ing some one else as her son, very different from Dick. If she had done so, she would have been simply treated as a mad woman as it was, the bystanders, used to tramps of a very different class, looked at her with instant suspicion, half disposed to attribute her giddiness and faltering to a common enough cause. She mastered herself without fully knowing either the risk she had run or the look directed to her. "You don't know him," she said. "We came here but last night. One of the college gentlemen was to speak for him. He's a good hard-working lad, if you'll take my word for it, that knows him best."

66

Well, missis, it's true as you know him best; but I don't know as we can take his mother's word for it. Mothers ain't always to be trusted to tell what they know," said the master, good-humouredly. "I'll speak to you another time, for here they are coming. Look sharp, lads."

wooden railing, and held herself upright by it, shutting her eyes to concentrate her strength. And by-and-by the bewildering sick emotion passed; was it him whom she had seen?

After this she crossed the river again in the ferry-boat, though it was a halfpenny each time, and she felt the expenditure to be extravagant, and walked about on the other bank till she found Dick, who naturally adopted the same means of finding her, neither of them thinking of any return "home," a place which did not exist in their consciousness. Then they went and bought something in an eatingshop, and brought it out to a quiet corner opposite the "Brocas clump," and there ate their dinner, with the river flowing at their feet, and the skiffs of "the gentlemen darting by. It was, or rather looked, a poetic meal, and few people passed in sight without a momentary envy of the humble picnic; but to Dick Brown "All right, sir; here you are." and his mother there was nothing out of The tide was coming in-a tide of the way in it, and she tied up the fragboys who immediately flooded the ments for supper in a spotted cotton place, pouring up-stairs into the dressing- handkerchief when they had finished. rooms to change their school garments It was natural for them to eat out of for boating dress, and gradually occupy- doors, as well as to do everything else ing the rafts in a moving restless crowd. out of doors. Dick told her of his good The woman stood, jostled by the living luck, how kind Valentine had been, and stream, watching wistfully, while boat gave her the half-crown he had received, after boat shot out into the water, -gigs, and an account of all that was to be done with a laughing, restless crew -out- for him. "If they don't mind him, riggers, each with a silent inmate, bent they're sure to mind the other gentleon work and practice; for all the school man," said devout Dick, who believed in races had yet to be rowed. She stood Val's power with a fervent and unquesgazing, with a heart that fluttered wildly, tioned faith. After a while he went upon all those unknown young faces and across to the rafts, and hung about there animated moving figures. One of them ready for any odd job, and making himwas bound to her by the closest tie that self conspicuous in eager anxiety to can unite two human creatures; and yet, please the master. His mother stayed poor soul, she did not know him, nor had still, with the fragments of their meal he the slightest clue to find her out -to tied up in the handkerchief, on the same think of her as anyhow connected with grassy bank where they dined, watching himself. Her heart grew sick as she the boats as they came and went. She gazed and gazed, pausing now upon one did not understand how it was that they face, now upon another. There was one all dropped off one by one, and as sudof whom she caught a passing glimpse, denly reappeared again when the hour as he pushed off into the stream in one for dinner and the hour of "three o'clock of the long-winged dragon-fly boats, who school" passed. But she had nothing to excited her most of all. She could not do to call her from that musing and sisee him clearly, only a glimpse of him be-lence to which she had become habitutween the crowding figures about; - -an oval face, with dark clouds of curling hair pushed from his forehead. There came a ringing in her ears, a dimness in her eyes. Women in her class do not faint except at the most tremendous emergencies. If they did, they would probably be set down as intoxicated, and summarily dealt with. She caught at the

ated, and remained there the entire afternoon doing nothing but gaze. At last, however, she made a great effort, and roused herself. The unknown boy after whom she yearned could not be identified among all these strange faces; and there was something which could be done for good Dick, the boy who had always been good to her. She did for Dick what no

Leigh Hunt in a case of friendly controversy, | where the shades of the earnest and the humorous continually ran into each other.] This is nothing. But now as to —

The poet now refers to several very remarkable lines in his "Legend of Florence," but this examination must be deferred for the reasons previously given.

