the air is breathlessly calm, the air is filled with leaves, fluttering down like great flakes of yellow snow. Enviable, surely, is the dean. And all the pleasanter this repose, after years of faithful work at White-chapel, and pleasanter days at St. Pancras. Out from the Close for a little, to pervade the town. There is Johnson's statue, already named: bass-reliefs round the pedestal record certain incidents in his life. There, bare-headed, amid the drenching rain, he stands penitent in Uttoxeter market-place; various stupid faces represented as looking on with wonder and derision. The words come back: "In contrition I stood, and I hope my penance was expiatory." Well, it showed all the will to make amends to one to whom no amends could be made now in this world. Then out into green fields, north of the Close. There is audible silence and the overcast autumnal light. A genial retreat this from New Zealand! And a great change. But the Black Country has its savages, savage as the Maories. The day is passing. Blessings on the postoffice! I have found it, and it has cheered the lonely pilgrim with good news from far away. Back to the cathedral; and I am sitting here in the nave, resting. I have a letter of introduction to the dean, but it is hundreds of miles off, forgotten in leaving. Shall I call? No. If I began by saying, "I have taken the liberty of calling," he would suppose I was a beggar. If I began, "I have done myself the honor of calling," he would suppose I must be at the least a colonial bishop. And the cross-influence of either mistake would abide throughout the interview. After all, what could he show me that I have not seen; or tell me of his church that I do not know? Now, surveying the last such church I shall see for many days, one thinks, Doubtless it is a great delight to worship here: doubtless it lifts one up for the time above the little worries and offences and irritations of this life. But shall we go back from all this, the stronger to resist small temptations; the more faithful, diligent, and kind? If it be not so, after all, this pleasant emotion is of the nature of spiritual dissipation. I discern it true; but I cannot feel it here! We Yet a last lingering look to the east, where the choir bends from the straight line, inclining to the left, in memory of the drooping Head on the Cross. Unwillingly going forth, the lines come back, must go. - Salve, Caput cruentatum, Totum spinis coronatum, Conquassatum, vulneratum, Arundine verberatum, Facie sputis illita. You know how lines sometimes keep in the head, and come in for hours as a constant refrain. Then the less worthy reflection comes that St. Bernard did not care about his quantities, any more than did Sir Walter Scott, or one or two professors I have known. Then, though St. Bernard's famous lines are here, it is hard to think of the Latin hymns of the ancient church, but one comes back, supreme among them as Shakspeare among poets. And going away from the Close, away from the city, back to the railway, the solemn fall of the untranslatable words is in one's ear: Rex tremendæ majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salve me, Fons pietatis. Recordare, Jesu pie, Quærens me, sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus, Tantus labor non sit cassus. At the railway, a poor fellow approached me, and asked, "Is this the side for Perry Bar and Brummagem?" I knew Brummagem was the word sixty years since, but not that it is common still. And on the way back I read the poems of Bret Harte, the new-found Californian genius. His strength lies in a narrow field, and his characters would in most hands be repellent; but the spark of genius is very real. Short is his way to the heart of most readers. Get the volume; it is cheaply got. The fine things in it are the poems in the gold-diggers' dialect. Even fresh from the Dies Ira, a line possessed the writer. You remember the unlucky digger, Dow, whose luck was so terribly bad. Failing in every thing, smashed by successive accidents, he yet fought away; and when his fortunes were at the lowest ebb, arrived "his wife and five kids from the States." There are yet more touching verses in that little poem; but I am not going to quote them. Go straight and read it yourself. But look now diligently at that incomparable last line. It comes home to most middle-aged folk. Not merely because that touch makes us so strongly to realize that poor woman's state of mind; but because so many people know the thing from experience. Most have done the like, who have to fight with the world for their children, keeping as brave or at least as composed a face as may be. I have known various poor country parsons, who "wrote sermons, and took on when no one was nigh; or who added up their year's expenses, and did that same. Some live in the sunshine indeed. I read the other day, in " The Rob Roy on the Jordan," how the brave