Chapter LX: An Offering (3)

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," say the persecuted. "Where the government has put in an apostate priest, he celebrates mass to empty benches: we set up our altar in a barn, and it is full to overflowing." So far as this city is concerned, the statement is correct. The place of worship to which the Ultramontanes retired when driven from the cathedral of Notre Dame may, if they choose, be called a barn--a large one--and it is furnished with a goodly congregation, whereas the forty or fifty persons who assemble in their former church look no more than "a handful of corn upon the mountains." It must be admitted also that in sowing after the manner of the martyrs the Ultramontanes are ready and willing, and should the official rigors be insufficient they will perhaps do a little private bloodletting for the sake of contributing handsomely to the support of their cause. The Sisters of Charity, expelled from Geneva last year as exercising a pernicious influence, are said to have opened all their veins before they went. Excepting that blood, however, it is not apparent that they lost a great deal: they merely crossed the boundary into France, can revisit the scene of their martyrdom whenever they please, and moreover, in their present quality of strangers, the government has lost the right of interference with their apparel, so that the stiff white bonnets may now walk with impunity under the very nose of a _conseiller d'etat_. The inhabitants of the canton are severely restricted as to costume under the present regime. No native priest is permitted a distinctive dress, and where a couple of large hats and long skirts are seen strolling through the streets, you know they are from over the border. Jesuitism is not to parade in full uniform, nor is it to lurk privily under never so humble a roof. In their struggles with the hydra-headed monster the men in the high places of this canton found themselves lately face to face with an odd set of opponents. An association of servant-girls, animated by the spirit of party, had stepped into the vacant quarters of the Sisters--a locality already confiscated by the government. The object of the society is praiseworthy: it provides a home for servants out of place, and nurses and maintains such as are sick or destitute. Still, the powers that be thought such Christian charity might be exercised as well elsewhere, and sent a notice to quit, of which the domestics, with a traditional contempt for lawful authority, made no account whatever. They were threatened with the police, but still stood firm, and not until an armed force actually descended upon them did they retire in good order, bearing one of their company on a mattress. Those interested in their behalf call attention to the fact that the sick person had to be transported through the streets on the coldest day of the season, while the party of the gendarmerie cause it to be understood that said person only took to her bed when the judicial knock sounded at the door.

Scandalous wrangling, petty bickering, the zealous wrath of true conviction on either side,--there is room for them all in a contest like this, where every one must wear the badge of party in plain sight, and defend it as best he may, but defend it at all costs. To stand between two such hostile forces is to be regarded as an enemy by both, and is a situation that may seem equivocal even to lookers-on. Yet those who listen habitually to the one man who has chosen that unenviable post can hardly complain of want of clearness in his own defining of his position. Pere Hyacinthe is sometimes held to be on the high road to Protestantism. Any one who went out in the middle of some discourse of his, and so heard only the warm-hearted, candid confession of sympathy with all that is excellent among heretics, might carry away such an impression: those who remain until the inevitable "_mais_" with which the second proposition begins are convinced that to grasp the hand he holds out for Church unity the Protestants would have many more steps to take than he contemplates on his side, and that the meeting could by no means be a halfway one. Another numerously-supported opinion is that of his waiting only for a good opportunity to return to the true fold. Certain it is that at all times and in all places he calls himself a faithful son of that Church of which, as he ceases not to reiterate, he has never sought the ruin, but the reform. Who, however, hearing the scathing apostrophe that follows to the address of the misguided old man who holds the keys of St. Peter can feel that this son of Rome, devoted though he be, is very ready to sue for pardon? On the contrary, let the shepherd repent, then the wandering sheep may come back to the flock. A weightier charge against him than any other is that of betraying party, of faithlessly turning his back on the cause he once espoused. But that cause is still his, as he declares: no one has more at heart the success of the Old Catholic movement than he, no one a warmer desire to see the purified Church in the place that is hers of right; but also no one has a deeper abhorrence of that Church lending herself as a servant to political intrigues, be the government that sets them on foot called despotic or republican. And then the Grand Conseil comes in for no little scorn and contempt. Pere Hyacinthe may be a Jesuit in disguise, or a Calvinist at heart, or a broken reed that pierces the hand of him who leans on it; but there is still another hypothesis: he may be a man endowed with the rare gift of seeing all sides of a question with equal impartiality, and one not to be deterred by any party considerations from speaking his free opinion: in that case it is certain that he would find no place in either of the factions at variance in this commonwealth.

