letter I fear that you will be tempted to deny me any claim to the

title. Indeed, it has been the fear of forfeiting altogether your regard that has kept me thus far silent, and has caused me to delay, from year to year, that full explanation which I can no longer with any propriety or justice withhold.

"I go back to the time when I first paid you a visit at your parsonage. I never shall forget the cheery joyousness of that little family scene at your fireside, the winning modesty and womanliness of your lost Rachel, and the serenity and peace that lay about your household. It was to me, fresh from the vices of Europe, like some charming Christian idyl, in whose atmosphere I felt myself not only an alien, but a profane intruder; for, at that very time, I was bound by one of those criminal _liaisons_ to which so many strangers on the Continent are victims. Your household and your conversation prompted a hope and a struggle for better things. But, my dear Johns, the struggle was against a whole atmosphere of vice. And it was only when I had broken free of entanglement, that I learned, with a dreary pang, that I was the father of a child,--my poor, dear Adele!"

The Doctor crumpled the letter in his hand, and smote upon his forehead. Never, in his whole life, had he known such strange revulsion of feeling. With returning calmness he smooths the letter upon his desk, and continues:--

"I expect your condemnation, of course; yet listen to my story throughout. That child I might have left to the tender mercies of the world, might have ignored it, and possibly forgotten its existence. Many a man, with fewer stains on his conscience than I have, would have done this, and met the world and old friends cheerily. But then the memory of you and of your teachings somehow kindled in me what I counted a worthier purpose. I vowed that the child should, if possible, lead a guileless life, and should no way suffer, so far as human efforts could prevent, for the sins of the parents. The mother assented, with what I counted a guilty willingness, to my design, and I placed her secretly under the charge of the old godmother of whom Adele must often have spoken.

"But I was no way content that she should grow up under French influences, and to the future knowledge (inevitable in these scenes) of the ignominy of her birth. And if that knowledge were ever to come, I could think of no associations more fitted to make her character stanch to bear it than those that belong to the rigid and self-denying virtues which are taught in a New England parish. Is it strange that I recurred at once to your kindness, Johns? Is it strange that I threw the poor child upon your charity?

"It is true, I used deceit,--true that I did not frankly reveal the truth; but See how much was stake! I knew in what odium such trespasses were held in the serenity of your little towns; I knew, that, if you, with Spartan courage, should propose acceptance of the office, your family would reject it. I knew that your love of truth would be incapable of the concealments or subterfuges which might be needed to protect the poor child from the tongue of scandal. In short, I was not willing to take the risk of a repulse. 'Such deceit as there may be,' I said, 'is my own. My friend Johns can never impute it as a sin to Adele.' I am sure you will not now. Again, I felt that I was using deceit (if you will allow me to say it) in a good cause, and that you yourself, when once the shock of discovery should be past, could never reprimand yourself for your faithful teachings to an erring child, but must count her, in your secret heart, only another of the wandering lambs which it was your duty and pleasure to lead into the true fold. Had she come to you avowedly as the child of sin, with all the father's and mother's guilt reeking upon her innocent head, could you have secured to her, my dear Johns, that care and consideration and devotion which have at last ripened her Christian character, and made her proof against slander?"

Here the Doctor threw down the letter again, and paced up and down the room.

"The child of sin! the child of sin! Who could have thought it? Yet does not Maverick reason true? Does not Beelzebub at time reason true? Adaly! my poor, poor Adaly!"

"It seemed to me," the letter continued, "that there might possibly be no need that either you or my poor child should ever know the whole truth in this matter; and I pray (with your leave) that it maybe kept from her even now. You will understand, perhaps, from what I have said, why my visits have been more rare than a fatherly feeling would seem to demand: to tell truth, I have feared the familiar questionings of her prattling girlhood. Mature years shrink from perilous inquiry, I think, with an instinct which does not belong to the freshness of youth.

"But from your ears, in view of the rumors that have come to my hearing, I could not keep the knowledge longer. I cannot, dear Johns, read your heart, and say whether or not you will revolt at the idea of any possible family tie between your son and my poor Adele. But whatever aspect such possibility may present to your mind, I can regard it only with horror. If I have deceived you, the deceit shall reach no such harm as this. Whatever your Christian forgiveness or your love for Adele (and I know she is capable of winning your love) may suggest, I can never consent that any stain should be carried upon your family record by any instrumentality of mine. I must beg, therefore, that, if the rumor be true, you use all practicable means, even to the use of your parental authority, in discountenancing and forbidding such intimacy. If necessary to this end, and Reuben be still resident at the parsonage, I pray you to place Adele with Mrs. Brindlock, or other proper person, until such time as I am able to come and take her once more under my own protection.

