Chapter XI: Part 11

As regards the appearance of the statue in Melos, Mr. Stillman points out that Melos belonged to Athens as late as she had any Greek allegiance, and that it is probable that the statue was sent there for concealment on the occasion of some siege or invasion. When this took place, Mr. Stillman does not pretend to decide with any degree of certainty, but it is evident that it must have been subsequent to the establishment of the Roman hegemony, as the brickwork of the niche in which the statue was found is clearly Roman in character, and before the time of Pausanias and Pliny, as neither of these antiquaries mentions the statue. Accepting, then, the statue as that of the Victory Without Wings, Mr. Stillman agrees with Millingen in supposing that in her left hand she held a bronze shield, the lower rim of which rested on the left knee where some marks of the kind are easily recognisable, while with her right hand she traced, or had just finished tracing, the names of the great heroes of Athens. Valentin's objection, that if this were so the left thigh would incline outwards so as to secure a balance, Mr. Stillman meets partly by the analogy of the Victory of Brescia and partly by the evidence of Nature herself; for he has had a model photographed in the same position as the statue and holding a shield in the manner he proposes in his restoration. The result is precisely the contrary to that which Valentin assumes. Of course, Mr. Stillman's solution of the whole matter must not be regarded as an absolutely scientific demonstration. It is simply an induction in which a kind of artistic instinct, not communicable or equally valuable to all people, has had the greatest part, but to this mode of interpretation archaeologists as a class have been far too indifferent; and it is certain that in the present case it has given us a theory which is most fruitful and suggestive.

The little temple of Nike Apteros has had, as Mr. Stillman reminds us, a destiny unique of its kind. Like the Parthenon, it was standing little more than two hundred years ago, but during the Turkish occupation it was razed, and its stones all built into the great bastion which covered the front of the Acropolis and blocked up the staircase to the Propylaea. It was dug out and restored, nearly every stone in its place, by two German architects during the reign of Otho, and it stands again just as Pausanias described it on the spot where old AEgeus watched for the return of Theseus from Crete. In the distance are Salamis and AEgina, and beyond the purple hills lies Marathon. If the Melian statue be indeed the Victory Without Wings, she had no unworthy shrine.

There are some other interesting essays in Mr. Stillman's book on the wonderful topographical knowledge of Ithaca displayed in the Odyssey, and discussions of this kind are always interesting as long as there is no attempt to represent Homer as the ordinary literary man; but the article on the Melian statue is by far the most important and the most delightful. Some people will, no doubt, regret the possibility of the disappearance of the old name, and as Venus not as Victory will still worship the stately goddess, but there are others who will be glad to see in her the image and ideal of that spiritual enthusiasm to which Athens owed her liberty, and by which alone can liberty be won.

On the Track of Ulysses; together with an Excursion in Quest of the So- called Venus of Melos. By W. J. Stillman. (Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston.)

LITERARY AND OTHER NOTES--V

(Woman's World, March 1888.)

The Princess Emily Ruete of Oman and Zanzibar, whose efforts to introduce women doctors into the East are so well known, has just published a most interesting account of her life, under the title of Memoirs of an Arabian Princess. The Princess is the daughter of the celebrated Sejid Said, Imam of Mesket and Sultan of Zanzibar, and her long residence in Germany has given her the opportunity of comparing Eastern with Western civilisation. She writes in a very simple and unaffected manner; and though she has many grievances against her brother, the present Sultan (who seems never to have forgiven her for her conversion to Christianity and her marriage with a German subject), she has too much tact, esprit, and good humour to trouble her readers with any dreary record of family quarrels and domestic differences. Her book throws a great deal of light on the question of the position of women in the East, and shows that much of what has been written on this subject is quite inaccurate. One of the most curious passages is that in which the Princess gives an account of her mother:

My mother was a Circassian by birth, who in early youth had been torn
away from her home. Her father had been a farmer, and she had always
lived peacefully with her parents and her little brother and sister.
War broke out suddenly, and the country was overrun by marauding
bands. On their approach, the family fled into an underground place,
as my mother called it--she probably meant a cellar, which is not
known in Zanzibar. Their place of refuge was, however, invaded by a
merciless horde, the parents were slain, and the children carried off
by three mounted Arnauts.

She came into my father's possession when quite a child, probably at
the tender age of seven or eight years, as she cast her first tooth in
our house. She was at once adopted as playmate by two of my sisters,
her own age, with whom she was educated and brought up. Together with
them she learnt to read, which raised her a good deal above her
equals, who, as a rule, became members of our family at the age of
sixteen or eighteen years, or older still, when they had outgrown
whatever taste they might once have had for schooling. She could
scarcely be called pretty; but she was tall and shapely, had black
eyes, and hair down to her knees. Of a very gentle disposition, her
greatest pleasure consisted in assisting other people, in looking
after and nursing any sick person in the house; and I well remember
her going about with her books from one patient to another, reading
prayers to them.

She was in great favour with my father, who never refused her
anything, though she interceded mostly for others; and when she came
to see him, he always rose to meet her half-way--a distinction he
conferred but very rarely. She was as kind and pious as she was
modest, and in all her dealings frank and open. She had another
daughter besides myself, who had died quite young. Her mental powers
were not great, but she was very clever at needlework. She had always
been a tender and loving mother to me, but this did not hinder her
from punishing me severely when she deemed it necessary.

