Chapter XIV: Part 14

The practical divorce of Art and Utility has told nowhere more disastrously than in the building of churches. Gothic buildings with 'long-drawn aisles and fretted roof,' designed and adapted for the processional and ritual worship of the Romish Church, have for three centuries been the dreary reverberating theatres of Protestant reading and preaching. Perhaps few of us could recall a more comfortless ideal than a rural parish church in winter, half the congregation excluded from seeing, and the other half from hearing the monotonous reader of prayers and sermons. Nonconformists, while rightly deeming that the Episcopal Church had no monopoly of Gothic architecture, have not been always wise in their appropriation of it. They have built the old Gothic church with its nave, two aisles, transepts, and chancel, its clustered stone pillars and clerestory, utterly unmindful of the fact that of all styles of ecclesiastical building it was the most unsuited for their worship and preaching. Their dignified discomfort led to the substitution of iron columns, as incongruous, and, in artistic effect, as ugly as anything that could be imagined--'a mediæval church,' as Mr. Cubitt says, 'in the last stage of starvation.' If we must have nave and aisles, as he justly remarks, we seem shut up either to bad arrangement or bad architecture. Fame and fortune await the architect who can create a new order of buildings for Congregational worship which shall avoid both. Mr. Cubitt seems ambitious to attempt this, and he breaks a lance with old conventionalism with great courage and skill. The type that is required, he says, 'does not present itself in the ordinary nave and aisles plan, whether its nave-piers are thick or thin; but it may be hopefully sought in either of these two ways--'by designing our churches without columns at all, or by designing them with substantial columns placed where they will cause no obstruction. The former system is already adopted in small buildings, and there are some signs of its future employment on a larger scale. It allows great variety of form. Its plans may be oblong, cruciform, circular, or polygonal; or still better, a fresh combination of three different elements. On the latter system the columns may be few in number and far apart, or they may be placed so near the side walls as to obscure, not the seats, but only the passages leading to them. We may thus have either the wide nave with narrow side aisles, or the ordinary nave with very wide bays, or both together. We may plan a grand open space before the pulpit and communion table--surely a natural arrangement for a Protestant Church--and we shall find ample scope for architecture in its external and internal treatment.' The subsequent chapters are virtually a development and illustration of these ideas. The writer advocates the admission of the dome into Gothic architecture; he has much to say on behalf of the Eastern mosque; and no one who has stood in the vast and simple area of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, built, it must be remembered, as a Christian church, could fail to have been greatly impressed with its magnificent congregational capabilities. Galleries in theatre form, iron column churches, lanterns, and most other things that perplex church builders, are discussed. The merit of Mr. Cubitt's work is that it is strictly utilitarian. It recognises the actual necessities, not only of Congregational worship, but of Congregational church builders; it boldly grapples with all inartistic incongruities; it avoids 'schools' and 'orders,' and honestly seeks to supply what is wanted under genuine artistic conditions. Abundance of plates and drawings illustrate Mr. Cubitt's theories. We heartily commend this book to all whom it may concern, as the most independent, intelligent, and scholarly attempt in the direction indicated that has been made.

POETRY, FICTION, AND BELLES LETTRES.

_The Window; or, the Loves of the Wrens._ Words written for Music, by ALFRED TENNYSON, Poet Laureate; the Music by ARTHUR SULLIVAN. Strahan.

So many rumours have been for so long in circulation about this volume, and the names of its joint authors are so eminent, that it is not surprising it should have excited much curiosity and many hopes. We venture to predict that neither the curiosity nor the hopes will be disappointed. Mr. Tennyson's songs need not fear being 'tested' in the same crucible with the 'Lotos Eaters,' or 'In Memoriam,' or we may add with 'Maud,' or the 'Princess.' Nor will Mr. Sullivan's music be found less characteristic of his genius, or other than fully worthy of the words to which it has been composed.

The 'Window' is, we believe, the first attempt in English--certainly the first attempt of any eminent English poet--to cast a series of events or emotions into the form of a set of connected songs. Wordsworth's well-known series of sonnets are an approach to the same thing; but the song--a composition of two or three stanzas, suitable to music--is not so favourite a form with English poets as with those of Germany. There the cycle of songs--the _Liederkreis_ or _Liedercyclus_--is better known. Readers of Heine and Chamisso will remember more than one instance. We are glad to welcome it to English literature, not only as a new form of verse, but also because of the promise which it gives of many a marriage between fine poetry and fine music--a marriage hitherto far too rare among us.

The 'Window,' then, is a 'circle of songs,' twelve in number, describing the hopes and fears of a lover parted from his mistress, and uncertain what her reply will be to the great question he has asked her.

In the first--'On the hill'--he stands on the slope of the valley which separates his home from hers, and as he looks across the distance sees the flash from the window-pane of his love:--

'The lights and shadows fly!
Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the plain.
A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover's eye!
O is it the brook, or a pool, or her window-pane,
When the winds are up in the morning?

'Clouds that are racing above,
And winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still,
All running on one way to the home of my love,
You are all running on, and I stand on the slope of the hill,
And the winds are up in the morning!'

He knows the window of which the flash has thus come to him, and is familiar with all the charm both of what surrounds it, and what it enshrines:--

'Vine, vine, and eglantine,
Clasp her window, trail and twine!
Rose, rose and clematis,
Trail and twine and clasp and kiss,
Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower
All of flowers, and drop me a flower,
Drop me a flower.'