How large the number of those who followed Pere Hyacinthe when he took up his present isolated position it would be difficult to estimate, for the services at the Casino are attended by others besides his own flock; Sunday after Sunday the barren concert-hall is filled, but many faces wear an expectant look that distinguishes them as passing strangers from the frequenters of the place; and when the mass begins there is evident doubt in the minds of some how far loyalty to their own simpler forms permits them to unite in this worship. They solve the question by standing up whenever a change of position seems to be called for; and in fact to kneel in the narrow, crowded seats is almost impossible, so that the front row, with more space at its disposal, may be properly expected to act as proxy for all the rest. There comes a moment, however, that unites Catholic and Protestant under one spell: it is when the first word falls from the lips of the great speaker. Whatever the subject, whether Catholic reform or the state of the soul after death, a breathless stillness bears witness to enchained attention. Such a theme as the latter must lead far from the daily ways of thought that many tread who listen: when the silver tongue ceases, one may murmur to another, "Mystical!" and yet a very untranscendental mind, borne upward for the moment by that wondrous eloquence, might well catch some vision of a mysterious bond between the Church militant and the Church triumphant--might all but feel a tie linking that strangely-mingled assemblage with the Blessed Company of All Saints.

G. H. P.

THE COMING ELECTIONS IN FRANCE.

The crisis brought about in France by Marshal MacMahon's _coup de palais_ of May 16, 1877, has thrown the country just four years back. Circumstances widely different in character from those which caused the overthrow of M. Thiers on May 24, 1873, have once more placed the government in the hands of men of whom the Republic might well have thought itself for ever rid. At that time the blow was struck by a parliamentary majority. This time it is the representative of the executive power who has thought fit to interfere, seeking to substitute an authoritative for a parliamentary government. When MacMahon assumed power he declared that his post was that of "a sentinel who has to watch over the integrity of your sovereign powers;" but it would appear as though the recollection of his own earlier career, his clerical associations and other secret influences at work, had made him ambitious to occupy a higher position. From the post of sentinel he leaps to that of generalissimo; and there can be little doubt as to the cause which the transition is intended to serve.

There is no longer anything to fear from the Legitimists: the death-knell of that party was rung by the Count de Chambord's famous letter of October 30, 1873, declaring his continued adherence to Bourbon principles. Nor is aught to be apprehended from the Orleanists. They--the Centre-Right in the two houses--long hesitated whether to cast in their lot with the Republic, which would annihilate them by absorption with the Centre-Left, or to join the ranks of the so-called Conservatives, who are undoubtedly destined to swamp them in the stream of imperialism. After much swaying to and fro they have, it would seem, at length determined to follow their usual party tactics and go over bodily to the side which appears to them to present the least immediate danger--viz., the Imperialist. There is no disguising the matter. The battle this time will be between the Republicans and the Bonapartists. M. Gambetta, in the course of his eloquent speech of May 4, 1877, cried, "Le clericalisme, voila l'ennemi." Powerful, however, as is the clerical party to embarrass, it is not strong enough at the urns to over-turn the Republic. Imperialism alone can hope to do that when, arrayed in fight against the present form of government, it seeks to win over to its side the country population, those six million electors for the most part owners of the soil they till, and on whose decision hinges to a large extent the future of France. These _paysans_ will vote for one of two things--the Republic or the Empire, the marshal-president before the 16th of May, or the marshal-president who "belongs to the Right."

In France this is, in some degree at least, understood, and even now each party is mustering all its forces so as to be prepared for the October elections. The Republicans are already well organized, with their committees and sub-committees awaiting the instructions of their leader. They will proceed to the polls encouraged by their success at the last elections, taking credit for the tranquil state of France up to the 16th of May, 1877, setting forth their moderation when in power, the guarantees they have given for the maintenance of order, and the almost unanimous approbation their conduct of affairs has met with at the hands of the foreign press.