She had many friends at Bet-il-Mtoni, which is rarely to be met with
in an Arab harem. She had the most unshaken and firmest trust in God.
When I was about five years old, I remember a fire breaking out in the
stables close by, one night while my father was at his city residence.
A false alarm spread over the house that we, too, were in imminent
danger; upon which the good woman hastened to take me on her arm, and
her big kuran (we pronounce the word thus) on the other, and hurried
into the open air. On the rest of her possessions she set no value in
this hour of danger.

Here is a description of Schesade, the Sultan's second legitimate wife:

She was a Persian Princess of entrancing beauty, and of inordinate
extravagance. Her little retinue was composed of one hundred and
fifty cavaliers, all Persians, who lived on the ground floor; with
them she hunted and rode in the broad day--rather contrary to Arab
notions. The Persian women are subjected to quite a Spartan training
in bodily exercise; they enjoy great liberty, much more so than Arab
women, but they are also more rude in mind and action.

Schesade is said to have carried on her extravagant style of life
beyond bounds; her dresses, cut always after the Persian fashion, were
literally covered with embroideries of pearls. A great many of these
were picked up nearly every morning by the servants in her rooms,
where she had dropped them from her garments, but the Princess would
never take any of these precious jewels back again. She did not only
drain my father's exchequer most wantonly, but violated many of our
sacred laws; in fact, she had only married him for his high station
and wealth, and had loved some one else all the time. Such a state of
things could, of course, only end in a divorce; fortunately Schesade
had no children of her own. There is a rumour still current among us
that beautiful Schesade was observed, some years after this event,
when my father carried on war in Persia, and had the good fortune of
taking the fortress of Bender Abbas on the Persian Gulf, heading her
troops, and taking aim at the members of our family herself.

Another of the remarkable women mentioned by the Princess was her stepmother, Azze-bint-Zef, who seems to have completely ruled the Sultan, and to have settled all questions of home and foreign policy; while her great-aunt, the Princess Asche, was regent of the empire during the Sultan's minority, and was the heroine of the siege of Mesket. Of her the Princess gives the following account:

Dressed in man's clothes, she inspected the outposts herself at night,
she watched and encouraged the soldiers in all exposed places, and was
saved several times only by the speed of her horse in unforeseen
attacks. One night she rode out, oppressed with care, having just
received information that the enemy was about to attempt an entrance
into the city by means of bribery that night, and with intent to
massacre all; and now she went to convince herself of the loyalty of
her troops. Very cautiously she rode up to a guard, requesting to
speak to the 'Akid' (the officer in charge), and did all in her power
to seduce him from his duty by great offers of reward on the part of
the besiegers. The indignation of the brave man, however, completely
allayed her fears as to the fidelity of the troops, but the experiment
nearly cost her her own life. The soldiers were about to massacre the
supposed spy on the spot, and it required all her presence of mind to
make good her escape.

The situation grew, however, to be very critical at Mesket. Famine at
last broke out, and the people were well-nigh distracted, as no
assistance or relief could be expected from without. It was therefore
decided to attempt a last sortie in order to die at least with glory.
There was just sufficient powder left for one more attack, but there
was no more lead for either guns or muskets. In this emergency the
regent ordered iron nails and pebbles to be used in place of balls.
The guns were loaded with all the old iron and brass that could be
collected, and she opened her treasury to have bullets made out of her
own silver dollars. Every nerve was strained, and the sally succeeded
beyond all hope. The enemy was completely taken by surprise and fled
in all directions, leaving more than half their men dead and wounded
on the field. Mesket was saved, and, delivered out of her deep
distress, the brave woman knelt down on the battlefield and thanked
God in fervent prayer.

From that time her Government was a peaceful one, and she ruled so
wisely that she was able to transfer to her nephew, my father, an
empire so unimpaired as to place him in a position to extend the
empire by the conquest of Zanzibar. It is to my great-aunt,
therefore, that we owe, and not to an inconsiderable degree, the
acquisition of this second empire.

She, too, was an Eastern woman!

All through her book the Princess protests against the idea that Oriental women are degraded or oppressed, and in the following passage she points out how difficult it is for foreigners to get any real information on the subject:

The education of the children is left entirely to the mother, whether
she be legitimate wife or purchased slave, and it constitutes her
chief happiness. Some fashionable mothers in Europe shift this duty
on to the nurse, and, by-and-by, on the governess, and are quite
satisfied with looking up their children, or receiving their visits,
once a day. In France the child is sent to be nursed in the country,
and left to the care of strangers. An Arab mother, on the other hand,
looks continually after her children. She watches and nurses them
with the greatest affection, and never leaves them as long as they may
stand in need of her motherly care, for which she is rewarded by the
fondest filial love.

If foreigners had more frequent opportunities to observe the
cheerfulness, the exuberance of spirits even, of Eastern women, they
would soon and more easily be convinced of the untruth of all those
stories afloat about the degraded, oppressed, and listless state of
their life. It is impossible to gain a true insight into the actual
domesticity in a few moments' visit; and the conversation carried on,
on those formal occasions, hardly deserves that name; there is barely
more than the exchange of a few commonplace remarks--and it is
questionable if even these have been correctly interpreted.