"If you were a more worldly man, my dear Johns, I should hope to win your heartier cooperation in my views by telling you that recent business misfortunes have placed my whole estate in peril, so that it is extremely doubtful if Adele will have any ultimate moneyed dependence beyond the pittance which I have placed in trust for her in your hands. Should it be necessary, in furtherance of the objects I have named, to make communication of the disclosures in this letter to your son or to Miss Johns, you have my full liberty to do so. Farther than this, I trust you may not find it necessary to make known the facts so harmful to the prospects and peace of my innocent child.

"I have thus made a clean breast to you, my dear Johns, and await your scorching condemnation. But let not any portion of it, I pray, be visited upon poor Adele. I know with what wrathful eyes you, from your New England standpoint, are accustomed to look upon such wickedness; and I know, too, that you are sometimes disposed to 'visit the sins of the fathers upon the children'; but I beg that your anathemas may all rest where they belong, upon my head, and that you will spare the motherless girl you have taught to love you."

Up and down the study the Doctor paced, with a feverish, restless step, which in all the history of the parsonage had never been heard in it before.

"Such untruth!" is his exclamation. "Yet no, there has been no positive untruth; the deception he admits."

But the great fact comes back upon his thought, that the child of sin and shame is with him. All his old distrust and hatred of the French are revived on the instant; the stain of their iniquities is thrust upon his serene and quiet household. And yet what a sweet face, what a confiding nature God has given to this creature conceived in sin! In his simplicity, the good Doctor would have fancied that some mark of Cain should be fixed on the poor child.

Again, the Doctor had somewhere in his heart a little of the old family pride. The spinster had ministered to it, coyly indeed by word, but always by manner and conduct. How it would have shocked the stout Major, or his good mother, even, to know that he had thus fondled and fostered the vagrant offspring of iniquity upon his hearth! A still larger and worthier pride the Doctor cherished in his own dignity,--so long the honored pastor of Ashfield,--so long the esteemed guide of this people in paths of piety.

What if it should appear, that, during almost the entire period of his holy ministrations, he had, as would seem, colluded with an old acquaintance of his youth--a brazen reprobate--to shield him from the shame of his own misdeeds, and to cover with the mantle of respectability and with all the pastoral dignities this French-speaking child, who, under God, was the seal of the father's iniquities?

As he paced back and forth, there was a timid knock at the door; and in a moment more, Adele, blooming with health, and radiant with hope, stood before him. Her face had never beamed with a more wondrous frankness and sweetness.

BOOKS FOR OUR CHILDREN

The war is over, yet our fight is not through; and we always, in this life of ours, and especially in this new country and eventful age, have trouble enough to keep our eyes open when they ought to sleep, and our hands busy when they have earned the right to rest. Several knotty questions already begin to try us sorely, although we are confident that the knots can be untied by skillful fingers without calling upon the sword to cut them. We shall settle the Reconstruction problem, the Negro, the Debt, John Bull and Louis Napoleon, all in due time, and without war. But there is a question to be settled which comes nearer home to each family, and which distances all others in magnitude and interest:--What shall we do with our children? how train and teach them in body and mind, by schools and books, by play and work, for that marvellous American life that is now opening to us its new and eventful chapter in the history of man? The Slaveholders' Rebellion is put down; but how shall we deal with the never-ceasing revolt of the new generation against the old? and how keep our Young America under the thumb of his father and mother without breaking his spirit or blighting his destiny? Our brave old flag has swept the waters of all Secession craft, and our iron-clad Monitors do not flinch in fear of the model fleets of France and England mustered at Cherbourg. But what standard rules over our children and youth? and what Monitors are keeping watch over our countless schools and playgrounds? Our people have risen to a new and mighty sense of our national life, and the thousands of Americans who are now returning from Europe say that the tide there has wholly turned in our favor, and Americans are too proud to boast of their country, and are quite safe in leaving her to speak for herself. But how are we recruiting the ranks of the nation from the fresh blood and spirits, the new impulses and passions of childhood? And how does our legion of juvenile infantry compare with the young legions of England, France, Germany, Russia, or Italy? These are grave questions, not to be approached without misgiving, yet not by any means with mistrust, much less with despair. We of course do not propose to try to answer all or any of them now, but must be content with throwing out a few plain thoughts upon the kind of intellectual food we are giving our children, and especially upon the kind of juvenile literature that we ought to encourage. We do not claim for the American child any exemption from the common lot, nor make him out to be above or below the human nature to which he belongs, in common with the children of the Old World. He is a chip of the old block; and that old block is from the old trunk that has been growing for ages, is a great deal older than the father or mother, as old as mankind; and each new comer into the field bears with him some traces or remains of all the traits and dispositions and liabilities that have appeared in the ancestors and become the heritage of the race. Not only the is the American child of the same nature as his European contemporary, but he is born into very much of the same life, the same general circumstances of climate, scenery, morals, and religion, and surely into much of the same nursery talk and juvenile amusement, not excepting books. "Mother Goose" has a nursery catholicity wherever the English language is spoken, that is denied to any other book; and fruitful as America has been and is in children's books, we have not yet apparently added a single one to the first rank of juvenile classics, and have distanced AEsop, Bunyan, De Foe, Edgeworth, and the old fairy story-tellers, as little as we have distanced Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Goethe in the higher imagination.