The Bonapartists will put on their panoply of battle, strong in the support of the marshal, his prefects, his mayors and the cohorts of inferior appointees, such as the gendarmes, the rural constabulary, and all that powerful mechanism at the disposal of a government which sets up official candidates with the avowed intention of carrying the elections by the almost irresistible force of French centralization. All who have seen in motion that formidable political machine called a French prefecture know what this implies. It will be recollected that nearly all the prefects have been changed since the 16th of May. The prefect is appointed by the Minister of the Interior, and receives from him every day by telegraph the word of command, while the post brings him official circulars. These orders he in turn communicates to his subordinates, the mayors. The mayors are, it is true, not all appointed by the prefects, those in the rural districts being elected by the town councils. Nevertheless, they are all more or less under the thumb of the prefects. They need the prefect's signature almost every day to stamp some official act; they require government grants for the maintenance of schools, roads and other purposes in their communes; they dare not offend the prefects, under penalty of having men appointed as rural constables, mayors' secretaries and letter-carriers who shall be so many enemies of the mayors and shall thwart them at every step. The prefect thus exercises enormous influence in every commune, both over the mayor and the lower class of appointees. He likewise holds in subjection in the various districts the justices of the peace, whose appointments can be revoked at will should they vote against orders or fail to use their influence on behalf of the official candidate. The prefect also reigns supreme over the brigades of foot and mounted gendarmerie scattered throughout his department. Of course, the gendarmes do not follow a man to the poll to see that he votes to order, but both the gendarmes and the rural constables understand that they are to act as gently toward the liquor-sellers who vote as they are bidden as they are to proceed rigorously against those who contend for the right of private judgment. If the latter get into trouble, they must be made an example of, whereas should the supporters of the official candidates have broken the law, matters may easily be arranged. Besides these instruments, the prefect has his newspaper, containing articles carefully prepared beforehand at Paris, which he has distributed gratuitously among the electors during the whole of the campaign. This newspaper enjoys the patronage of the judicial and official advertisements, for the insertion of which, American readers need scarcely be told, it receives very handsome pay. Even the post-office is made to join in the conspiracy against the opposition candidate, and it is no rare occurrence for the newspapers and the voting tickets issued by the anti-official party to be held back at the post-office until the day after the election.

All these means, and others besides, are used to intimidate the country population. The strength of the administration is paraded before them. A great show of energy--or, to use the expressive French word, _de poigne_--is made. This is done in order that the French peasant, instinctively attracted by a display of power and repelled by an exhibition of weakness, may cast his vote for the man who appears to be the stronger candidate, and who enjoys the friendship of Monsieur le Prefet.

In February, 1876, M. Buffet, then Minister of the Interior, only employed the means above described sparingly and stealthily. The favor with which he viewed the aspirations of the clerical party caused him to allow the Bonapartist machine to get somewhat rusty. In October, 1877, M. de Fourtou, the Bonapartist Minister of the Interior, selected by the marshal and his advisers as the fittest for the post, will, we may rest assured, make ample use of the levers of administrative centralization. His past career furnishes evidence that he will not hesitate an instant to declare as the official nominee, and energetically to support, any anti-Republican candidate having the least chance of success. Under such circumstances in almost every electoral district in the north, centre and west of France there will be a Bonapartist candidate. The situation insensibly recalls Dryden's well-known lines:

To further this, Achitophel unites
The malcontents of all the Israelites,
Whose differing parties he could wisely join
For several ends to serve the same design.

Even in 1876, when they were left to their own resources, the Imperialists were able to carry the election of about a hundred of their adherents. Now, with one of their own party as the leading wire-puller, and with the aid of the not over-scrupulous _prefets a poigne_--who have scarcely forgotten the instruction they received during Napoleon's reign--the Imperialists will not despair of getting another one hundred and fifty, perhaps even two hundred, members into the Chamber.

C. H. H.

VON MOLTKE IN TURKEY.

Artemus Ward, giving his reasons for approving of G. Washington, adduced the pleasing fact that "George never slopped over." Had that king of jokers ever uttered a "sparkling remark" about H. von Moltke (as we may be sure he would have done if he had lived until now), it would most probably have conveyed a very similar idea in equally scintillating language. It is currently reported of the last-named gentleman that he "keeps silence in seven languages." Like the great William of Orange, he is popularly nicknamed in his own country "the silent man" (_der Schweiger_). Perhaps this habitual reticence is one reason why his utterances are received--when he speaks at all--by his countrymen generally with such deep respect and interest; for even the all-powerful Bismarck cannot command, among Germans, a stricter attention to his speeches. And with regard to military subjects at least, it is natural that the rest of the world should not be altogether indifferent to what the famous strategist may have to say.