Notwithstanding his innate hospitality, the Arab has the greatest
possible objection to having his home pried into by those of another
land and creed. Whenever, therefore, a European lady called on us,
the enormous circumference of her hoops (which were the fashion then,
and took up the entire width of the stairs) was the first thing to
strike us dumb with wonder; after which, the very meagre conversation
generally confined itself on both sides to the mysteries of different
costumes; and the lady retired as wise as she was when she came, after
having been sprinkled over with attar of roses, and being the richer
for some parting presents. It is true she had entered a harem; she
had seen the much-pitied Oriental ladies (though only through their
veils); she had with her own eyes seen our dresses, our jewellery, the
nimbleness with which we sat down on the floor--and that was all. She
could not boast of having seen more than any other foreign lady who
had called before her. She is conducted upstairs and downstairs, and
is watched all the time. Rarely she sees more than the
reception-room, and more rarely still can she guess or find out who
the veiled lady is with whom she conversed. In short, she has had no
opportunity whatsoever of learning anything of domestic life, or the
position of Eastern women.

No one who is interested in the social position of women in the East should fail to read these pleasantly-written memoirs. The Princess is herself a woman of high culture, and the story of her life is as instructive as history and as fascinating as fiction.

* * * * *

Mrs. Oliphant's Makers of Venice is an admirable literary pendant to the same writer's charming book on Florence, though there is a wide difference between the beautiful Tuscan city and the sea-city of the Adriatic. Florence, as Mrs. Oliphant points out, is a city full of memories of the great figures of the past. The traveller cannot pass along her streets without treading in the very traces of Dante, without stepping on soil made memorable by footprints never to be effaced. The greatness of the surroundings, the palaces, churches, and frowning mediaeval castles in the midst of the city, are all thrown into the background by the greatness, the individuality, the living power and vigour of the men who are their originators, and at the same time their inspiring soul. But when we turn to Venice the effect is very different. We do not think of the makers of that marvellous city, but rather of what they made. The idealised image of Venice herself meets us everywhere. The mother is not overshadowed by the too great glory of any of her sons. In her records the city is everything--the republic, the worshipped ideal of a community in which every man for the common glory seems to have been willing to sink his own. We know that Dante stood within the red walls of the arsenal, and saw the galleys making and mending, and the pitch flaming up to heaven; Petrarch came to visit the great Mistress of the Sea, taking refuge there, 'in this city, true home of the human race,' from trouble, war and pestilence outside; and Byron, with his facile enthusiasms and fervent eloquence, made his home for a time in one of the stately, decaying palaces; but with these exceptions no great poet has ever associated himself with the life of Venice. She had architects, sculptors and painters, but no singer of her own. The arts through which she gave her message to the world were visible and imitative. Mrs. Oliphant, in her bright, picturesque style, tells the story of Venice pleasantly and well. Her account of the two Bellinis is especially charming; and the chapters on Titian and Tintoret are admirably written. She concludes her interesting and useful history with the following words, which are well worthy of quotation, though I must confess that the 'alien modernisms' trouble me not a little:

The critics of recent days have had much to say as to the
deterioration of Venice in her new activity, and the introduction of
alien modernisms, in the shape of steamboats and other new industrial
agents, into her canals and lagoons. But in this adoption of every
new development of power, Venice is only proving herself the most
faithful representative of the vigorous republic of old. Whatever
prejudice or angry love may say, we cannot doubt that the Michiels,
the Dandolos, the Foscari, the great rulers who formed Venice, had
steamboats existed in their day, serving their purpose better than
their barges and peati, would have adopted them without hesitation,
without a thought of what any critics might say. The wonderful new
impulse which has made Italy a great power has justly put strength and
life before those old traditions of beauty, which made her not only
the 'woman country' of Europe, but a sort of Odalisque trading upon
her charms, rather than the nursing mother of a noble and independent
nation. That in her recoil from that somewhat degrading position, she
may here and there have proved too regardless of the claims of
antiquity, we need not attempt to deny; the new spring of life in her
is too genuine and great to keep her entirely free from this evident
danger. But it is strange that any one who loves Italy, and sincerely
rejoices in her amazing resurrection, should fail to recognise how
venial is this fault.

Miss Mabel Robinson's last novel, The Plan of Campaign, is a very powerful study of modern political life. As a concession to humanity, each of the politicians is made to fall in love, and the charm of their various romances fully atones for the soundness of the author's theory of rent. Miss Robinson dissects, describes, and discourses with keen scientific insight and minute observation. Her style, though somewhat lacking in grace, is, at its best, simple and strong. Richard Talbot and Elinor Fetherston are admirably conceived and admirably drawn, and the whole account of the murder of Lord Roeglass is most dramatic.

A Year in Eden, by Harriet Waters Preston, is a chronicle of New England life, and is full of the elaborate subtlety of the American school of fiction. The Eden in question is the little village of Pierpont, and the Eve of this provincial paradise is a beautiful girl called Monza Middleton, a fascinating, fearless creature, who brings ruin and misery on all who love her. Miss Preston writes an admirable prose style, and the minor characters in the book are wonderfully lifelike and true.

The Englishwoman's Year-Book contains a really extraordinary amount of useful information on every subject connected with woman's work. In the census taken in 1831 (six years before the Queen ascended the Throne), no occupation whatever was specified as appertaining to women, except that of domestic service; but in the census of 1881, the number of occupations mentioned as followed by women is upwards of three hundred and thirty. The most popular occupations seem to be those of domestic service, school teaching, and dressmaking; the lowest numbers on the list are those of bankers, gardeners, and persons engaged in scientific pursuits. Besides these, the Year-Book makes mention of stockbroking and conveyancing as professions that women are beginning to adopt. The historical account of the literary work done by Englishwomen in this century, as given in the Year-Book, is curiously inadequate, and the list of women's magazines is not complete, but in all other respects the publication seems a most useful and excellent one.

