ters and hilarious husbands, had one by one dropped off. The kindly Peppercorns with sincere regrets had bidden her good morning and gone home; yet the light, the music, the dance, the splendor of the ball, remained unabated. Cyril danced on. Agnes waited. And as she waited, her senses growing numb under the long drawn out strain, Cyril in the dance seemed to drift farther and farther from her. "Why do I hope to hold him?" said her heart. "I have no part nor lot in such a life. And she! She will kill me."

He was not so lost in pleasure that he did not see her. Indifferent at first, as the throng grew less she grew more and more reproachfully apparent, more accusingly distinct; so he thought. Her very image there against the wall he felt to be a reproach, an accusation, and a chill to him.

In the gray light of the morning they entered their carriage. Both were silent. Agnes remembered when was it? away in another life? — when alone in a carriage like that he had drawn her close to his side like a little child, and his protecting arm had held her tenderly and surely there, close to his heart. Had he any heart now? If so, it made no sign for her. He sat erect and apart, like a stone image.

At last he said, "I hope you are satisfied now, Agnes, that it would have been much better for you to have been at home, abed and asleep. Why you should want to go to a ball when you cannot dance, I cannot imagine, unless it is to torment yourself. You are excellent in your place, but you must see for yourself, Aggie, that it is not your place to shine in society."

(To be continued.)

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

CHAPTER XXXII. NIGHT: HORSES TRAMPING.

THE village of Weatherbury was quiet as the graveyard in its midst, and the living were lying well-nigh as still as the dead. The church clock struck eleven. The air was so empty of other sounds that the whirr of the clockwork immediately before the strokes was distinct, and so was also the click of the same at their close. The notes flew forth with the usual blind obtuseness of inanimate things -flapping and rebounding among walls, undulating against the scattered clouds, spreading through their interstices into unexplored miles of space.

A

Bathsheba's crannied and mouldy halls were to-night occupied only by Maryann, Liddy being, as was stated, with her sister, whom Bathsheba had set out to visit. few minutes after eleven had struck, Maryann turned in her bed with a sense of being disturbed. She was totally unconscious of the nature of the interruption to her sleep. It led to a dream, and the dream to an awakening, with an uneasy sensation that something had happened. She left her bed and looked out of the window. The paddock abutted on this end of the building, and in the paddock she could just discern by the uncertain gray a moving figure approaching the horse that was feeding there. The figure seized the horse by the forelock, and led it to the corner of the field. Here she could see some object which circumstances proved to be a vehicle, for after a few minutes, spent apparently in harnessing, she heard the trot of the horse down the road, mingled with the sound of light

wheels.

Two varieties only of humanity could have entered the paddock with the ghost-like glide of that mysterious figure. They were a woman and a gypsy man. A woman was out of the question in such an occupation at this hour, and the comer could be no less than a thief, who might probably have known the weakness of the household on this particu

lar night, and have chosen it on that account for his darin attempt. Moreover, to raise suspicion to conviction itse there were gypsies in Weatherbury Bottom.

Maryann, who had been afraid to shout in the robber presence, having seen him depart, had no fear. She ha staircase with its hundred creaks, ran to Coggan's, the nea tily slipped on her clothes, stumped down the disjointe est house, and raised an alarm. Coggan called Gabrie who now again lodged in his house as at first, and togeth they went to the paddock. Beyond all doubt the hor

was gone.

"Listen!" said Gabriel.

They listened. Distinct upon the stagnant air came th sounds of a trotting horse passing over Weatherbury H —just beyond the gypsies' encampment in Weatherbur Bottom.

“That's our Dainty I'll swear to her step," said Jan "Mighty me! Won't mis'ess storm and call us stupid when she comes back!" moaned Maryann. "How I wis it had happened when she was at home, and none of u had been answerable!"

"We must ride after," said Gabriel, decisively. "I be responsible to Miss Everdene for what we do. Yes we'll follow."

66

"Faith, I don't see how," said Coggan. All om horses are too heavy for that trick except little Popper and what's she between two of us? If we only had that pair over the hedge we might do something." "Which pair?"