The flowers are there, but their mistress is gone:--

'Gone!
Gone till the end of the year,
Gone, and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here!
Gone--flitted away,
Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day!
Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air!
Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where!
Down in the south is a flash and a groan: she is there! she is
there!'

The winter comes, but our lover holds out in spite of the season:

'Bite, frost, bite!
You roll up away from the light
The blue woodlouse, and the plump dormouse,
And the bees are still'd and the flies are kill'd,
And you bite far into the heart of the house,
But not into mine.'

and it passes, and spring-time comes, with

'Birds' love and birds' song,
Flying here and there;
Birds' song and birds' love,
And you with gold for hair!

'Birds' song and birds' love
Passing with the weather;
Men's song and men's love,
To love once and for ever.'

At last he can bear the suspense no longer--

'Shall I write to her? shall I go?
Ask her to marry me by and by?

* * * * *
Go little letter, apace, apace;
Fly!
Fly to the light in the valley below--
Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.'

The letter is sent, and no answer comes; and then he despairs, as he well may, and in the 'wet west wind' of the spring he wishes himself dead:

'The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain!
Is it ay or no? is it ay or no?
And never a glimpse of her window-pane!
And I may die but the grass will grow,
And the grass will grow when I am gone,
And the wet west wind and the world will go on.'

The answer is still delayed:--

'Winds are loud and you are dumb:
Take my love, for love will come,
Lore will come but once a life.
Winds are loud, and winds will pass!
Spring is here with leaf and grass:
Take my love, and be my wife.
After-loves of maids and men
Are but dainties drest again:
Love me now, you'll love me then:
Love can love but once a life.'

But at length it comes:--

'Two little hands that meet,
Claspt on her seal, my sweet!
Must I take you and break you,
Two little hands that meet?
I must take you, and break you,
And loving hands must part--
Take, take--break, break--
Break--you may break my heart.
Faint heart never won--
Break, break, and all's done.'--

and its tenour is obvious, from the rapture of the reader--

'Be merry, all birds, to-day,
Be merry on earth as you never were merry before,
Be merry in heaven, O larks, and far away,
And merry for ever and ever, and one day more.
Why?
For it's easy to find a rhyme.'--

the rhyme to 'Why' being of course 'Ay.'

After this the progress of things need no telling.

'Sun comes, moon comes,
Time slips away;
Sun sets, moon sets,
Love, fix a day.
* * * *
"To-morrow, love, to-morrow,
And that's an age away."
Blaze upon her window, sun,
And honour all the day.'

The last song of the series is too fine and too even a union of fancy, feeling, and art not to be quoted entire--

'Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.

O the woods and the meadows,
Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!

Light, so low in the vale,
You flash and lighten afar:
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning star.

Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood:
O lighten into my eyes and my heart,
Into my heart and my blood!

Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers.

Over the thorns and briers,
Over the meadows and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash for a million miles.'

Surely these songs, even in the fragmentary state in which we have been forced to give them, will be recognized as the work of a great master, by everyone who has the feeling and the fancy requisite for any appreciation of poetry, and are surely as worthy of Mr. Tennyson's genius as Shakspeare's songs are of his, or the lyrics in 'Wilhelm Meister' of Goethe's. They are full of the old exquisite art that has endeared the songs of the 'Princess' to so many thousand hearts. We find here, as in those and other old favourites, those lovely and indescribable touches which seem to paint in sound or air the very things they name--the

'Winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still;'

the

'Wet west wind, how you blow, how you blow;'--

There is the alliteration that is so magical because so seldom used--

'Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,
Meadows in which we met;'

There are the familiarity with nature and the accurate observation at once so characteristic of English poetry and of Mr. Tennyson's muse--

'The blue woodlouse and the plump dormouse.'

'The wren with the crown of gold.'

'The fire-crowned king of the wrens from out of the pine!
Look how they tumble the blossoms, the mad little tits!
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! was ever a May so fine;'

There too the hundred links of connexion which bind the twelve songs into one golden chain--the constant references to the 'light,' or the 'blaze,' or the 'flash,' or the 'window pane,' which form the keynote of the whole; and lastly the human sentiment at once so deep and broad which fuses the whole into poetry in its noblest sense--all these proclaim the deep and abiding worth of this unpretending series of lyrics.

The Shakspearian ring in one or two of them (especially in No. 8), is as obvious, though in a different vein, as in any of the well-known lyrics in the 'Idylls of the King.'

It will be obvious that we do not agree with those who regard Mr. Tennyson's last effort as 'a trifle from beginning to end.' Slight in texture it may be, but slightness is not triviality.