* * * * *

Wordsworth, in one of his interesting letters to Lady Beaumont, says that it is 'an awful truth that there neither is nor can be any genuine enjoyment of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons who live or wish to live in the broad light of the world--among those who either are, or are striving to make themselves, people of consideration in society,' adding that the mission of poetry is 'to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and, therefore, to become more actively and securely virtuous.' I am, however, rather disposed to think that the age in which we live is one that has a very genuine enjoyment of poetry, though we may no longer agree with Wordsworth's ideas on the subject of the poet's proper mission; and it is interesting to note that this enjoyment manifests itself by creation even more than by criticism. To realise the popularity of the great poets, one should turn to the minor poets and see whom they follow, what master they select, whose music they echo. At present, there seems to be a reaction in favour of Lord Tennyson, if we are to judge by Rachel and Other Poems, which is a rather remarkable little volume in its way. The poem that gives its title to the book is full of strong lines and good images; and, in spite of its Tennysonian echoes, there is something attractive in such verses as the following:

Day by day along the Orient faintly glows the tender dawn,
Day by day the pearly dewdrops tremble on the upland lawn:

Day by day the star of morning pales before the coming ray,
And the first faint streak of radiance brightens to the perfect day.

Day by day the rosebud gathers to itself, from earth and sky,
Fragrant stores and ampler beauty, lovelier form and deeper dye:

Day by day a richer crimson mantles in its glowing breast--
Every golden hour conferring some sweet grace that crowns the rest.

And thou canst not tell the moment when the day ascends her throne,
When the morning star hath vanished, and the rose is fully blown.

So each day fulfils its purpose, calm, unresting, strong, and sure,
Moving onward to completion, doth the work of God endure.

How unlike man's toil and hurry! how unlike the noise, the strife,
All the pain of incompleteness, all the weariness of life!

Ye look upward and take courage. He who leads the golden hours,
Feeds the birds, and clothes the lily, made these human hearts of
ours:

Knows their need, and will supply it, manna falling day by day,
Bread from heaven, and food of angels, all along the desert way.

The Secretary of the International Technical College at Bedford has issued a most interesting prospectus of the aims and objects of the Institution. The College seems to be intended chiefly for ladies who have completed their ordinary course of English studies, and it will be divided into two departments, Educational and Industrial. In the latter, classes will be held for various decorative and technical arts, and for wood-carving, etching, and photography, as well as sick-nursing, dressmaking, cookery, physiology, poultry-rearing, and the cultivation of flowers. The curriculum certainly embraces a wonderful amount of subjects, and I have no doubt that the College will supply a real want.

* * * * *

The Ladies' Employment Society has been so successful that it has moved to new premises in Park Street, Grosvenor Square, where there are some very pretty and useful things for sale. The children's smocks are quite charming, and seem very inexpensive. The subscription to the Society is one guinea a year, and a commission of five per cent. is charged on each thing sold.

* * * * *

Miss May Morris, whose exquisite needle-work is well known, has just completed a pair of curtains for a house in Boston. They are amongst the most perfect specimens of modern embroidery that I have seen, and are from Miss Morris's own design. I am glad to hear that Miss Morris has determined to give lessons in embroidery. She has a thorough knowledge of the art, her sense of beauty is as rare as it is refined, and her power of design is quite remarkable.

Mrs. Jopling's life-classes for ladies have been such a success that a similar class has been started in Chelsea by Mr. Clegg Wilkinson at the Carlyle Studios, King's Road. Mr. Wilkinson (who is a very brilliant young painter) is strongly of opinion that life should be studied from life itself, and not from that abstract presentation of life which we find in Greek marbles--a position which I have always held very strongly myself.

(1) Memoirs of an Arabian Princess. By the Princess Emily Ruete of Oman and Zanzibar. (Ward and Downey.)

(2) Makers of Venice. By Mrs. Oliphant. (Macmillan and Co.)

(3) The Plan of Campaign. By Mabel Robinson. (Vizetelly and Co.)

(4) A Year in Eden. By Harriet Waters Preston. (Fisher Unwin.)

(5) The Englishwoman's Year-Book, 1888. (Hatchards.)

(6) Rachel and Other Poems. (Cornish Brothers.)

THE POETS' CORNER--VI

(Pall Mall Gazette, April 6, 1888.)

David Westren, by Mr. Alfred Hayes, is a long narrative poem in Tennysonian blank verse, a sort of serious novel set to music. It is somewhat lacking in actuality, and the picturesque style in which it is written rather contributes to this effect, lending the story beauty but robbing it of truth. Still, it is not without power, and cultured verse is certainly a pleasanter medium for story-telling than coarse and common prose. The hero of the poem is a young clergyman of the muscular Christian school:

A lover of good cheer; a bubbling source
Of jest and tale; a monarch of the gun;
A dreader tyrant of the darting trout
Than that bright bird whose azure lightning threads
The brooklet's bowery windings; the red fox
Did well to seek the boulder-strewn hill-side,
When Westren cheered her dappled foes; the otter
Had cause to rue the dawn when Westren's form
Loomed through the streaming bracken, to waylay
Her late return from plunder, the rough pack
Barking a jealous welcome round their friend.