But this ability to refrain from utterance did not, at an earlier period of his life, prevent his doing what is traditionally asserted to gratify a man's enemies; and patriotic Frenchmen ought to be glad to know that he once wrote a book. Indeed, he has written more than one, but there is one of his productions which is now attracting a great deal of attention. This work is entitled "_Letters on the State of, and Events in, Turkey, from 1835 to 1839_. By Helmuth von Moltke, Captain on the General Staff, afterward General and Field-marshal." At least this is the title under which the book has lately been republished at Berlin. The original designation was a little less overpowering, but quite huge enough, apparently, to smother the young literary effort; for it died quickly, and though some forty years have passed since the first edition appeared (with a warm recommendation from the eminent geographer Karl Ritter), yet the one just issued is only the second. It is now preceded by a short introduction written for the publishers at their urgent request; and no more widely-popular book has appeared in Germany for many years. The people take a vast amount of pleasure in reading the descriptions of their staid, soldierly old field-marshal attired in Oriental garb and figuring among scenes which might have been taken from the _Arabian Nights_.

But, aside from any personal considerations, the book is really a very interesting and valuable one, and unquestionably deserved a better fate than that which overtook it at first. And now that everything connected with Turkey possesses a special interest for the world at large, it will well repay a careful perusal.

"Captain" von Moltke went to Turkey in the thirty-fifth year of his age, and at a time when the public interest in that country was hardly less active than it has been lately. The war of 1828 and 1829, and Sultan Mahmud II.'s energetic action in fighting his foes and undertaking vast internal reforms, had caused the attention of the world to be concentrated upon his affairs. The young German staff-officer intended spending only a few weeks in the Ottoman empire. But the sultan was anxious to avail himself of the services of just such men, and the offer of an appointment as _musteschar_ ("imperial councilor") was too tempting for Von Moltke to refuse. Installed in his office, he soon made his value apparent to both the sultan and Chosrew Pasha, the seraskier, who was in high favor at court, and in a short time a vast number and variety of duties were assigned to him. Was a difficult bridge-building project to be carried out, he was the man to make it a success; did the sultan's palace need to have another tower perched upon it, he must direct the work: in fact, it seemed to be the prevailing impression that the advice and assistance of "Moltke Pasha" were good things to have in any situation.

His good standing in high government circles made him much sought after by Turkish subordinate officials, who hoped to make use of his interest to their own advantage. According to the common custom in that part of the world, they sent him presents in great numbers. Horses enough were given to him to mount a whole company of cavalry, and not unfrequently also these propitiatory offerings took the form of hard cash. He asserts that any hesitation about accepting these donations would merely have convinced the givers that he thought them too small; and he was therefore obliged to resort to the expedient of dividing them among his servants and employes. These proceedings won for him the honorable distinction of being considered _delih_, which may be translated by the popular expression "cracked." Among other delicate attentions offered to him as a stranger was the infliction of the bastinado upon certain criminals in his presence and with a view to his gratification. Certain Greeks, who were thus made to take a very important part in getting the entertainment to the foreigner _on foot_, were considerately allowed a very liberal reduction in the number of blows they were to receive, which was only twenty-five hundred!

But, in addition to such diversions, Von Moltke's experiences in Turkey included many opportunities to become thoroughly acquainted with the face of the country and the characteristics of the various races inhabiting it. He accompanied the sultan during an extensive tour made by the latter among the Christian provinces, and gives an interesting account of the journey. At another time he was sent to Syria, where the royal forces were operating against Ibrahim Pasha, and here it was that the future great general went through his first campaign. That it ended in a most disastrous defeat for the side upon which he was enlisted does not seem to have been due to any want of energy on his part. Soon after this he gave up his post under the Turkish government and returned to his native land.

W. W. C.

PUNCHING THE DRINKS.