Mr. Sullivan's task in setting these charming songs to music has not been without its difficulties. The very qualities which render verse characteristic of its author often militate strongly against its adaptability to music. The subtleties which form the main charm of the poet may be mere blemishes and hindrances to the musician. Irregularity of metre and variety of form are among his most serious difficulties. What the composer requires is a strong pervading sentiment or idea to inspire character to his music, with regular even verse for the vehicle. The finest songs of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann are written to little poems of the simplest structure, almost always in stanzas of four lines of eight or ten feet, the syllables linked together in easy concatenation. Such are the 'Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,' the 'Widmung,' the 'Junge Nonne,' and the 'Sey mir gegrüsst.' Was it instinct or calculation that led Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, and other great poets of Germany, to throw so many of their enchanting thoughts and passionate emotions into these simple forms? Whichever it was, the end has fully justified the means; and the poems of these great geniuses have a double beauty and a double gift of immortality in the strains of their composer-brethren. Now the very charm of the songs of the 'Window' on which we have been insisting, and so rightly insisting, are all in opposition to those of the poems just spoken of. What is he to make of such stanzas as

'Gone!
Gone till the end of the year,
Gone! and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here.
Gone--flitted away'?

or such unequal lines as

'Go little letter apace, apace,
Fly!'

or,

'For it's ay, ay, ay, ay, ay;'

or,

'And my thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on'?

If we want to see what can be made of them, by what adroit shifts their difficulties can be avoided and overcome, we have only to turn to Mr. Sullivan's music; and the examination will well repay the trouble, and will open the eyes of anyone who was not before aware of the laws which must govern verse that is to be married to music. No. 6 has been altered since it was set, and we thus have the advantage of two versions.

For the music itself we must really refer our readers to the book. Dissertations on music, unless in connection with actual performance, or with technical study, are very much like attempts to paint a sunrise in words. At any rate, without musical quotations, any description of these songs would be unintelligible.

The finest of the set are indisputably the first and the last. Next, perhaps, for depth of sorrow, comes No. 7, 'The mist and the rain.' No. 3, 'Gone,' with its persistent accompaniment, is beautiful. Of the tender songs, Nos. 9 and 10 are especially charming, while No. 4 is a bold air, which we venture to predict will be in the mouth of many an amateur baritone before a month is out. We have only one word of regret to add--if regret be not too strong a term. We wish that Mr. Sullivan had availed himself of the chance which the words gave him to do what Beethoven has so finely done in his 'Liederkreis,' namely, to re-introduce the melody of the first song in the last one, and thus make his work really a 'circle.' But this is so obvious that we do not doubt he had some sufficient reason for not doing it.

Mr. Sullivan has written many fine songs; and indeed great as is his genius for the orchestra, it often seems as if it were equally great for vocal music. And it is not too much to say that in this direction at least, his last effort has been his greatest, and that these songs surpass all that he has written before. Of their popularity among the best class of amateurs--that class which we delight to believe is rapidly increasing--there can be no doubt. They will want not only good singing, but what is rarer still, good accompanying, and we trust some opportunity may be shortly found for their being given in public by Mr. Reeves and Mr. Stockhausen, or Mr. Santley, accompanied by the composer himself. After that we are bold enough to hope that he may score some of them for the orchestra. Connected though they be, they are not indivisible, and there are several which would not suffer by being taken from their place in the 'cycle' and transferred singly to the concert-room.

_The Paradise of Birds._ By WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.

Verily the young English poet who dares tread in the footsteps of the Attic Aristophanes has a fine audacity. This does Mr. Courthope, and not altogether without justification. He is a lover of birds; he is disgusted at the way in which they are murdered at pigeon matches, and for the adornment of ladies' hats. He goes to Aristophanes for inspiration, and gives us a very charming poem as the result. Mr. Courthope is unquestionably a poet. The fault we find _in limine_ is, that he is not sufficiently original and varied in rhyme and rhythm, for a professed follower of Aristophanes. All the birds of the air sing in the pages of the mighty Greek, sing in character, with the very music that belongs to them. We cannot say this of Mr. Courthope, yet is he often fortunate and felicitous. Here is the Nightingale, pitying us unfeathered bipeds:

'Man that is born of a woman,
Man, her un-web-footed drake,
Featherless, beakless, and human,
Is what he is by mistake.
For they say that a sleep fell on nature
In the midst of the making of things;
And she left him a two-legged creature,
But wanting in wings.'

Wings! ay, that is what we should all of us like. Fancy being able to soar and tumble in mid-ether, like those pigeons that flash round our roofs. Fancy having power to follow the summer like 'the temple-haunting martlet,' which leaves its house under our eaves for a residence somewhere in Central Asia! What Mr. Courthope wants, in our judgment, is greater imaginative intensity: he plays laughingly with his theme, and even so did Aristophanes, his master; but he does not attain as yet the lofty poetry, the strong humour, which are born of earnestness in Aristophanes.

_The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis; and other Poems._ By TANKERVILLE CHAMBERLAYNE, B.A. Hurst and Blackett.

There is curious variety of style, of finish, and of theme in this little volume. A classical epos is followed by a monody on Lord Derby, and translations from Horace and Heine. Elegies on Napoleon, Peabody, and Mozart, are interspersed with love ditties and theological speculations. A discussion of the probable condition of Napoleon's soul in the other world is terminated by the following most inappropriate couplet:--

''Tis ours in peace to let him rest
With hope upon his Saviour's breast.'

There is some spirit and fire in the 'Song of the Rhine,' weakened, however, by sad doggrel. The impression produced by the whole is, that an accomplished and well-meaning graduate has favoured the public with the contents of his college portfolio without due selection.

_Loveland, and other Poems chiefly concerning Love._ By WADE ROBINSON. London and Dublin: Moffat and Co.