One day he meets on the river a lovely girl who is angling, and helps her to land

A gallant fish, all flashing in the sun
In silver mail inlaid with scarlet gems,
His back thick-sprinkled as a leopard's hide
With rich brown spots, and belly of bright gold.

They naturally fall in love with each other and marry, and for many years David Westren leads a perfectly happy life. Suddenly calamity comes upon him, his wife and children die and he finds himself alone and desolate. Then begins his struggle. Like Job, he cries out against the injustice of things, and his own personal sorrow makes him realise the sorrow and misery of the world. But the answer that satisfied Job does not satisfy him. He finds no comfort in contemplating Leviathan:

As if we lacked reminding of brute force,
As if we never felt the clumsy hoof,
As if the bulk of twenty million whales
Were worth one pleading soul, or all the laws
That rule the lifeless suns could soothe the sense
Of outrage in a loving human heart!
Sublime? majestic? Ay, but when our trust
Totters, and faith is shattered to the base,
Grand words will not uprear it.

Mr. Hayes states the problem of life extremely well, but his solution is sadly inadequate both from a psychological and from a dramatic point of view. David Westren ultimately becomes a mild Unitarian, a sort of pastoral Stopford Brooke with leanings towards Positivism, and we leave him preaching platitudes to a village congregation. However, in spite of this commonplace conclusion there is a great deal in Mr. Hayes's poem that is strong and fine, and he undoubtedly possesses a fair ear for music and a remarkable faculty of poetical expression. Some of his descriptive touches of nature, such as

In meeting woods, whereon a film of mist
Slept like the bloom upon the purple grape,

are very graceful and suggestive, and he will probably make his mark in literature.

There is much that is fascinating in Mr. Rennell Rodd's last volume, The Unknown Madonna and Other Poems. Mr. Rodd looks at life with all the charming optimism of a young man, though he is quite conscious of the fact that a stray note of melancholy, here and there, has an artistic as well as a popular value; he has a keen sense of the pleasurableness of colour, and his verse is distinguished by a certain refinement and purity of outline; though not passionate he can play very prettily with the words of passion, and his emotions are quite healthy and quite harmless. In Excelsis, the most ambitious poem in the book, is somewhat too abstract and metaphysical, and such lines as

Lift thee o'er thy 'here' and 'now,'
Look beyond thine 'I' and 'thou,'

are excessively tedious. But when Mr. Rodd leaves the problem of the Unconditioned to take care of itself, and makes no attempt to solve the mysteries of the Ego and the non-Ego, he is very pleasant reading indeed. A Mazurka of Chopin is charming, in spite of the awkwardness of the fifth line, and so are the verses on Assisi, and those on San Servolo at Venice. These last have all the brilliancy of a clever pastel. The prettiest thing in the whole volume is this little lyric on Spring:

Such blue of sky, so palely fair,
Such glow of earth, such lucid air!
Such purple on the mountain lines,
Such deep new verdure in the pines!
The live light strikes the broken towers,
The crocus bulbs burst into flowers,
The sap strikes up the black vine stock,
And the lizard wakes in the splintered rock,
And the wheat's young green peeps through the sod,
And the heart is touched with a thought of God;
The very silence seems to sing,
It must be Spring, it must be Spring!

We do not care for 'palely fair' in the first line, and the repetition of the word 'strikes' is not very felicitous, but the grace of movement and delicacy of touch are pleasing.

The Wind, by Mr. James Ross, is a rather gusty ode, written apparently without any definite scheme of metre, and not very impressive as it lacks both the strength of the blizzard and the sweetness of Zephyr. Here is the opening:

The roaming, tentless wind
No rest can ever find--
From east, and west, and south, and north
He is for ever driven forth!
From the chill east
Where fierce hyaenas seek their awful feast:
From the warm west,
By beams of glitt'ring summer blest.

Nothing could be much worse than this, and if the line 'Where fierce hyaenas seek their awful feast' is intended to frighten us, it entirely misses its effect. The ode is followed by some sonnets which are destined, we fear, to be ludibria ventis. Immortality, even in the nineteenth century, is not granted to those who rhyme 'awe' and 'war' together.

Mr. Isaac Sharp's Saul of Tarsus is an interesting, and, in some respects, a fine poem.

Saul of Tarsus, silently,
With a silent company,
To Damascus' gates drew nigh.

* * * * *

And his eyes, too, and his mien
Were, as are the eagles, keen;
All the man was aquiline--

are two strong, simple verses, and indeed the spirit of the whole poem is dignified and stately. The rest of the volume, however, is disappointing. Ordinary theology has long since converted its gold into lead, and words and phrases that once touched the heart of the world have become wearisome and meaningless through repetition. If Theology desires to move us, she must re-write her formulas.

There is something very pleasant in coming across a poet who can apostrophise Byron as

transcendent star
That gems the firmament of poesy,

and can speak of Longfellow as a 'mighty Titan.' Reckless panegyrics of this kind show a kindly nature and a good heart, and Mr. Mackenzie's Highland Daydreams could not possibly offend any one. It must be admitted that they are rather old-fashioned, but this is usually the case with natural spontaneous verse. It takes a great artist to be thoroughly modern. Nature is always a little behind the age.