The latest move upon John Barleycorn's works is engineered by the legislative wisdom of the Old Dominion. It consists in a bell-punch on the model, embalmed already in poetry, of the implement which forms the most conspicuous feature of the street-car conductor's outfit. The disappearance of each drink is to be announced to all within hearing by a sprightly peal on a kind of joy-bell Edgar A. Poe lived too soon to include in his tintinnabulatory verses. The chimes vary in intensity and glee according to the magnitude of the event they at once celebrate and record. Lager elicits but a modest jingle, whisky unadorned is honored with a louder greeting, and the arrival of an artistic cobbler at the seat of thirst is the signal for a triple bob-major of the most brilliant vivacity. On a court day, an election day or a circus day the air will vibrate to the incessant and inspiriting clangor; and as in one part or another of the Commonwealth one at least of those festivals so dear to freemen is in blast always, the din will be ended only by midnight, resounding over her whole surface from daylight to the witching hour.

J.B.'s assailants, and their modes of attack, are innumerable. Every foot of his enceinte is scarred with the dint of siege, and from every battlement "the flight of baffled foes" he has "watched along the plain." Sap and storm have alike failed to bring down his rosy colors. Father Mathew, Gough, the Sons of Temperance, the Straight-Outs,--where are they? He stands intact and defiant. Should he surrender, it will be a wondrous triumph, and all the more so for the simplicity of the means. The marvel will be, as with Columbus and the egg, why everybody did not think of it long ago.

The way once opened, all will flock in. Divines, statesmen, moralists and financiers will all strike for the new placer. The moral reformers will brandish aloft the tinkling weapon, enthusiastic in their determination to use it to the utmost and bring down tippling to a minimum. Lawmakers and tax-gatherers will rejoice over a new and fertile source of revenue, and pile upon it impost on impost, secure of the approval of the most grumbling of tax-payers. To the new fiscal and moral California all will flock.

The extent of the revolution is as little to be estimated in advance as was that caused by Columbus's voyage. Strong drink pervades all civilized lands. It is a universal element, the elimination of which must produce changes impossible to be calculated or foreseen. Should the grand moral results anticipated follow, the difference between civilized man and his sober savage fellow will be widened. Progress will no longer be handicapped, and will press forward with accelerated speed. Its path will cease to be strewn with broken fortunes, happiness and bottles. Policemen and criminal courts will lose, according to standard statistics, four-fifths of their occupation. In that proportion the cause of virtue will gain. Mankind will be four hundred per cent. more honest and peaceable than before the passage of the whisky-punch bill. With the public treasury full, and the detective, the juryman and the shyster existent only in a fossil state, the millennium will have been, as the phrase runs, discounted.

But we run foul of the inevitable and inexorable _If_. Is the machine invented that is to do such work? Is it within the reach of any combination of springs, ratchets and clappers? Is the leviathan of strong drink to be hooked after that fashion--a bit put in his mouth and the monster made to draw the car of state? We shall see. The end would justify much more ponderous and hazardous means, and the chance is worth taking. Independent of the general blessing to mankind involved in the punch idea, Virginia proposes in it a special benefit to herself; and that of course is her chief motive. States so very much in debt as she is are not prone to quixotic philanthropy. Should this novel form of taxation assist in paying the interest on her bonds, she will patiently wait for the secondary, if broader, good accruing to the world at large. Men, she argues, who are able to indulge in stimulants are able to pay their debts, and at least their share of the public debt. Each click of the bell proclaims her adoption of this theory, and at the same time her anxiety to find some means of satisfying her creditors. If she can cancel at once her bonds and Barleycorn, so much the better.

E. B.

THE NAUTCH-DANCERS OF INDIA.

The Prince of Wales was severely censured by some of the English journals for dignifying by his presence the nautch-dancing of India. These performances are peculiar to the country and its religion, and constitute so important a part of the marvels of the East that few male travelers at least fail to witness them. Probably the prince saw no good reason why he should forego any of the benefits of sightseeing vouchsafed to the ordinary traveler. Dancing has always been an important feature of the ceremonial worship of most Oriental peoples. Every temple of note in India has attached to it a troop of nautch-dancers. According to Mr. Sellen, the author of _Annotations of the Sacred Writing's of the Hindus_ (London, 1865), these young girls are "early initiated into all the mysteries of their profession. They are instructed in dancing and vocal and instrumental music, their chief employment being to chant the sacred hymns and perform nautches before their god on the recurrence of high festivals." One of the English papers declared that "witnessing the physical contortions of half-nude prostitutes" was hardly a commendable amusement in the future sovereign of Great Britain. But this is hardly just. Vile as the calling of the nautch-women may be--and one of their duties is to raise funds for the aggrandizement of the temple to which they are attached by selling themselves in its courts--it does not degrade like ordinary prostitution where all society shuns and abhors its votary. In India both priest and layman respect the calling of the nautch-girls as one advancing the cause of religion. It is possible, therefore, to see that their moral nature is, in a sense, sustained by self-respect. "Being always women of more or less personal attractions, which are enhanced," says the same author, "by all the seductions of dress, jewels, accomplishments and art, they frequently receive large sums for the favors they grant, and fifty, one hundred, and even two hundred, rupees have been known to be paid to these sirens at one time." Nor is this very much to be wondered at if it be true that they comprise among their number "some of the loveliest women in the world."