and kindly author splashed in his morning bath away in those distant tracts, and “"anticipated the bright hours of another happy day." But most people, at some turnings, are not far from despair. Something outside (I don't name it here) helps them, and keeps them from giving in to it. But people of whom no one would have guessed it have stood by a clear river's brink, and thought (if but for a moment) that beneath that quiet water there was retreat from burdens they could not bear, and deliverance from the noise of this weary world. But the old woman (God bless her!) picked up after her quiet taking-on, and stood up bravely to her washing-tub. Many women and many men have been enabled to do the analogous thing; and at last the good time came to some of them, as it did to poor Dow and the dear old mother. Indeed, when the great flood of luck came to him, the sturdy figure in silks and satins and jewels, in the "house with the coopilow," would never be so pleasant to see as the down-trodden and worn-out washerwoman. But under all silks and satins, surely there abode the kind and brave heart. Here follows the climax of my little travel. arose, cross the hill to the Great Western Station, perhaps half a mile away. It was a sunshiny warm day; the country green as at midsummer. Away, at great speed, in the London express. Stop at Hatton. Change into another train. Through the level land of Warwickshire; stop at several small stations, until we reach Stratford-on-Avon. I have walked through the street; seen the house, the room where the greatest man was born, and many little relics, regarded in a somewhat sceptical spirit. You pass through the little town, and out into the country beyond it; some quaint old houses, some modern ones entirely uninteresting. At last the churchyard gate. An avenue of limes, meeting overhead, and showering their yellow leaves, leads to a porch in the side of the nave; and we enter the church. A beautiful church, to be looked at more particularly in a little. Walk up the nave; enter the long chancel, a still and solemn place. And now I am sitting reverently on the altar steps, above the grave of Shakspeare. The verger, sensible man, goes and leaves me; I have the place to myself. My eye falls on a placard, hung on the chancel wall, beneath the bust: VISITORS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO TREAD ON THE STONE ON WHICH THE EPITAPH IS INSCRIBED; NOR TO WRITE UPON OR OTHERWISE DEFACE THE MONUMENT. Surely the caution was not needed. But, seated on the altar steps, I keep my feet off the flat stone. Hundreds of times one has thought over and said over the awful lines. But you will never feel their force till you are sitting over the grave. Touching beyond expression is the mute appeal, to those who should come after him, of the greatest and wisest human being. The lettering, all in capitals, 'is much more regular than I had expected; the late Mr. Harness had it renewed, for which I do not in any way thank him. How hard to get the simple truth told! Washington Irving gives the lines; but has changed the third, inexcusably. I would nearly as soon improve the Lord's Prayer. Here are the lines, exactly; copied on the spot: GOOD FREND, FOR IESUS SAKE FORBEARE Just as I finished copying the lines, the sun shone out brightly through a window of the chancel shone right upon the bust, and lighted up the calm face- a far finer face, in its manifest literal copying of the fact, than any picture of Shakspeare. It is in an arched recess, about five feet above the pavement, on the left hand of the chancel when you look to the east. The bust is painted, as it was at the first. An idiotic commentator had it whitewashed, long ago; but the whitewash has been effaced. The hair is auburn: the eyes blue: the face a little flushed. The figure is shown to the waist. It wears a red doublet, over which is a black gown, without sleeves. The hands are laid on a cushion. The left hand rests on a sheet of paper: the right hand holds a pen, a good long quill. That effigy was set there seven years after Shakspeare died; set there by his daughter: it is the only reliable likeness. Chantrey thought that the face was from a cast after death. The We wonder that any other likeness was ever sought: with all its homeliness, it must be the man himself. cheeks are whiskerless: there is the long upper lip, with its little moustache: a tuft of hair on the chin. There is the serene brow, the round bald brow which all men know; not very high. The eyebrows form perfect arches. The lower part of the face is massive; much more so than any maker of an idealized likeness would have made it. The sister of Robert Burns once told the writer that this was so too with her brother. His face was far more massive and less refined than any of its pictures. Serenity and cheerfulness are the characteristics of the face of Shakspeare, as you see it here. |