To come at once to our own time. The peculiar variety which we have been discussing scarcely ever occurs in any of Miss Barrett's earlier poems; but latterly it is to be found:

idea of such things as crotchets and (and which we will subsequently tranquavers, appoggiaturas and the nach- scribe) will be understood by the followschlag the trochaic or the iambic ing interesting episode in the author's rhythm the dactylic, anapæstic, or am- private history: phibrachic rhythm. The illustration is of "Mr. Landor went to Paris in the becourse only figurative, and rather one- ginning of the century, where he witsided, but true in spirit. The poetesses nessed the ceremony of Napoleon being who have appeared during the last few made Consul for life, amidst the acclayears commencing with Jean Ingelow, mations of multitudes. He subsequently and closing (for the present) with Jeanie saw the dethroned and deserted EmMorison and Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, are all peror pass through Tours, on his way to instances of this, more especially the two embark, as he intended, for America. last-named ladies, who run most grace- Napoleon was attended only by a single fully into several melodious measures, as servant, and descended at the Prefecture, by a spontaneous impulse. But while we unrecognized by anybody excepting Lanare admiring this simplicity and artless dor. The people of Tours were most ease, we must be yet more impressed hostile to Napoleon; as a republican with the force of poetical idiosyncrasy politician, Landor had always felt a which shall enable those who have passed hatred towards him, and now he had but through the curriculum of studies for the to point one finger at him, and it would Art, with all its laws and technicalities have done what all the musquetry, artillike Canon Kingsley, Robert Bu-lery and 'infernal machines' of twenty chanan, and George MacDonald to years of wars and passions had failed to return to nature and first principles do. The tigers of the populace would in the charming and bird-like freedom of their Songs for Children- thus happily superseding the horrid barefaced depravities and vulgar doggrels of the very great majority of our early Nursery Songs and Rhymes.

corded."

The remark having been made by me that, as a general rule, the originality of a man - say and do what he may - is necessarily in itself an argument and reason against his rapid popularity, Miss Barrett's Letter proceeds as follows:

have torn him to pieces. Need it be said that Landor was too noble a man to avail himself of such an opportunity. He held his breath, and let the hero pass. Possibly this hatred on the part of Landor, like that of many other excessively It has been previously stated in these self-willed men, was as much owing to papers, that the work entitled "A New exasperation at the commanding sucSpirit of the Age"-being critiques on cesses of Napoleon, as at his falling off the writings of contemporaries in 1844 from pure republican principles. Howwas edited, and partly written, by the beit, Landor's great hatred, and yet transcriber of these Letters; and that hegreater' forbearance are hereby rewas assisted by the contributions of three or four eminent authors. The principal, and most valuable of these, was Miss E. B. Barrett. One of the critiques, and certainly one of the best, was mainly written by that lady. It was forwarded in two Letters, which were carefully transcribed. As the second edition of the work has been out of print these In the case of Mr. Landor, however, other thirty years in England (though I am causes than the originality of his faculty opaware that at least three "unauthorized" posed his favour with the public. editions were subsequently printed in [the date of this letter is 1844, Landor being America), I venture to think the readers then alive] the must select audience, perhaps the fittest, the fewest - of any distinguished of the present day will not be indisposed author of the day; and this of his choice. to welcome a few extracts from Miss Give me," he said in one of his prefaces, Barrett's Letters containing her contribu- "ten accomplished men for readers, and I am tions, now for the first time acknowl-content." And the event does not by any edged, and in especial those just al means, so far as we could desire, outstrip the luded to, which are almost exclusively modesty, or despair, or disdain, of this aspiradevoted to a review of the writings of tion. Walter Savage Landor.