"Mr. Boldwood's Tidy and Moll."

"Then wait here till I come hither again," said Gabriel He ran down the hill towards Farmer Boldwood's. "Farmer Boldwood is not at home," said Maryann. "All the better," said Coggan. "I know what he's gone for."

Less than five minutes brought up Oak again, running & the same pace, with two halters dangling from his hand. "Where did you find 'em?" said Coggan, turning round and leaping upon the hedge without waiting for an answer.

"Under the eaves. I knew where they were kept," said Gabriel, following him. "Coggan, you can ride barebacked? there's no time to look for saddles."

"Like a hero!" said Jan.

"Maryann, you go to bed," Gabriel shouted to her from the top of the hedge.

Springing down into Boldwood's pastures, each pocketed his halter to hide it from the horses, who, seeing the men empty-handed, docilely allowed themselves to be seized by the mane, when the halters were dexterously slipped on. Having neither bit nor bridle, Oak and Coggan extempo rized the former by passing the rope in each case through the animal's mouth and looping it on the other side. Oak vaulted astride, and Coggan clambered up by aid of the bank, when they ascended to the gate and galloped off in the direction taken by Bathsheba's horse and the robber Whose vehicle the horse had been harnessed to was a matter of some uncertainty.

Weatherbury Bottom was reached in three or four min utes. They scanned the shady green patch by the roadside. The gypsies were gone.

"The villains!" said Gabriel. gone, I wonder?"

66

"Which have they

way

Straight on, as sure as God made little apples," said Jan.

"Very well; we are better mounted, and must overtake 'em," said Oak. "Now, on at full speed!"

No sound of the rider in their van could now be discov ered. The road-metal grew softer and more clayey as Weatherbury was left behind, and the late rain had wetted its surface to a somewhat plastic, but not muddy state. They came to cross-roads. Coggan suddenly pulled up Moll and slipped off.

"What's the matter?" said Gabriel.

"We must try to track 'em, since we can't hear 'em," said Jan, fumbling in his pockets. He struck a light, and held the match to the ground. The rain had been heavier here, and all foot and horse tracks made previous to the

torm had been abraded and blurred by the drops, and hey were now so many little scoops of water, which reected the flame of the match like eyes. One set of tracks ras fresh and had no water in them; one pair of ruts was Iso empty, and not small canals, like the others. The otprints forming this recent impression were full of inormation as to pace; they were in equidistant pairs, three r four feet apart, the right and left foot of each pair beag exactly opposite one another.

"Straight on!" Jan exclaimed. "Tracks like that aean a stiff gallop. No wonder we don't hear him. And he horse is harnessed-look at the ruts. Aye, that's our nare sure enough!"

"How do you know?"

"Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last week, and I'd wear to his make among ten thousand."

The rest of the gypsies must have gone on earlier, or ome other way," said Oak. "You saw there were no ther tracks?

Trew." They rode along silently for a long, weary ime. Coggan's watch struck one. He lighted another natch, and examined the ground again.

'Tis a canter now," he said, "throwing away the light. A twisty rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they overdrove her at starting; we shall catch them yet."

Again they hastened on. Coggan's watch struck two. When they looked again the hoof-marks were so spaced as to form a sort of zigzag if united, like the lamps along

a street.

'That's a trot, I know," said Gabriel. "Only a trot now," said Coggan cheerfully. "We shall overtake him in time."

They pushed rapidly on for yet two or three miles. "Ah! a moment," said Jan. "Let's see how she was driven up this hill. Twill help us." A light was promptly struck upon his gaiters as before, and the examination made.

“Hurrah!" said Coggan. "She walked up here- and well she might. We shall get them in two miles, for a

crown."

They rode three, and listened. No sound was to be heard save a mill-pond trickling hoarsely through a hatch and suggesting gloomy possibilities of drowning by jumping in. Gabriel dismounted when they came to a turning. The tracks were absolutely the only guide as to the direction that they now had, and great caution was necessary to avoid confusing them with some others which had made their appearance lately.