The Story of the Cross, an attempt to versify the Gospel narratives, is a strange survival of the Tate and Brady school of poetry. Mr. Nash, who styles himself 'a humble soldier in the army of Faith,' expresses a hope that his book may 'invigorate devotional feeling, especially among the young, to whom verse is perhaps more attractive than to their elders,' but we should be sorry to think that people of any age could admire such a paraphrase as the following:

Foxes have holes, in which to slink for rest,
The birds of air find shelter in the nest;
But He, the Son of Man and Lord of all,
Has no abiding place His own to call.

It is a curious fact that the worst work is always done with the best intentions, and that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves very seriously.

(1) David Westren. By Alfred Hayes, M.A. New Coll., Oxon. (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers.)

(2) The Unknown Madonna and Other Poems. By Rennell Rodd. (David Stott.)

(3) The Wind and Six Sonnets. By James Ross. (Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith.)

(4) Saul of Tarsus. By Isaac Sharp. (Kegan Paul.)

(5) Highland Daydreams. By George Mackenzie. (Inverness: Office of the Northern Chronicle.)

(6) The Story of the Cross. By Charles Nash. (Elliot Stock.)

M. CARO ON GEORGE SAND

(Pall Mall Gazette, April 14, 1888.)

The biography of a very great man from the pen of a very ladylike writer--this is the best description we can give of M. Caro's Life of George Sand. The late Professor of the Sorbonne could chatter charmingly about culture, and had all the fascinating insincerity of an accomplished phrase-maker; being an extremely superior person he had a great contempt for Democracy and its doings, but he was always popular with the Duchesses of the Faubourg, as there was nothing in history or in literature that he could not explain away for their edification; having never done anything remarkable he was naturally elected a member of the Academy, and he always remained loyal to the traditions of that thoroughly respectable and thoroughly pretentious institution. In fact, he was just the sort of man who should never have attempted to write a Life of George Sand or to interpret George Sand's genius. He was too feminine to appreciate the grandeur of that large womanly nature, too much of a dilettante to realise the masculine force of that strong and ardent mind. He never gets at the secret of George Sand, and never brings us near to her wonderful personality. He looks on her simply as a litterateur, as a writer of pretty stories of country life and of charming, if somewhat exaggerated, romances. But George Sand was much more than this. Beautiful as are such books as Consuelo and Mauprat, Francois le Champi and La Mare au Diable, yet in none of them is she adequately expressed, by none of them is she adequately revealed. As Mr. Matthew Arnold said, many years ago, 'We do not know George Sand unless we feel the spirit which goes through her work as a whole.' With this spirit, however, M. Caro has no sympathy. Madame Sand's doctrines are antediluvian, he tells us, her philosophy is quite dead and her ideas of social regeneration are Utopian, incoherent and absurd. The best thing for us to do is to forget these silly dreams and to read Teverino and Le Secretaire Intime. Poor M. Caro! This spirit, which he treats with such airy flippancy, is the very leaven of modern life. It is remoulding the world for us and fashioning our age anew. If it is antediluvian, it is so because the deluge is yet to come; if it is Utopian, then Utopia must be added to our geographies. To what curious straits M. Caro is driven by his violent prejudices may be estimated by the fact that he tries to class George Sand's novels with the old Chansons de geste, the stories of adventure characteristic of primitive literatures; whereas in using fiction as a vehicle of thought, and romance as a means of influencing the social ideals of her age, George Sand was merely carrying out the traditions of Voltaire and Rousseau, of Diderot and of Chateaubriand. The novel, says M. Caro, must be allied either to poetry or to science. That it has found in philosophy one of its strongest allies seems not to have occurred to him. In an English critic such a view might possibly be excusable. Our greatest novelists, such as Fielding, Scott and Thackeray cared little for the philosophy of their age. But coming, as it does, from a French critic, the statement seems to show a strange want of recognition of one of the most important elements of French fiction. Nor, even in the narrow limits that he has imposed upon himself, can M. Caro be said to be a very fortunate or felicitous critic. To take merely one instance out of many, he says nothing of George Sand's delightful treatment of art and the artist's life. And yet how exquisitely does she analyse each separate art and present it to us in its relation to life! In Consuelo she tells us of music; in Horace of authorship; in Le Chateau des Desertes of acting; in Les Maitres Mosaistes of mosaic work; in Le Chateau de Pictordu of portrait painting; and in La Daniella of the painting of landscape. What Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Browning have done for England she did for France. She invented an art literature. It is unnecessary, however, to discuss any of M. Caro's minor failings, for the whole effect of the book, so far as it attempts to portray for us the scope and character of George Sand's genius, is entirely spoiled by the false attitude assumed from the beginning, and though the dictum may seem to many harsh and exclusive, we cannot help feeling that an absolute incapacity for appreciating the spirit of a great writer is no qualification for writing a treatise on the subject.

As for Madame Sand's private life, which is so intimately connected with her art (for, like Goethe, she had to live her romances before she could write them), M. Caro says hardly anything about it. He passes it over with a modesty that almost makes one blush, and for fear of wounding the susceptibilities of those grandes dames whose passions M. Paul Bourget analyses with such subtlety, he transforms her mother, who was a typical French grisette, into 'a very amiable and spirituelle milliner'! It must be admitted that Joseph Surface himself could hardly show greater tact and delicacy, though we ourselves must plead guilty to preferring Madame Sand's own description of her as an 'enfant du vieux pave de Paris.'