It was preceded by a few biographical and other remarks, founded upon communications forwarded to me by Mr. Landor. The spirit of a Greek epigram written by him on Napoleon the First

He has

In reply to an adverse criticism in a certain quarterly journal, he offered the critic "three hot penny rolls" for his luncheon, if he could write anything as good. This was not exactly the way to

make friends with the tribe. Miss Bar-come to their senses about them; complete in rett thus continues,

He writes criticism for critics, and poetry for poets; his drama, when he is dramatic, will suppose neither pit nor gallery, nor critics, nor laws. He is not a publican among poets he does not sell his Amreeta cups upon the highway. He delivers them rather with the dignity of a giver to ticketed persons; analyzing their flavour and fragrance with a learned delicacy, and an appeal to the esoteric. His very spelling of English is uncommon and theoretic. And as if poetry were not, in English, a sufficiently unpopular dead language, he has had recourse to writing poetry in Latin; with dissertations on the Latin tongue, to fence it out doubly from the populace. Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.

In a private note to me, in acknowledging the reception of a copy of my one-act tragedy (The Death of Marlowe ") he wrote, I had redd it before with greater pleasure than," &c.; but nobody must imagine from this that he favoured the adoption of a phonetic system of spelling, rational as such a system would be. As to the word "redd," its adoption would really be an advantage.

beauty of sentiment and subtlety of criticism. His general style is highly scholastic and elegant; his sentences have articulations, if such an expression may be permitted, of very excellent proportions. And, abounding in striking images and thoughts, he is remarkable for making clear ground there, and for lifting them, like statues to pedestals, where they may be seen most distinctly, and strike with the most enduring, though often the most gradual, impression. This is the case, both in his prose works and his poetry. It is more conspicuously true of some of his smaller poems, which for quiet classic grace and tenderness, and exquisite care in their polish, may best be compared with beautiful cameos and vases of the antique.

There are two of Landor's works which

"A

Allusion having been made to Landor with reference to "Napoleon the First," an extract from one of Miss Barrett's private Letters will prove interesting in the shape of a fragment of literary vengeance which the poet bequeathed to the Conqueror :

are probably known to less than half-adozen people of the present day. One of them is entitled "Poems from the Arabic and Persian." They are as full of ornate fancy, grace, and tenderness, as the originals from which they appeared to be translated, and were accompanied by a number of erudite critical notes, likely to cause much searching among Oriental scholars. And the search, after Mr. Landor is classical in the highest sense. all, was certain to be in vain, as no such His conceptions stand out clearly cut and fine, poems really existed in the Arabic or in a magnitude and nobility as far as possible Persian. The other brochure was removed from the small and sickly vagueness Satire upon Satirists," a copy of which common to this century of letters. If he Mr. Landor sent to me. It was a scathseems obscure at times it is from no infirmity or inadequacy of thought or word, but from ing piece of heroic verse, and a brief exextreme concentration and involution in brev-tract may, perhaps, be given at the close of this series. ity; for a short string can be tied in a knot as well as a long one. He can be tender, as the strong can best be; and his pathos, when it comes, is profound. His descriptions are full and startling; his thoughts self-produced and bold; and he has the art of taking a commonplace under a new aspect, and of leaving the Roman brick, marble. In marble, indeed, he seems to work; for there is an angularity in the workmanship, whether of prose or verse, which the very exquisiteness of the polish renders more conspicuous. You may complain, too, of hearing the chisel; but after all you applaud the work it is a work well done. The elaboration produces no sense of heaviness; the severity of the outline does not militate against beauty; if it is cold, it is also noble; if not impulsive, it is suggestive. As a writer of Latin poems he ranks with our most successful scholars and poets; having less harmony and majesty than Milton hadwhen he aspired to that species of "Life in Death" but more variety and freedom of utterance. Mr. Landor's English prose writings possess most of the characteristics of his poetry, only they are more perfect in their class. His "Pericles and Aspasia" and "Pentameron are books for the world and for all time, whenever the world and time shall

Your [Life of ]"Napoleon" touched me very much; and what I estimated was that we are not suffered in this, as in some other animated narratives, to be separated from our higher feelings without our consciousness. I like the tone of thought distinguishable through, and from, the cannonading, -the half sarcasm dropped, as unaware, among the pseudo glories which are the subjects of description. "The dead say nothing." There are fine things, too, more than I can count, particularly with the book out of sight. The Duke d'Enghien's death has haunted me, with the concluding words on human power- - that "effluence of mortality already beginning to decay." The book's fault is its inequality of style; in fact, that you didn't write it all; and I am consistent enough not to complain of that. Did you ever see Mr. Landor's epigram upon Napoleon? He was so kind as to give it to

Τις ποτε, Ναπόλεον, τὰ σὰ πρῶτα καὶ ὕστατα γράψει

Εργα; Χρόνος τέκνων αἵματι τερπόμενος.