What does this mean? - though I guess," said Gabriel, looking up at Coggan as he moved the match over the ground about the turning. Coggan, who, no less than the panting horses, had latterly shown signs of weariness, again scrutinized the mystic characters. This time only three were of the regular horseshoe shape. Every fourth

was a dot.

Why should we, miss?"

Perhaps not. Why, those are never Farmer Boldwood's horses! Goodness mercy! what have you been doing — bringing trouble upon me in this way? What! mustn't a lady move an inch from her door without being dogged like a thief?"

"But how were we to know, if you left no account of your doings?" expostulated Coggan, "and ladies don't drive at these hours as a jineral rule of society."

"I did leave an account-and you would have seen it in the morning. I wrote in chalk on the coach house doors that I had come back for the horse and gig, and driven off; that I could arouse nobody, and should return soon."

"But you'll consider, ma'am, that we couldn't see that till it got daylight."

"True," she said, and though vexed at first, she had too much sense to blame them long or seriously for a devotion to her that was as valuable as it was rare. She added with a very pretty grace," Well, I really thank you heartily for taking all this trouble; but I wish you had borrowed anybody's horses but Mr. Boldwood's." "Dainty is lame, miss," said Coggan. "It was only a stone in her shoe. I dismounted and pulled it out a hundred yards back. I can manage very well, thank you. I shall be in Bath by daylight. Will you now return, please?"

"Can ye go on?"

She turned her head- the gateman's candle shimmering upon her quick, clear eyes as she did so passed through the gate, and was soon wrapped in the embowering shades of mysterious summer boughs. Coggan and Gabriel put about their horses, and, fanned by the velvety air of this July night, retraced the road by which they had come. "A strange vagary, this of hers, isn't it, Oak?" said Coggan, curiously.

"Yes," said Gabriel, shortly. "Coggan, suppose we keep this night's work as quiet as we can?' "I am of one and the same mind."

"Very well. We shall be home by three o'clock or so, and can creep into the parish like lambs."

Bathsheba's perturbed meditations by the roadside had ultimately evolved a conclusion that there were only two remedies for the present desperate state of affairs. The first was merely to keep Troy away from Weatherbury till Boldwood's indignation had cooled; the second, to listen to Oak's entreaties, and Boldwood's denunciations, and give up Troy altogether.

Alas! Could she give up this new love-induce him to renounce her by saying she did not like him- could no more speak to him, and beg him, for her good, to end his furlough in Bath, and see her and Weatherbury no more?

It was a picture full of misery, but for a while she contemplated it firmly, allowing herself, nevertheless, as girls will, to dwell upon the happy life she would have enjoyed had Troy been Boldwood, and the path of love the path of duty-inflicting upon herself gratuitous tortures by imagining him the lover of another woman after forgetting her; for she had penetrated Troy's nature so far as to estimate his tendencies pretty accurately, but unfortunately loved him no less in thinking that he might soon cease to love her indeed, considerably more.

She jumped to her feet. She would see him at once. Yes, she would implore him by word of mouth to assist her in this dilemma. A letter to keep him away could not reach him in time, even if he should be disposed to listen to it.

Was Bathsheba altogether blind to the obvious fact that the support of a lover's arms is not of a kind best calculated to assist a resolve to renounce him? Or was she sophistically sensible, with a thrill of pleasure, that by adopting this course for getting rid of him she was ensuring a meeting with him, at any rate, once more?

It was now dark, and the hour must have been nearly ten. The only way to accomplish her purpose was to give up the idea of visiting Liddy at Yalbury, return to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse into the gig, and drive at once to Bath. The scheme seemed at first impossible: the journey was a fearfully heavy one, even for a strong horse; it was most venturesome for a woman, at night, and

alone.

But could she go on to Liddy's and leave things to take their course? No, no, anything but that. Bathsheba was full of a stimulating turbulence, beside which caution vainly prayed for a hearing. She turned back towards the village.