There is a charm of novelty and freshness about these poems. The thoughts expressed are often both original and beautiful; and in this lies the chief attraction of the book. The language in which the thoughts are clothed is not remarkable for elegance, and the style is occasionally rather obscure, but the reader will find it worth his while to take the little trouble that may now and then be needed fully to grasp the author's meaning. There is no particular arrangement in the poems, but they all turn in some way on the subject indicated in the title-page; one (by no means the best of them) describing an Utopian world perverted and ruled by love alone. There is an elevated tone of feeling about the work in general, befitting the high theme to which it is devoted. We will content ourselves with one specimen of the poetry, though it would be easy to select many. The following lines are taken from a short poem called 'Spring-time in the Woods':--

'Is that next life indeed a Paradise?
But whether I shall leave my flowers for aye
When leaving earth, or in some other world
Shall find them all again, this much I know:
Whate'er in me communes with them shall not
Be left in loneliness. That sense of mine
To which God comes in hues upon the cheeks
Of innocent flowers, and in their perfumed breath,
Expands in strength and purity, and God
Will come to it again as shall be best.
I cannot now declare how He shall come;
I only know that this poor world, so sad
And still so beautiful, cannot exhaust
The beauty in the mind of God, or yet
His artist power to mould and paint his thoughts.'

_Poems_. By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Groombridge and Sons.

_The Inner Life: a Poem._ By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Elliot Stock.

Mr. Matson does not now first come before the world as a poet, but in his best poem, on 'The Inner Life,' he has done something better than any of his previous productions. The book consists of meditations, not perhaps very strictly connected, yet passing naturally from one into another--all treating on themes of the deepest interest, as the title implies; the poetical strains adding greatly to the charm of the Christian philosophy that is conveyed in them. It is true poetry, though not poetry of the highest order. The reader of this little work will be glad to turn to a volume of poems by the same author which appeared some years ago. Mr. Matson speaks in the preface to this book of the joy he has found in poetry. We do not feel in his case as we are sometimes tempted to do, that the poet himself is the only person benefited--the pleasure found in making the verse being the only pleasure it can ever afford. Far from this: we are much indebted to Mr. Matson for giving his poetry to the world. The versification is unusually easy and flowing--no straining after effect; no determination to be original at all costs: all seems to come naturally and without effort. There is an evenness of merit in the poems which would make it difficult to specify one above another; but one characteristic marks them all, and distinguishes them from those of many other writers, _i.e._, the Christian sentiment by which they are all pervaded. Instead of the wail of unrelieved disappointment and regret for the past, and dark and vague forebodings for the future, the voice of resignation and heavenly hope is never wanting, mingled with the plaintive strains in which we always expect to hear a poet sing. We cordially recommend both the books to all lovers of this class of poetry among our readers.

_The In-Gathering_. By JOHN A. HERAUD. Simpkin, Marshall and Co.

Mr. Heraud, whose first poem was published in 1820, ten years before Tennyson, shows no perceptible decrease of poetic faculty now, after the lapse of half a century. It is doubtless true with some men that

'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.'

The little volume before us contains 'Cimon and Pero,' a series of two hundred somewhat mystical sonnets under the title of 'Alcyone,' and several minor poems. 'Cimon and Pero,' which we prefer to any of the other poems, is based on the fine old story, told by Valerius Maximus, of the Greek woman, who, to save her imprisoned father from starvation, fed him at her own breast. Mr. Heraud has avowedly chosen to tell the tale in the austere style of Wordsworth's noble 'Laodamia,' and not without success. It may be but a fable this, but no fable is devoid of significance, and we may say with Valerius, 'Putaret aliquis hoc contra rerum naturam factum, nisi deligere parentes prima naturæ lex esset.' Several of the minor poems have a delicate beauty: among these may specially be noted the short lyric entitled 'Eres,' which is quite in Herrick's vein; the well-known story of 'The Brides of Venice' is also pleasantly told. The author's admirers will be glad to find that he has still the vigour and versatility of his youth, with greater skill of artistic execution.

_The Poetical Works of William Cowper._ Edited, with Notes and Biographical Introduction, by WILLIAM BENHAM, Vicar of Addington. Globe Edition. Macmillan and Co.

It was a matter of course that Cowper's works should form a volume of the Globe series. His popularity has scarcely waned since he first became the poet of the religious world, beloved for his piety by those who had but small appreciation of his poetry, and admired for his poetry by those who had but little sympathy with his themes or his spirit. As a realistic painter of middle-class life he anticipated, and in delicacy and sensibility infinitely surpasses Crabbe; while as a humorist of the purest water he took the kind of hold upon the general public that Sydney Smith afterwards did--only Cowper's humour was more delicate and subtle--and as a poet of nature he was the literary progenitor of Wordsworth. Mr. Benham's biographical introduction is very carefully and very modestly done. He is, we think, right in his judgment on the point questioned by the _Spectator_, 'that Lady Austen would gladly have married Cowper;' and perfectly conclusive, we think, is the evidence concerning the contemplated marriage with Mary Unwin. Newton and Bull were Cowper's most intimate friends, and the denial of Southey, who was by no means so accurate as the _Spectator_ assumes, cannot be put against their positive and explicit evidence. The works are arranged in chronological order, and the notes are intelligent, accurate, and true. Altogether, we possess in the Globe volume the best edition of Cowper hitherto given to the world.