M. H.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

The Two Americas: An Account of Sport and Travel, with Notes
on Men and Manners, in North and South America. By Major Sir
Rose Lambart Price, Bart. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott &
Co.

It would hardly be inferred from such a title that the duodecimo in large print which assumes to discuss the New World is occupied with the diary of a tour in a gunboat from Rio de Janeiro through Magellan's Straits and up the west coast of South America to San Diego, and thence by stage and railway to San Francisco, Salt Lake and Chicago. An exploration of this character could not be exhaustive, and the successors of the gallant major will find an abundance of matter left in the twin continents for much larger books with much smaller titles.

It must be said, in justice to the writer, that the pretentiousness of his book is only skin-deep. It "thunders in the index," but disappears after the front page. He makes no claim to profundity, and is satisfied to be an authority among Nimrods rather than with statesmen and philosophers. The rod and gun suit his hand better than the pen, and he takes not the least trouble to disguise the fact. Style is the very least of his cares: we should almost judge, indeed, that he likes to parade his contempt for it. The pronoun _who_ he constantly applies to animals, from a sheep to a shellfish. Of the Uruguayan thistles he notes: "The abundance of this weed was quite surprising, and consisted chiefly of two kinds." The gentleman of color he invariably mentions as a _nigger_--a word as strange to ears polite in America, and perhaps as natural to them in England, as _nasty_. He plucks at Sir G. Wolseley's laurels won in "licking a few miserable niggers in Ashantee."

But literary vanities can be despised by a man who drops a prong-horned antelope at one thousand and ninety yards; overtakes by swimming, and captures, a turtle in mid-ocean; finishes with a single ball a grizzly _who_ had put to flight the settlers of half a county in Idaho; stalks a guanaco in Patagonia nine feet high to the top of the head; and catches in one day's fishing, "the only day I really worked hard, twenty-seven California salmon, weighing three hundred and twenty-four pounds." The majesty of the facts utterly overshadows any little blemishes in the method of stating them. Truth so grand might well afford to present itself quite naked, as Truth poetically does--much more somewhat defective in the cut of its garments.

Sir Rose Price is a cosmopolitan sportsman, having hunted the jungles of India, the swamps of Eastern Africa and China, the fjelds of Norway, and most other fields of "mimic war." As usual with persons of that taste, he enjoys perfect health, and, like most persons who know that great blessing, he is full of bonhommie and looks on the rosy side of things. Mosquitoes he dislikes: he denounces also the modern Peruvians. But his chief bitterness is reserved for the unhappy gunboat, the Rocket, which took eight months to get him to San Diego, and spent half an hour in turning round. Whether or not that particular segment of England's wooden walls was built in the eclipse, no reader of Sir Rose's book will doubt that she is rigged with curses dark. When he leaves her a cloud seems to be lifted from his soul. Everything thereafter is delightful, if we except the climate of San Francisco, which he abominates as windy and extreme in its daily changes, and the social system which prevails under Brigham Young. The "big trees" transport him; the California stage-drivers are unapproachable in the world; the officers of the United States army treat him with the most assiduous and unvaried courtesy and hospitality; the ladies of both coasts of the United States are unrivaled for beauty; and "the more one sees of America, both of people and country, the better one likes both." He sums up in the following climax: "Should any visit America after reading these lines, let me advise them to pay particular attention to three subjects--_i. e._, canvas-back ducks, terrapin and madeira. This to the uninitiated is a hint worth remembering." The last word, we take it, refers to the wine of that name, which we had thought was still in process of very slow recovery from the eclipse of twenty-five years ago. The major, however, knows wine, and speaks impartially of it. The wines of California he damns unreservedly: the Californians themselves, he says, never drink them.