Her walk was slow, for she wished not to enter Weatherbury till the cottagers were in bed, and, particularly, till Boldwood was secure. Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell, and dismiss him then to rest the horse thoroughly (herself to weep the while, she thought), starting early the next morning on her return journey. By this arrangement she could trot Dainty gently all the day, reach Liddy at Yalbury in the evening, and come home to Weatherbury with her whenever they chose so nobody would know she had been to Bath at all.

This idea she proceeded to carry out, with what success we have already seen.

guest, and am, on entering, affectionately greeted by old and young, mistress and maid.

The fathers and mothers look upon me as a young man who has been well brought up, and who, though not pre cisely the product his education might have been expected to yield, is yet, nevertheless, in a season of doubts and per plexities, a person worthy of commendation. As for the daughters of the house, I am not aware that I flutter their susceptibilities, and should think it unlikely, because in the first place I studiously avoid attempting to do so, and is the second place I am not too disposed to believe that they have any susceptibilities to flutter; but I more than past with them, for I can quote poetry to those who like to listen to good poetry well quoted, and there are a few wha do: I can pretend to talk philosophy to those who pretend to like philosophy, and they are many; and though I can't talk religion, yet I can listen very contentedly to it; and if a lady is High Church, and is doing battle with some per son more enthusiastic than I am, I can quietly, and with out binding myself in any way, come to the fair combatant's rescue, whenever sore pressed, with a sentence from Dr. Newman, or a line from Faber, and be rewarded with grateful smile; whilst, again, if the lady be more Genevan in her faith, my memory is equally well stored with the sayings of divines and hymn-writers who have grasped with an enviable tenacity the simple and grand doctrines of Calvin and his successors. For the sons of the house, when I say that I smoke, and am not at all scrupulous about what sort of stories I hear and tell, it will be at once understood how perfect is my sympathy with them.

But in the mean time, what of myself? Am I as easily satisfied? I can't say I am dissatisfied, that is such a very strong word; but I may say that I am often very much provoked. It would be annoying for a cold man to gaze steadfastly into a blazing fire and yet remain chill. It is provoking to be able nicely to estimate and accurately to appreciate emotions, affections, martyrdoms, heroisms, to perceive the force which naturally belongs to certain feelings and convictions, and yet to remain cool, impassive, and inert. Would to God that I could stir myself up to believe in any of them; and yet as I write this I blush. I have used a passionate imprecation, and yet my hand glides as calmly over the paper, and my heart beats as placidly within my breast as if I had just put down in my accountbook the amount of my last week's washing-bill.

This inertia, in a great measure, results from the fatal gift of sympathy unchecked by spiritual or moral pressure. It is all very well, indeed it is most delightful in matters of taste, to be able to say, as Charles Lamb does of style, that for him Jonathan Wild is not too coarse, nor Shaftes bury too elegant. Thank Heaven, I can say that too; but in matters of morals and religion this catholicity becomes serious. To find yourself extending the same degree of sympathy to, say, both the Newmans-to read, in the course of one's summer's day, and with the same unfeigned delight, Liddon and Martineau - to stroll out into the woods and meadows, careless whether it is Keble or Matthew Arnold you have slipped into your pocket is a very delightful catholicity, but I am not sure that I ought to thank Heaven for it.

this, too,

I wonder how often in the course of a year Dr. Johnson's saying to Sir Joshua is quoted: "I love a good hater." That it should be so often quoted is a proof that the Doctor's feeling is largely shared by his countrymen. I am sure I share it, and nobody can accuse me of self-love in doing so for I hate nobody. I have n't brought myself to this painful state without a hard struggle. For a long time I made myself very happy in the thought that I hated Professor Huxley. How carefully I nursed my wrath! By dint of never speaking of the Professor, except in terms of the strongest opprobrium, and never reading a word he had ever written, I kept the happy delusion alive for several years. I had at times. it is true, an uneasy sus picion that it was all nonsense; but I was so conscious how necessary it was to my happiness that I should hate somebody, that I always resolutely suppressed the rising doubt in an ocean of superlatives expressive of the supposed qual