As regards the English version, which is by M. Gustave Masson, it may be up to the intellectual requirements of the Harrow schoolboys, but it will hardly satisfy those who consider that accuracy, lucidity and ease are essential to a good translation. Its carelessness is absolutely astounding, and it is difficult to understand how a publisher like Mr. Routledge could have allowed such a piece of work to issue from his press. 'Il descend avec le sourire d'un Machiavel' appears as 'he descends into the smile of a Machiavelli'; George Sand's remark to Flaubert about literary style, 'tu la consideres comme un but, elle n'est qu'un effet' is translated 'you consider it an end, it is merely an effort'; and such a simple phrase as 'ainsi le veut Festhe'tique du roman' is converted into 'so the aesthetes of the world would have it.' 'Il faudra relacher mes Economies' is 'I will have to draw upon my savings,' not 'my economies will assuredly be relaxed'; 'cassures resineuses' is not 'cleavages full of rosin,' and 'Mme. Sand ne reussit que deux fois' is hardly 'Madame Sand was not twice successful.' 'Querelles d'ecole' does not mean 'school disputations'; 'ceux qui se font une sorte d'esthetique de l'indifference absolue' is not 'those of which the aesthetics seem to be an absolute indifference'; 'chimere' should not be translated 'chimera,' nor 'lettres ineditees' 'inedited letters'; 'ridicules' means absurdities, not 'ridicules,' and 'qui pourra definir sa pensee?' is not 'who can clearly despise her thought?' M. Masson comes to grief over even such a simple sentence as 'elle s'etonna des fureurs qui accueillirent ce livre, ne comprenant pas que l'on haisse un auteur a travers son oeuvre,' which he translates 'she was surprised at the storm which greeted this book, _not understanding that the author is hated through his work_.' Then, passing over such phrases as 'substituted by religion' instead of 'replaced by religion,' and 'vulgarisation' where 'popularisation' is meant, we come to that most irritating form of translation, the literal word-for-word style. The stream 'excites itself by the declivity which it obeys' is one of M. Masson's finest achievements in this genre, and it is an admirable instance of the influence of schoolboys on their masters. However, it would be tedious to make a complete 'catalogue of slips,' so we will content ourselves by saying that M. Masson's translation is not merely quite unworthy of himself, but is also quite undeserved by the public. Nowadays, the public has its feelings.

George Sand. By the late Elme Marie Caro. Translated by Gustave Masson, B.A., Assistant Master, Harrow School. 'Great French Writers' Series. (Routledge and Sons.)

THE POETS' CORNER--VII

(Pall Mall Gazette, October 24, 1888.)

Mr. Ian Hamilton's Ballad of Hadji is undeniably clever. Hadji is a wonderful Arab horse that a reckless hunter rides to death in the pursuit of a wild boar, and the moral of the poem--for there is a moral--seems to be that an absorbing passion is a very dangerous thing and blunts the human sympathies. In the course of the chase a little child is drowned, a Brahmin maiden murdered, and an aged peasant severely wounded, but the hunter cares for none of these things and will not hear of stopping to render any assistance. Some of the stanzas are very graceful, notably one beginning

Yes--like a bubble filled with smoke--
The curd-white moon upswimming broke
The vacancy of space;

but such lines as the following, which occur in the description of the fight with the boar--

I hung as close as keepsake locket
On maiden breast--but from its socket
He wrenched my bridle arm,

are dreadful, and 'his brains festooned the thorn' is not a very happy way of telling the reader how the boar died. All through the volume we find the same curious mixture of good and bad. To say that the sun kisses the earth 'with flame-moustachoed lip' is awkward and uncouth, and yet the poem in which the expression occurs has some pretty lines. Mr. Ian Hamilton should prune. Pruning, whether in the garden or in the study, is a most healthy and useful employment. The volume is nicely printed, but Mr. Strang's frontispiece is not a great success, and most of the tail-pieces seem to have been designed without any reference to the size of the page.

Mr. Catty dedicates his book to the memory of Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge and Keats--a somewhat pompous signboard for such very ordinary wine--and an inscription in golden letters on the cover informs us that his poems are 'addressed to the rising generation,' whom, he tells us elsewhere, he is anxious to initiate into the great comprehensive truth that 'Virtue is no other than self-interest, deeply understood.' In order to further this laudable aim he has written a very tedious blank verse poem which he calls The Secret of Content, but it certainly does not convey that secret to the reader. It is heavy, abstract and prosaic, and shows how intolerably dull a man can be who has the best intentions and the most earnest beliefs. In the rest of the volume, where Mr. Catty does not take himself quite so seriously, there are some rather pleasing things. The sonnet on Shelley's room at University College would be admirable but for the unmusical character of the last line.

Green in the wizard arms
Of the foam-bearded Atlantic,
An isle of old enchantment,
A melancholy isle,
Enchanted and dreaming lies;
And there, by Shannon's flowing
In the moonlight, spectre-thin,
The spectre Erin sits.