Sir Rose Price became intimate with the brave and unfortunate Custer. He was to have joined that officer on the expedition which terminated so fatally. His "traps were packed" and he was ready to start, when, as he states it, a singular train of untoward events interposed and saved his scalp. Secretary Belknap was impeached--General Custer was summoned to Washington and gave testimony unfavorable to the accused. General Grant's alleged disgust thereat caused Custer to be deprived of independent command and the power of appointing a staff. Hence _The Two Americas_ and one scalp less at the belt of Sitting Bull.

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall): An Autobiographical
Fragment and Biographical Notes; with Personal Sketches of
Contemporaries, Unpublished Lyrics, and Letters of Literary
Friends. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Neither the biographer nor the critic finds it easy to get a good grip on a personal or literary career so little marked by salient features as that of Procter. The lives of few individuals have rolled on more evenly than his did for the round eighty years which made its term. Not of high or of low birth, rich or poor, feeble or vigorous in health, a man of the world or a recluse, ardent or cold in emotions, his figure is strangely wanting in light and shade. As a poet and a thinker his character is equally evasive. His verse can rarely be pronounced decidedly feeble or commonplace, and never lofty or thrilling. He will be remembered by two or three short poems tender in fancy and soft in finish. Inquirers who are tempted by these to explore the rest of his productions will find them readable, but not memorable, and will wonder at learning that a tragedy of Procter's attained a success on the London stage denied to either of Tennyson's.

The poet will go down to posterity under an assumed name, that under which he was almost exclusively known to readers of his own day. Thus buried under an anonym, and gravitating at all points toward mediocrity, it is odd that so much interest should centre in his life and works as we actually find to exist. This interest may be mainly ascribed to his surroundings. Like Rogers, he shines by reflected light. He numbered among his friends or acquaintances, in varied shades of intimacy, almost every celebrity in British literature during two generations. To these were added leading representatives of the fine arts, music and the drama--Mendelssohn, Lawrence, Landseer, Turner, the Kembles, Edmund Kean. It was a notable visiting-list that embraced all the Lake school, Byron, Dickens, Thackeray, the two Lyttons, Scott, Sydney Smith and a number of others as incongruous in time and tenets. Good taste, amiability, the means and disposition to entertain, would have sufficed, with the aid of less of intellectual and imaginative power than Procter possessed, to keep him in good companionship with men like these, who felt the need of a common professional rallying-point in the metropolis. He avoided collision with any of their crotchets and idiosyncrasies. His antipathies were few, and what he had he was generally successful in repressing. De Quincey seems to have been lowest in his estimation. The genial Elia and the fiery Hazlitt divided his especial and lasting attachment.

Procter was always haunted by the very natural impression that he owed to the world some use of the opportunities afforded him for the study of mind and character by such a concourse of leading men. But he failed to make even a move toward the discharge of that task until a short time before the close of his life. The results, slight as they are, form perhaps the most interesting section of the book before us. It embraces short notices of Byron, Rogers, Crabbe, the three chief Lakers, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Carlyle, Haydon, Campbell, Moore and a few others. Coleridge, we are told, had a "prodigious amount of miscellaneous reading" always at command, and forgot everything in the pleasure of hearing himself talk when he could secure an audience. Wordsworth's poverty at one period of his life is illustrated by his having been met emerging from a wood with a quantity of hazelnuts which he had gathered to eke out the scanty dinner of his family. Doubtless he had collected finer things than nuts, if less available for material sustenance. Wordsworth, breakfasting with Rogers, excused his being late by saying he had been detained by one of Coleridge's long monologues. He had called so early on Coleridge, he explained, because he was to dine with him that evening. "And," said Rogers, "you wanted to draw the sting out of him beforehand." Campbell was in society cautious, stiff and precise, like much of his verse, but was subject to occasional outbreaks, analogous to the "Battle of the Baltic" and "Ye Mariners of England." Crabbe resembled Moore in his passion for lords. Walter Scott was big, broad, easy and self-poised, like one of his own historical novels. He impressed Procter more than any of the rest as great, and consciously great. Leigh Hunt was "essentially a gentleman;" he "treated all people fairly, yet seldom or never looked up to any one with much respect;" and "his mind was feminine rather than manly, without intending to speak disrespectfully of his intellect."