ies of this mischievous Professor. But one day, in a ckless hour, I opened a magazine at haphazard, and bean in a listless fashion to read an article about I knew ot what, and written by I knew not whom, and speedily rew interested in it. The style was so lucid and urbane, e diction so vigorous and expressive, the tone so free om exaggeration and extravagance, and the substance so r from uninteresting, that my fated sympathies began to well up, and when, half-way down the next column, I saw waiting me one of my favored quotations from Goethe, I hentally embraced the author and hastily turned to the nd to see what favored man was writing so well, and here, lo and behold! was appended the name of the only aan I had ever hated. Of course the illusion could not e put together again, and the chair once filled by the earned Professor stands empty. The other day I made an ffort to raise Archbishop Manning to it. He has not the layful humor, the exquisite urbanity of the great modern 'ervert, but I have heard him preach, he has the accents of incerity and conviction, and represents what I believe to e in a great degree indestructible on this earth. Failing he Archbishop, the name of Fitzjames Stephen occurred o me, but as he himself has told us, he has so many claims o distinction that it would be a shame to hate him; and, after all, I am nearer his position by many a mile than I am to the Archbishop's, and so in despair I have given up the attempt of finding a successor to Professor Huxley, and repeat that, poor limping Christian as I am, I hate nobody. Why not read your Carlyle? it will be indignantly asked. Is not "Sartor Resartus" upon your shelves? Why, bless me! hear the man talk! Carlyle is my favorite prose author. I have all his books, in the nice old editions, round about me, and not only have read them all, but am constantly reading them. You won't outdo me in my admiration for the old man. I think his address to the Scotch students, if bound up within the covers of the New Testament would not be the least effective piece of writing there. Carlyle has long taught me this to lay no flattering unction to my soul, and to go about my business. He has tried to do more than this, and at times I have almost thought he has done more, but it is not for man to beget a faith. Carlyle has planted, he has digged, he has watered, but there has been no one to give the increase. He has taught us, like the Greek Tragic Poets, "moral prudence," and to behave ourselves decently and after a dignified fashion between two eternities, and for a time I thought I had learnt the lesson, but I am at present a good deal agitated by a dangerous symptom and a painful problem.

Watts's Hymns and the New Testament, am yet so hazy on moral points and distinctions, which can hardly be described as nice, such as paying my bills, using profane language, going to church, and the like, my son, brought up on Walter Scott and George Eliot, and the writers of his own day, will surely never pay his bills at all, his oaths will be atrocious, and he will die incapable of telling the nave from the transept-and how I am to teach him better I really do not see. The old régime was particularly strong on this point; and if one could only bring one's conscience to it, the difficulty is at an end, and the education of children, so long at any rate as they are in the nursery or the school-room, goes forward quite easily and naturally.

If anybody has had the patience to wade so far in my company, he will probably here exclaim, "My dear sir, you must have been abominably educated yourself;" and though I don't altogether deny the statement, I can't allow it to pass unchallenged. I remember at school a boy, whom it happened to be the fashion of the day to torment, bearing with a wonderful patience the jeers and witticisms of half a score of his companions, until one of them made some remark, boldly reflecting upon the character of the boy's father, whereupon he at once, clenching his puny fist, bravely advanced upon the last speaker, exclaiming, "You may insult me as much as you like, but you shan't insult my parents." So, in my case, you may call me as many hard names as you like, but you must n't blame anybody else, but the Time-spirit--if the Time-spirit is a body and really, body or no body, it is the fashion now to speak of it as if it were the most potent of beings, dwelling far above argument or analogy. I had what is called every advantage. Religion was presented to me in its most pleasing aspect, living illustrations of its power and virtuous effects moved around me, my taste was carefully guarded from vitiating influences. Our house was crowded with books, all of which were left open to us, because there were none that could harm us; money, which was far from plentiful, was lavished on education and books, and on these alone. How on earth did the Timespirit enter into that happy Christian home? Had it not done so, I might now have been living in the Eden of Belief, and spending my days "bottling moonshine," like the rest of my brethren. But enter it did, and from almost the very first it subtly mixed itself with all spiritual observances, which, though it did not then venture to attack, it yet awaited to neutralize. No! my education was a very costly one; even in point of money a family might be decently maintained on the interest of the sum that has been thus expended, and in point of time too it was re