Wail no more, lonely one, mother of exile wail no more,
Banshee of the world--no more!
Thy sorrows are the world's, thou art no more alone;
Thy wrongs the world's--

are the first and last stanzas of Mr. Todhunter's poem The Banshee. To throw away the natural grace of rhyme from a modern song is, as Mr. Swinburne once remarked, a wilful abdication of half the power and half the charm of verse, and we cannot say that Mr. Todhunter has given us much that consoles us for its loss. Part of his poem reads like a translation of an old Bardic song, part of it like rough material for poetry, and part of it like misshapen prose. It is an interesting specimen of poetic writing but it is not a perfect work of art. It is amorphous and inchoate, and the same must be said of the two other poems, The Doom of the Children of Lir, and The Lamentation for the Sons of Turann. Rhyme gives architecture as well as melody to song, and though the lovely lute-builded walls of Thebes may have risen up to unrhymed choral metres, we have had no modern Amphion to work such wonders for us. Such a verse as--

Five were the chiefs who challenged
By their deeds the Over-kingship,
Bov Derg, the Daghda's son, Ilbrac of Assaroe,
And Lir of the White Field in the plain of Emain Macha;
And after them stood up Midhir the proud, who reigned
Upon the hills of Bri,
Of Bri the loved of Liath, Bri of the broken heart;
And last was Angus Og; all these had many voices,
But for Bov Derg were most,

has, of course, an archaeological interest, but has no artistic value at all. Indeed, from the point of view of art, the few little poems at the end of the volume are worth all the ambitious pseudo-epics that Mr. Todhunter has tried to construct out of Celtic lore. A Bacchic Day is charming, and the sonnet on the open-air performance of The Faithfull Shepherdesse is most gracefully phrased and most happy in conception.

Mr. Peacock is an American poet, and Professor Thomas Danleigh Supplee, A.M., Ph.D., F.R.S., who has written a preface to his Poems of the Plains and Songs of the Solitudes, tells us that he is entitled to be called the Laureate of the West. Though a staunch Republican, Mr. Peacock, according to the enthusiastic Professor, is not ashamed of his ancestor King William of Holland, nor of his relatives Lord and Lady Peacock who, it seems, are natives of Scotland. He was brought up at Zanesville, Muskingum Co., Ohio, where his father edited the Zanesville Aurora, and he had an uncle who was 'a superior man' and edited the Wheeling Intelligencer. His poems seem to be extremely popular, and have been highly praised, the Professor informs us, by Victor Hugo, the Saturday Review and the Commercial Advertiser. The preface is the most amusing part of the book, but the poems also are worth studying. The Maniac, The Bandit Chief, and The Outlaw can hardly be called light reading, but we strongly recommend the poem on Chicago:

Chicago! great city of the West!
All that wealth, all that power invest;
Thou sprang like magic from the sand,
As touched by the magician's wand.

'Thou sprang' is slightly depressing, and the second line is rather obscure, but we should not measure by too high a standard the untutored utterances of artless nature. The opening lines of The Vendetta also deserve mention:

When stars are glowing through day's gloaming glow,
Reflecting from ocean's deep, mighty flow,
At twilight, when no grim shadows of night,
Like ghouls, have stalked in wake of the light.

The first line is certainly a masterpiece, and, indeed, the whole volume is full of gems of this kind. The Professor remarks in his elaborate preface that Mr. Peacock 'frequently rises to the sublime,' and the two passages quoted above show how keenly critical is his taste in these matters and how well the poet deserves his panegyric.

Mr. Alexander Skene Smith's Holiday Recreations and Other Poems is heralded by a preface for which Principal Cairns is responsible. Principal Cairns claims that the life-story enshrined in Mr. Smith's poems shows the wide diffusion of native fire and literary culture in all parts of Scotland, 'happily under higher auspices than those of mere poetic impulse.' This is hardly a very felicitous way of introducing a poet, nor can we say that Mr. Smith's poems are distinguished by either fire or culture. He has a placid, pleasant way of writing, and, indeed, his verses cannot do any harm, though he really should not publish such attempts at metrical versions of the Psalms as the following:

A septuagenarian
We frequently may see;
An octogenarian
If one should live to be,
He is a burden to himself
With weariness and woe
And soon he dies, and off he flies,
And leaveth all below.

The 'literary culture' that produced these lines is, we fear, not of a very high order.

'I study Poetry simply as a fine art by which I may exercise my intellect and elevate my taste,' wrote the late Mr. George Morine many years ago to a friend, and the little posthumous volume that now lies before us contains the record of his quiet literary life. One of the sonnets, that entitled Sunset, appeared in Mr. Waddington's anthology, about ten years after Mr. Morine's death, but this is the first time that his collected poems have been published. They are often distinguished by a grave and chastened beauty of style, and their solemn cadences have something of the 'grand manner' about them. The editor, Mr. Wilton, to whom Mr. Morine bequeathed his manuscripts, seems to have performed his task with great tact and judgment, and we hope that this little book will meet with the recognition that it deserves.

(1) The Ballad of Hadji and Other Poems. By Ian Hamilton. (Kegan Paul.)

(2) Poems in the Modern Spirit, with The Secret of Content. By Charles Catty. (Walter Scott.)

(3) The Banshee and Other Poems. By John Todhunter. (Kegan Paul.)

(4) Poems of the Plain and Songs of the Solitudes. By Thomas Bower Peacock. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.)

(5) Holiday Recreations and Other Poems. By Alexander Skene Smith. (Chapman and Hall.)

(6) Poems. By George Morine. (Bell and Son.)

A FASCINATING BOOK

(Woman's World, November 1888.)