It may be that the children's books that have been most characteristic of our native authors have been in important respects a mistake, and the "Quarterly Review," not without reason, assailed them some years ago in two articles of considerable sagacity and much patient study. But we have outgrown them now, and see the error that afflicted them. We have ceased to think it the part of wisdom to cross the first instincts of children, and to insist upon making of them little moralists, metaphysicians, and philosophers, when great Nature determines that their first education shall be in the senses and muscles, the affections and fancy, rather than in the critical judgment, logical understanding, or analytic reason. Peter Parley--Heaven rest his soul!--has gone to his repose, and much of his philosophizing and moralizing is buried deeper than his dust; yet Peter himself lives, and will live, in the graphic histories, anecdotes, sketches of life and Nature, and the rich treasures of pictorial illustration, that have blessed the eyes and ears, the hearts and imaginations of our children. He was wisest when he least thought of being wise, and weakest when he tried to be strong. We are not likely to repeat his mistakes, and our best new juvenile literature is too loyal to the old standards and to common-sense to undertake to make a precocious reasoning monster of the dear little child whom God is asking us to help onward in the unfolding of his senses and the observation of the world and its scenes and people.

We must be willing to own that our America is a child of the ages, and to give our children a full share of their birthright as heirs of the juvenile treasures of all nations. Judaea must still give her sacred stories, that charm youth as much, as they edify maturity; Arabia loses nothing of the enchantment of her marvellous tales in the clear light of this nineteenth century, but makes her dreams dearer, as science and business insist that we shall not dream at all; the old classic times shall still teach us in the fables of AEsop, and the romantic ages shall be with us in the legends of fairies and elves, dwarfs and giants, saints and angels, that are constantly coming up with faces new or old; the Protestant Reformation shall speak to our little folks in the lives of the martyrs and in "Pilgrim's Progress"; the age of modern adventure shall never tire in "Robinson Crusoe"; the new secular era of ethical schooling shall not lose its power so long as Maria Edgeworth finds a printer; nor will the didactic school of writers of juvenile religious books die out so long as Hannah More stands by our Sunday schools and Tract Societies, and keeps their piety and ethics from swamping themselves wholly in dogmatism and dulness.

Yet whilst we are thus to acknowledge and use the old treasures, we are none the less bound to have a juvenile literature of our own; and because we are possessed by the truly catholic spirit that appreciates all good things, we are more likely to have a full and fair growth from the good seed that takes root in our own nurseries. What that new growth shall be we do not presume to predict, for it cannot be fully known until it comes up and speaks for itself; yet it is not presumption to undertake to say what are the essential conditions of its rise and the probable traits of its character. It must grow out of our civilized Christian mind under the peculiar circumstances and dispositions of our children, according to the great laws of God, as they bear upon our sensibilities, tastes, faculties, and associations. It is already showing unmistakable signs of its quality, and none the less so, although we must allow that its best specimens are fugitive stories, stray poems, and magazine pieces, rather than any conspicuous master-works of literature that rival the old standards.

The American child is undoubtedly in some respects peculiar alike in temperament, disposition, and surroundings. He is somewhat delicate and sensitive in organization, and not as tough and thick-skinned, surely, as his English cousins. He grows up in the midst of excitement, with an average amount of privilege and prosperity unknown heretofore to the mass of children in any community. Our children are generally supplied with pocket-money to an extent unknown in the good old times; and the books that circulate among them at holiday seasons, and are sometimes found in school and Sunday libraries, often have a richness and beauty that were never seen fifty years ago on the parlor tables or shelves of parents. Reading begins very early among us; and the universal hurry of the American mind crowds children forward, and tempts them in pleasure, as in study and work, to rebel at the usual limitations of years, and push infancy prematurely into childhood, childhood into youth, and youth into maturity. The spirit of competition shows its head unseasonably, and there is a precocious fever of ambition among those who are taught almost in the cradle to feel that here the race for the highest prizes is open to all, and the emulation of the school is the forerunner of the rivalry of business, society, and politics. Our heads are apt to be much older than our shoulders, and English critics of our juvenile literature say that much of it seems written for the market and counting-room rather than for the nursery and play-ground. Yet we are not disposed to quarrel with the American child, or put him down at the feet of the pet children of Europe. He is a precious little creature, with rare susceptibilities and powers, whose very perils indicate high aptitudes, and whose great exposures should move us to temper not a little our pity for his failings with admiration for his excellence. Our boys and girls have done nobly, and the nation which they have now become may well prove its greatness by new wisdom and care for the boys and girls who are yet to grow up men and women and become the nation that is to be.