"A face to lose youth for, occupy age With the dream of, meet death with,"

is yet in my opinion a very pleasant and companionable face, one well suited to spend life with, which is after all what you want a wife for. This is not the painful problem -that comes on a step later. Supposing I was married, and blessed, as after all most men are, with children, how on earth shall 1 educate them to keep them out of Newgate? "Bolts and shackles!" as Sir Toby Belch exclaimed - the thought is bewildering. If I, educated on

And yet I have advantage over some men I know, upon whom the Time-spirit has worked even more disastrously, for they don't know what they like or want. Now I do. The things I am fondest of, bar two or three human things, are money and poetry - the first, not of course for its own sake who ever heard of any one admitting that he liked money for its own sake? And as I always spend more money than I have got (my catholic taste in books is so expensive), it can't be said that I am likely to grow a miser. Neither is money a necessary condition to my happiness not at all; but it is for all that the motive power that causes me to exert myself in my daily work. I work for money. That is my prose. I find in my second love my poetry of life, and I think it is this love that keeps my life sweet, and makes me a favorite with children and with dogs. Who can exaggerate the blessings showered upon Englishmen by their poets:

BOSWELL AND HIS ENEMIES.

BY ARTHUR CLIVE.

JAMES BOSWELL has been treated with the greatest injustice and ingratitude by nearly all the literary men who have recorded their opinions concerning him and his work. Sir Walter Scott alone, with characteristic good sense, stands aloof from the rest in his respectful treatment of the distinguished biographer. He does not, indeed, seem to be aware that Boswell requires defence, or that there is any thing particular in a kindly and respectful demeanor towards the author of Johnson's Life. He knows that Boswell, in spite of his faults, was a high-spirited and honorable gentleman, warm-hearted, and of a most candid and open nature, a sunny temper, and the most unusual and genuine literary abilities. Accordingly, when Sir Walter happens to allude to the Laird of Auchinleck it is always in a friendly and frequently admiring tone -a tone very different from the brutal vituperation of Macaulay or the superior compassion and humane condescension of the great Herr Teufelsdrock. James Boswell did not deserve the hatred of the one or the pity of the other. In standing contrast with the resolute vituperation of the rhetorician and the determined compassion of the prophet, the honest student of English literature will be always glad to encounter the kindly, grateful, and admiring language which flows so gracefully and naturally from the pen of Sir Walter in dealing with the character and the literary performances of Boswell.

or

The fact is that Boswell showed himself free from a tall events he determined boldly to eradicate from himself the characteristic vice of the genus irritabile. He resolved to suppress in himself that stupid pride and tragic egotism of literary life from which only those literary men have been free who resolved to live in and move along with the world, and not to retire into savage isolation or into the unwholesome atmosphere of kindred cliques. The frankness and candor of Boswell—a candor which spares neither himself nor his friends, nor even his idol Johnson seems to be an unpardonable offence in the eyes of men who hide themselves, like the monarch of the Celestial Empire, behind thick curtains of swelling language, and who wish it to be understood that within the sacred and awful recesses of their genius they are executing stupendous tasks, that they are the brother of the Sun and the Moon, the corner-stone of the earth, and well-springs of the purest and most abundant wisdom. Sir Walter Scott, a man of sagacity and good sense, having achieved his first literary success, came deliberately to the conclusion that he would never separate himself from the rough but sane and wholesome world of common men and things, and considered the awful secrecy and concealment of the Great Mogul a very poor and a very dishonest thing. Consequently, he sympathizes with and has respect for the manly courage and honest frankness of one who was not ashamed to let the world see him as he was, and who has painted for all time life-like pictures of himself and those who surrounded him.