Receiving this epigram while on a visit
with a mutual lady-friend in the country,
I requested her the next time she
called on Miss Barrett to hand her the
following paraphrastic translation,-

Napoleon! thy deeds beyond compeers,
Who shall write, thrillingly? -

The Father of Years!

For "Divine Right,".

Which that one man destroyed!

This subject naturally leads to recollections of the first great French Revolution, to Carlyle's wonderfully graphic work on that subject, and to several Letters from Miss Barrett concerning Carlyle, which were printed in the critical work previously mentioned. But the following Letter was not printed, having arrived some days too late. The references to theological dogmas are characterized by the writer's usual independence of thought, and force of expres

sion:

right way of viewing the matter is that Mr. Carlyle intends to teach us something, and not everything; and to direct us to a particular instrument, and not to direct us in its specific application. It would be a strange reproach to offer to the morning star, that it does not shine in the evening.

For the rest, we may congratulate Mr. Carlyle and the dawning time. We have observed that individual genius is the means of popular advancement. A man of genius gives a thought to the multitude, and the multitude spread it out as far as it will go, until another man of genius brings another thought, which attaches itself to the first, because all truth is assimilative, and perhaps even reducible to that monadity of which Parmenides discoursed. Mr. Carlyle is gradually amassing a greater reputation than might have been looked for at the hands of this Polytechnic age, and has the satisfaction of witnessing with his living eyes the outspread of his thought among nations. That this Thought-the ideas of this prose poet, should make way with sufficient rapidity for him to live to see the progress, as a fact full of hope for the coming age; even as the other fact, of its first channel furrowing America (and it is a fact that Carlyle was generally read there before he was truly recognized in his own land), is replete with favourable promise for that great country, and indicative of a noble love of truth in it passing the love of dollars.

not intended for the work previously menThe following fragment of a Letter was tioned, but might very well have been included in it-although I should have proposed here and there to interpolate an adverse word:

FRAGMENT.

I have been reading Carlyle's "Past and Present." There is nothing new in it, even of Carlyleism tell me, why should he call the English people but almost everything true. But a silent people, whose epics are in action, and whose Shakespeare and Milton are mere accidents of their condition? Is that true? Is not this contrary-most extremely, to truth? [Indeed, I do think it very true.] This English people-has it not a nobler, a fulier, a more abounding and various literature than all the peoples of the earth, "past or present," dead or living, all except onepeople? It is "fact," and not "sham," that most suggestive-do you not think so? I our literature is the fullest, and noblest, and wish I knew Mr. Carlyle, to look in his face, and say, "We are a most singing people most eloquent and speechful people — we are none of us silent, except the undertaker's

-the Greek

It is impossible to part from this subject without touching upon a point of it we have already glanced at by an illustration, when we said that his object was to discover the sun, and not to specify the landscape. He is, in fact, somewhat indefinite in his ideas of "faith" and "truth." In his ardour for the quality of belief, he is apt to separate it from its objects; and although in the remarks on tolerance in his "Hero Worship" he guards himself strongly from an imputation of latitudinarianism, yet we cannot say but that he sometimes overleaps his own fences, and sets us wondering whither he would be speeding. This is the occasion of some disquiet to such of his readers as discern with any clearness that the truth itself is a more excellent thing than our belief in the truth; and that, à priori, our belief does not make the truth. But it is the effect, more or less, of every abstract consideration that we are inclined to hold the object of abstraction some moments longer in its state of separation and analysis than is at all necessary or desirable. Ánd, after all, the nay, charged home, at the point of the

mutes."

-a

Most truly and loquaciously yours,
E. B. BARRETT.

Had I been challenged so stoutly