_The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, reprinted from the Originals, with the latest Corrections of the Authors; together with the poems of Charles Wesley not before published._ Collected and arranged by E. OSBORN, D.D. Vols. VII. to X.

This admirably edited collection of the poetical works of the Wesleys proceeds steadily towards its completion. It reveals a surprising fecundity of verse, and an amazing degree of sustained fervour, strength, and excellence. There are treasures of song in Charles Wesley's compositions, unused and unknown as yet by the Church, that would give him high rank as a hymn writer, independently of the compositions which are in every church and on every lip. We do not think he ever reaches the reverent sublimity of the best hymns of Watts. Watts, for instance, would scarcely have used the somewhat incongruous adjective 'tremendous deity;' nor would Watts have fallen into the German jingles of some of his metres; but in devout inspiration, sacred passion, and felicitous verse, Wesley holds his own against any hymn writer of the Church of Christ. We shall have more to say concerning him when the collection of his poetical works is complete. The eighth volume contains his admirable version of the Psalms, and a great variety of personal and national hymns, which furnish a kind of devotional commentary on the history of both. The ninth volume consists of the first portion of the short hymns on 'Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures.' The two-volume edition of 1762 has long been a table book with us. We specially commend some of Wesley's exquisite poetical versions or uses--this, for instance:--

'O that I knew where I might find him,
Where but on yonder tree?
Or if too rich thou art,
Sink into poverty,
And find him in thine heart.'

_A Syren._ By J. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Three vols. Smith, Elder and Co.

Mr. J. A. Trollope has returned to the scenes of his first love--to Italian skies, artists, maidens, marchesi, and friars. We are plunged at once into the hot sunshine and tropical excitements of a Ravennese Carnival. The author gives us exuberant descriptions of female beauty, of fastidious adornment, dexterous _deshabille motivée_, and of fierce sexual passion met by cold calculating resolve to play a high stake without love, or faithfulness, or even wisdom. Mr. Trollope is matchless in his portraiture of Italian _artistes_, and of the simple _contadina_ of refined and delicate taste, and pure seraphic devotion to the one over-mastering affection. He has, in this story, contrasted the natures of two beautiful portionless girls, who by strange fortune are thrown, during the same carnival, into the way of the two Marchesi Castelmare. The one is an opera singer, the other a painter. The former resolves on making a conquest of the elder nobleman, and the latter does win the affections of the younger. The uncle is described as the pattern of the highest virtue, of stone-cold passions, of infinite proprieties; and La Lalli, the syren, succeeds during the carnival in bewitching, maddening, and befooling him into promise of marriage, and inspiring the most deadly jealousy of any interference with his claim. A noble nature is ruined by the fierce fires of a foolish attachment, and most tragic are the issues. We will not diminish the fascination of the story by revealing its secret. _La diva Lalli_ is actually murdered on the very day when the old marchese has publicly admitted his intention to marry her, and everybody but the murderer seems to have run the risk of having to bear the brunt of the charge. More than a volume is occupied with an endeavour to answer the question, 'Who has done the deed?' There is more delicacy, and subtlety, and meaning in the inquiry, than in the inquiry, 'Who killed Tulkinghorn?' and the reader is reminded of the heart-searching of Mr. Browning's 'Ring and Book,' rather than of Mr. Dickens's popular story. The story cannot be called pleasing or profitable. It is a wonderful drawing, full of brilliant effects, and crowded with narrative and suggestion. The style is clear, and the Italian expletives and appellatives give it an operatic grace and sweetness that are very attractive. If '_tesoro mio_' had been translated 'duck of diamonds,' and the rest of the prettiness turned into plain English, perhaps the blue sky and the _circolo_ and the _carnival_ would have had to vanish likewise.

_Against Time._ By ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. Two vols. Smith, Elder and Co. 1870.

The machinery that Mr. Shand has contrived is clumsy, and looks like a violent effort to be original. The hero of the story is put into circumstances of maddening temptation to make money by unfair means. He is exasperated by discovering that a relative has made him sole heir to her vast estates, on the proviso that in the course of three years he developes out of the few thousands that are left to him, a fortune equal to that which he may then receive. On his failing to fulfil this condition, the designation of the property is concealed from all except a pair of contemptible villains, who endeavour to play a series of underhand tricks to secure it ultimately for their own uses. The hero came from the Kursaals of Germany to hear of this race that he had to run 'against time,' and he is determined, by huge speculation, to win the prize. The monetary scheme, the Credit Foncier and Mobilier of Turkey, is described by one who has seen the eggs of many of these vipers hatched in the sun of England's prosperity. There is a grandeur about the conception, and a rapidity in the inflation of this great balloon, that is enough to take away the breath of ordinary financiers. The young aristocrat is the Ulysses in council, the Achilles in strife, the Bayard _sans peur, sans reproche_; and though he makes, in the course of three years, some quarter of a million sterling, and might claim the possession of family estates, he has positively contrived to withdraw the greater part of it from the 'concern,' and to have done it without dishonour. He has been dabbling up to the elbows in boiling pitch, and is neither scorched, nor blistered, nor defiled. Most surprising is his nobility. When the bubble bursts, he has the magnanimity and magnificence voluntarily to sacrifice his splendid fortune, and more splendid prospects, at the shrine of the honour which seems for a moment in the dust. Finally, of course it all turns out for the best, and the young lady who has won the heart of the great financier is prepared to second his sublime sacrifice, and as the two are starting for Australia in beautiful poverty, it turns out that on the bridegroom's failing to fulfil the conditions of the will, the penniless bride has herself become the heiress of the immense estates, and so the pair are happy ever after. There is much brilliant writing in the story, some caustic satire, and a great deal of clever and pleasant characterization.