For Boswell is beyond comparison the most candid of writers. Others, when they seem to be most candid, have some ulterior object in view, and as often as not are only laying a trap for your admiration. They suppress the wens and wrinkles in their moral or intellectual aspects, they introduce a freshness of color here, a vigor of outline there, which were wanting in the original. Not so Boswell, and thus it is that year after year passes by and adds to instead of detracting from the success and popularity of his great work. It is one of the first literary performances of all time, and deserves to the full its extraordinary suc

cess.

Macaulay has condensed into a page of what seems to me to be mere brutal and malignant vituperation, all the worst that could be said against the author of the "Life of Johnson." Every man can be read the wrong way, and even his virtues be made to sustain charges of the most damning character. If he is gentle - he is soft and inert.

If he is candid he wants dignity, and is eager to sho himself off. Nothing is easier than misrepresentation Lord Macaulay misrepresents Boswell absolutely. The biographer's shortcomings are exaggerated into frightful dis proportion, and made the foundation of charges sufficient, if true, to compel us to treat the accused as a pariah, and never to mention his name without pity or scorn. The writer springs upon his prey like a hound upon a vermin. Any one who reads the passage to which I more especially re fer, unless he has reached maturity of mind and indepen dence of judgment, and happens to have himself read carefully and discriminately the "Life of Johnson," closes his Macaulay with the feeling that probably there never existed a meaner or more contemptible creature than James Boswell.

39

Look for a moment at this particular specimen of Mar caulay's stage thunder. It is to be found in page 175 of the first volume of his "Essays and Reviews,' as edited by himself. It begins with a declaration that Boswell, ac cording to the united testimony of all who knew him, was a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. That he was such is not the united testimony of all who knew him, and will not be the conclusion of any one who with a grain of literary appreciation peruses his enchanting work. There are in that book, wherein he voluntarily lowers himself into a mere eulogist and describer of another, and consequently to a great extent withdraws himself, passages the most exquisite and refined delicacy of expressiongraphic and incisive touches which fill the mind's eye with vivid and startling pictures. The very ease with which Boswell writes, the very perfection of his style, conceals his extraordinary literary merit. You may fancy there is nothing in it. "He just jotted down what he saw, and that was all." Perhaps it was all, but who else ever did the same so well? I doubt whether there is in the whole book an awkward or incondite sentence. I doubt whether there are in the whole book ten lines of original writing in which does not occur a bit of subtle and exact criticism, an illustration of the utmost vividness, a spark of keen and delicate humor, or a description most powerful and telling. Everything in it is so fit and exact, so natural and easy, that we forget the great merit of the author until we begin to ask whether any other man has done the like of it. Everything tells, and without effort. He never strains, nor gathers himself together to deliver his blow.

His perfect style corresponds to a perfect manner. There is nothing bizarré, nothing outré. It is easy and nat ural, straightforward and simple. Neither awkward nor abrupt nor ostentatious. It is not affected. No traps are laid to catch admiration. He has no ugly reticences. He gives us the best he has. He draws near and speaks to us

as friends.

We are apt to think of Boswell as of a spiritual photographer, and we give him no credit because his likenesses are perfect. Johnson "blowing in high derision;" Johnson seated in the stern of the boat like a magnificent triton; " Johnson with "a strong voice and determined manner," or holding up a slice of bread on his knife, or starting at Lord Charlemont's impertinence, or entering a room while Silence and Awe precede him, or ejaculating passages of the Lord's Prayer while his faithful friend and lover sat still and reverent beside him - Boswell's revilers believe that they could have done the same had they only tried. How comes it that no one else has succeeded? How comes it that every one besides who has tried biography, Macaulay and Carlyle included, appears to have written about everything else save the person whom he undertook to describe? All Johnson's biographers, except Bozzy, failed. It was not that there was something in Johnson which would secure success to a biographer. Who would read "Mea Thralia's" book now, or Haw kins's, but as foot notes and elucidations of Boswell's text? "On Friday, April 14, being Good Friday, I repaired to him in the morning, according to my usual custom on that day, and breakfasted with him. I observed that he fasted so very strictly that he did not even taste bread, and took no milk in his tea." Had Macaulay breakfasted with the