_Diary of a Novelist._ By the Author of 'Rachel's Secret,' 'Nature's Nobleman,' &c. Hurst and Blackett. 1871.

The title of this volume is attractive. What speculations and hopes are excited by the mere announcement, 'Diary of a Novelist!' The secrets into which curious readers have attempted to pry are about to be unfolded, the originals of the characters described are to be revealed, a real personal living interest is to surround the author's fictions ever after. What would we give to have such a diary from the pen of George Eliot or Charles Dickens! But amid such a rush of eager anticipations, we turn to the book itself, and find that no explanations are given--the authoress does not lift the veil. It is the journal of a year's most striking thoughts and noteworthy experiences. The first feeling is one of disappointment that the volume is so different from our expectations; but disappointment soon changes into hearty admiration and sincere gratitude. It is emphatically a good book. Sympathy with all that is beautiful and noble pervades the whole, and it is written with the ease of a practised hand. The rippling chat runs on through a succession of bright sunny scenes, ever and anon deepening into shady pools of profounder thought, and then again merrily hastening on its way. We are permitted to read the aims of this novelist's life, so true, pure, earnest, that we involuntarily exclaim, 'O si sic omnia!' There is also a cheerful religiousness in this diary, which will equally surprise those who think that a fiction-writer's only use is for amusement, and those who indiscriminately condemn all novels as unmitigated evils. The following sentence gives us the key-note of the book:--'I like to feel that this fair earth, which God has made, which even now, where man has not marred it, keeps the touch of his hand upon it still--breathes back its life to Him in love. And so the whole world becomes to me at once a Temple and a Home--a place for worship and for happy life: and I live in it, not alone, but sharing with all created things in the great Father's care, and joining with them in their many-voiced psalm of love and praise.' The charming sketches of natural scenery show the touch of an artist and a poet; the outline descriptions of character reveal the writer as a keen observer of human life; while her reflections on some of the tangled problems of the world tell us that she, too, has wrestled with the mighty mystery, and found peace only in trust.

We notice an exuberance of enthusiasm which might be toned down with advantage to the general style. The attempt to transcribe the Yorkshire dialect is not successful; but, as we have ourselves failed in that accomplishment, we appreciate the difficulty, and only notice the fact--'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'

_The Iliad of the East._ By FREDERICK RICHARDSON. Macmillan.

The title of this book is of course _ad captandum_; the East has no Iliad, in any intelligible sense. What is here offered us is a series of legends, taken from Valmiki's Sanskrit poem, the 'Ramagana,' and taken from the French version of M. Fauche. It is a readable little volume, and may be recommended to those who desire to obtain some slight knowledge of the early Sanskrit poetry. When we compare a work like the Ramagana with the Iliad and Odyssey, we cannot avoid the conclusion that in the Greek mind there existed a vivid view of poetry, which is quite absent from the Hindoo mind. Rama's adventures are absurdly grotesque. We meet garrulous vultures, chivalrous monkeys, and so forth. The supreme imagination, which obtains a sublime effect by depicting humanity in its intensest forms, as in Achilles, Diomed, Odysseus, as in Helen, Andromache, Penelope, has no place in the Oriental poems. They are childish, exaggerated, mere nursery tales. The theorists, foremost among whom is Mr. Max Müller, who conceived that both the Greek and Sanskrit poetry come from one source, ought assuredly to explain to us why there exists so wide a difference between the Homeric poems and all the Oriental cycle. Homer's epic, like the goddess Athene, seems to have sprung perfect in person and panoply from the brain of its creator. The Eastern pseudo-epics are mere strings of ridiculous stories, with no definite connection, no beginning, middle, or end. This manifest literary difference would appear to indicate some definite racial difference. Valmiki is not an entirely unreadable author, but between Homer and him there is about as much difference as between Shakespeare and Quallon. Now, what the Sanskrit scholars ought surely to do for us is to state some theory whereby to account for the fact that their favourite language contains no literature worth perusal. There is neither the poetry of the Greek nor the theosophy of the Hebrew in Sanskrit. Hence we venture to infer that there is some innate racial distinction as yet undiscovered by the modern ethnologist.

_John._ By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.

Mrs. Oliphant's delicate touch in social description is too well known for it to be necessary to dwell upon it here. She is one of the few lady-novelists who improve as they go on; the truth being that she has never sought to obtain startling effects by absurd means, but has always studied nature and human nature. In 'John,' re-published from _Blackwood's Magazine_, which is a novelette rather than a novel, she is very felicitous. There is no more story than Canning's knife-grinder had to tell: it is a mere love-tale, 'Silly sooth,' as Shakespeare hath it. John is a country parson's son, and Kate is a banker's daughter, and she is thrown from her horse near the parsonage, and has to be taken there, and as she convalesces makes sad havoc with poor John. A simple story, but charming in its simplicity. The _situation_ is well conceived. Dr. Clifford is a worldly person; his son John is utterly unworldly; Crediton, the banker, is a plutocrat of the first force; Kate is a spoilt child, who means to have her own way in marriage. The end of it all is easily conceivable; but the comedietta is played out with consummate skill, especially by its heroine. We are less interested in her lover than in her; and although doubtless Mrs. Oliphant is an able nomenclator, we venture to think that the book would have more properly represented its title if that title had been 'Kate.'

_From Thistles--Grapes?_ By Mrs. EILOART, Author of 'The Curate's Discipline,' 'Meg,' &c., &c. In three vols. Richard Bentley, Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty, New Burlington-street.

Given a bundle of thistles, how many bunches of grapes can it produce? Answer, none. This theory Mrs. Eiloart seeks to develope to its fullest extent; and, as a natural consequence, we find the miserable 'grapes,' the son, dangling by the neck on the scaffold whither the testimony of the 'thistles,' the unnatural parent, has sent him. There is nothing so new or original in the plot of the novel as the title, which with its note of interrogation at once arouses the interest of the reader, an interest which unfortunately goes little further than the title-page. The scene is laid in a cathedral town of England. Dr. Langton, a sanctimonious divine, who has sown a terrible crop of wild oats, as well as 'thistles' in his early youth, excites the enmity of one of his parishioners, a ragged vagabond, who has been convicted of robbery, and sentenced to one month's imprisonment in the county jail. The fellow, having escaped from durance, is concealed by the hero till morning, and succoured by the heroine in a wood, where he lies helpless and prostrate from a sprained ankle. But unfortunately Dr. Langton, passing by that way, discovers the poor wretch of whom the officers are in pursuit, struggling amidst the brambles, and instantly gives the alarm. The vagabond is consequently conveyed back to prison, muttering threats and imprecations against his betrayer. From these preliminary incidents arise a series of events, which, as they pass before us, we salute with all the reverence to which they are entitled from their venerable age and ancient service. But notwithstanding the long acquaintance we have enjoyed, in the land of romance, with the greater part of the adventures contained in these three volumes, some of them appear before us with their old garments so delicately patched and mended with Mrs. Eiloart's new materials that we willingly forget the proverbial weariness of the thrice-told tale. The death of the heroine is well managed. The kindness to the wretched offender, her efforts to drag him out of the mire into the atmosphere of intelligence and feeling, meets with the usual result. He becomes deeply enamoured of the sweet gentle girl according to the brutal instincts of his nature, and pushes her through the wood even to the brink of the precipice down which she is bent on throwing herself, maddened as she is with the discovery of the hero's attachment to another. The vagabond, whose brain is as usual muddled with beer, suddenly becomes sobered at the sight of her peril, and rushes forward to save her. Seizing her by the folds of her dress, the frail material gives way, and a portion of it remaining in his hand and afterwards found in his possession, becomes the circumstantial evidence, which causes his arrest. Now the thistles come forward to bear witness to having beheld the frantic flight of the girl through the wood, and the subsequent appearance of the boor on the very spot where she had met with her death. The testimony is crushing, the offender is condemned to die, and mounts the scaffold proclaiming his innocence. The revelation of the relationship in which he stands to his denouncer is made too late, and Dr. Langton arrives with the proof of the young lady's meditated suicide just in time to see his own illegitimate son swing in mid-air as the drop falls, and the shoutings of the crowd announce that all is over. The perseverance and tenacity of purpose which bear an author through the labour of executing three goodly volumes unaided in the task by incident, description, or dialogue, are beyond all praise. '_Il est si facile de ne point écrire_,' exclaims Boileau. But the lady-writers of modern times evidently reverse the saying--with them it far more difficult to refrain.

_'Six Months Hence.'_ Being Passages from the Life of Maria _née_ Secretan. Three volumes. Smith, Elder and Co.

In the anonymous author of this story we have, we suspect, a new writer of fiction, and of considerable power. The novel is mainly a psychological one--although full of tragic incidents, and complicated in its plot. Indeed, the story is constructed with a mechanical ingenuity, which in the minuteness and mosaic of its incidents, is not unworthy of the author of the 'Lady in White.' The story is told autobiographically by the heroine, in a plain matter-of-fact way; full, however, of psychological self-analysis that would do credit to the author of 'Dr. Austin's Guests,' especially in the delineation of Fortescue's madness. The heroine enters upon a situation as governess in the family of Mr. Armitage, of Harcourt Villa, Hastings; who, being left a widower, with a son and daughter, Charles and Helen, has married, a second time, a woman of coarse nature and unscrupulous character, who has one son, Fred, a little boy of six. A Mr. Fortescue, an accomplished and wealthy young man, is a constant visitor at the villa, and is the presumptive lover of Helen, although he has never declared his love. Helen, and Maria, the governess, who are of the same age, become fast friends; gradually, however, Mr. Fortescue transfers his attentions to Maria, whose first guilt consists in yielding to ambitious desires, and permitting in herself and Mr. Fortescue treachery to her friend. The incipient attachment is strengthened by a long nursing of little Fred, who meets with an accident; the rescue of Maria from the tide by Mr. Fortescue precipitates matters, and they are secretly engaged to be married; two or three days before the intended disclosure of the engagement, and a few days before the intended marriage, Mr. Armitage dies, having, through the machinations of his wife, made an iniquitous will, whereby little Fred is made his heir in the event of his attaining the age of twenty-one; should he die before that age, the estates revert to the natural heir, no other provision being made. Maria and Mr. Fortescue are married. On the very week of their arrival at Dalemain Castle, Mr. Fortescue's seat in Cumberland, little Fred is murdered,--Mr. Fortescue being absent from home on some business in another part of Cumberland. Helen is suspected and tried; then suspicion falls upon Charles, against whom circumstantial evidence is strong, and public indignation stronger still. The mob at Lewes attempt to lynch him on the day of his trial, and he receives injuries of which he dies. In the meanwhile, Maria discovers that she has married a maniac, who inherits the fatal taint from his grandmother. In the event of such a contingency, by the grandfather's will, the property is to go to the next heir. Now comes the struggle between Maria's cupidity and her conscience; she tries to hide the fact of her husband's insanity, and discovers that, under a strong hallucination, he has been the murderer of little Fred. Again a struggle between selfishness and conscience--Helen is accused of the murder, and Maria conceals the evidence that will exculpate her, and, to put it out of her power to save her, goes with her husband into Switzerland; there she hears that the accusation is transferred to Charles, whom she has secretly but passionately loved. What conscience would not do for Helen, love does for Charles; she hastens to England with proofs of his innocence, but arrives only in time to see him die of the injuries received from the mob. All this is told with great power--the anatomy of selfishness in herself, of madness in her husband, and of love in Helen and Charles is very masterly, and almost painfully minute. The story is one of intense interest, and gives promise of another powerful writer of fiction, who, notwithstanding the feminine autobiography, and the minute analysis of female passions, is, we suspect, of the sterner sex.

_The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson_. By One of the Firm. Edited by ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Smith, Elder, and Co.

Mr. Trollope has, in this little _brochure_, essayed the epic of modern advertising. The following sentences epitomise the moral thereof:--Robinson, _loquitur_--'Did you ever believe an advertisement? Jones, in self-defence, protested that he never had. And why should others be more simple than you? No man, no woman, believes them. They are not lies; for it is not intended they should obtain credit. I should despise the man who attempted to build his advertisement on a system of facts, as I should the builder who lays his foundation on the sand. The groundwork of advertisement is romance. It is poetry in its very essence. Is Hamlet true?'

'I really do not know,' said Mr. Brown.

'There is no man, to my thinking, so false,' continued Robinson, 'as he who in trade professes to be true. He deceives, or endeavours to do so. I do not. Advertisements are profitable; not because they are believed, but because they attract attention.'

_Per contra._ 'The ticketing of goods at prices below their value is not to our taste, but the purchasing of such goods is less so. The lady who will take advantage of a tradesman, that she may fill her house with linen, or cover her back with finery, at his cost, and in a manner which her own means would not fairly permit, is, in our estimation, a robber. Why is it that commercial honesty has so seldom charms for women? A woman who would give away the last shawl from her back will insist on smuggling her gloves through the Custom-house. Is not the passion for cheap purchases altogether a female mania? And yet every cheap purchase--every purchase made at a rate so cheap as to deny the vendor his fair profit, is, in truth, a dishonesty--a dishonesty to which the purchaser is indirectly a party. Would that woman could be taught to hate bargains! How much less useless trash would there be in our houses, and how much fewer tremendous sacrifices in our shops?'

Those who read in the _Cornhill Magazine_ this sketch of the advertising firm, its wonderful puffs, and the sensations they caused in Bishopsgate; with the unromantic, hard, business-like match-making which is interwoven with it, will remember with what a keen and somewhat cynical satire, too much upon a dead realistic level perhaps, the story is told. Those who have not read it there, are recommended to make themselves acquainted with it. It is but 'An Editor's Tale,' but its moral is wholesome and timely.

_Mariette; or, Further Glimpses of Life in France_. A Sequel to Marie. Bell and Daldy.

This story of humble life in the French provinces is intended as a sequel to that of 'Marie,' and is a mere narrative of events occurring in the daily existence of the humblest of serving women, who reports the sayings and doings of her masters, through the incidents, political and municipal, occurring in the good town of Nantes, where they reside. The book is amusing enough, a sort of French country town chronicle, such a record as Mrs. Gaskell would now and then give us of English life under the same conditions; there is nothing in it to stir the passions--nothing to irritate or vex; but on the other hand, nothing to soothe or calm the nerves. It resembles a long unbroken chant, as if from the lips of an aged crone, which neither commands the attention of the listener nor prevents him from bestowing it on anything else, and yet is regretted when it is over, simply because the scenes, the characters, the conversations are all familiar to our memory, and hallowed by long association. The little volume possesses one charm of its own. It is written without the smallest pretension, easy and simple in style, and delicately subdued in sentiment, in keeping with the character and station of the supposed narrator.

_Lorna Doone._ A Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. BLACKMORE. Sampson Low.

We spoke of this novel when it first appeared in almost the highest terms of commendation that we could command. A re-perusal of it only confirms our impression, that in scholarly conscientiousness, artistic skill, and romantic interest, it more nearly approaches the best of the Waverley novels than any fiction that has appeared since then. We can give it no higher praise. We only wonder that it has so tardily won the honours of a cheap edition.

_The Victory of the Vanquished._ A Tale of the First Century. By the Author of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. T. Nelson and Co.