There are vital questions that meet us at the very outset of the discussion:--What are children? and what is the difference between them and grown people? and what should be the difference in the reading provided for the two? Some persons seem to think and speak of children as a distinct order of beings, and not as a part of mankind. The simple truth is, that they are men and women in _nature_, but not in _development_. All that is _actual_ in the mature mind is _potential_ in them, and there is no theory more absurd than that which affirms that the adult powers and dispositions are wholly factitious, and education makes us what we are, instead of simply bringing out what is born in us. The great human mind is in the little child as well as in the gray-headed sage; but it has not come forth into activity and consciousness. The most complete culture, instead of obliterating diversities of natural talent and tendency, does but develop them more effectually; and our great masters and schools are more memorable for the strongly pronounced minds and wills that go forth from them than for any monotony of mediocre scholars or uniformity of paragons of genius. True culture brings out the common human mind in all, and the rare gifts that are in the few, and vindicates the force of Nature by the perfection of its art. Our juvenile literature should proceed upon this idea, and treat its little readers as representatives of the great human mind on its way to its full rights and powers and quite true to its high birthright, as far as it puts forth its prerogative.

What error, then, can be greater than to take it for granted that children have no mind, because they have not had time and means to bring out their whole mind? As far as it goes, is not their mind the great human intelligence? and even in its lispings and stumblings, does it not give hints and promises of the majestic powers that are on the way to development? Children are, indeed, treated and written about, sometimes, as if they were _little fools_, and any baby-talk or twaddle were good enough for them; but we are inclined to believe that they are in the main _great fools_ who make this mistake, and so sadly libel God's handiwork. In fact, it is probably safe to say, that, so far as their mind works, it works with more intensity and quickness than the adult mind; for they are fresh and unworn, and they put their whole life into the first play of their faculties. They do not know many things, indeed, and require constant instruction; but their _intelligence_ is by no means as defective as their _knowledge_, but is as sharp and unwearied as their insatiate appetite for food. Talk nonsense to children, forsooth! Rather talk it to anybody else,--far rather to the pedants and worldlings who have fooled away their common-sense by burying thought under book-dust, or by hiding nature under shams and artifices. Children not only want the true thing said to them, but want to have it said in a true and fitting way; and no language pleases them so much as the pure, simple speech which the good old Bible uses, and which all our great masters of style follow. Any one who has seen the quizzical expression of a score or two of bright little children in listening to some old or young proser, who is undertaking to palm off upon them his platitudes for wisdom and his baby-talk for simplicity, cannot remain long in doubt as to which party leans most towards the fool.

There is, indeed, great difference between tween the mind of children and of adults, and literature should respect and provide for this difference,--although it is true that the best books please and edify both, and the nursery and parlour can meet in pretty full fellowship over "AEsop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," and "Pilgrim's Progress," if not over the "Vicar of Wakefield" and Edgeworth's "Popular Tales." The great distinction between juvenile and adult literature is a very obvious and natural one. Not to discuss now the absence of business cares and ambition, children, in their normal, healthful state, know nothing of love as a passion, whilst it is the conspicuous feature of adult society, and the motive of all romances for readers of advanced years, and especially for all who have just passed into the charmed borders of adult life. I do not say, indeed, that children are to know nothing of love, or that it should be shut out of their habitual reading; for love is a part of human life, and is organized into manners and institutions, and sanctioned and exalted by religion. As a fact, and as sustaining great practical relations, love is to be treated freely in juvenile literature, but not as a passion. Every boy and girl who reads the Prayer-Book, and hears every-day talk, and sees what is going on in the world, knows that men and women marry, and young people fall in love and are engaged. This is all well, and children's stories may tell freely whatever illustrates the home usages and social customs of the people; but the more the love senses and passions are left to sleep in their sacred and innocent reserve within their mystic cells, so much the better for the child whilst a child, and so much the better for the youth when no more a child, and Nature betrays her great secret, and the charming hallucinations of romance open their fascinations and call for the sober counsels of wisdom and kindness.

But if love, as a passion, does not belong to our juvenile literature, its place is fully supplied by a power quite as active and marvellous,--the mighty genius of play. Try to read a three-volume novel of love and flirtation to a set of well-trained, healthfully organized children, or try them with a single chapter that describes the raptures or the jealousies, and gives the letters and dialogues, of the enamored couple, who are destined, through much tribulation, to end their griefs at the altar, not of sacrifice, but of union, and you will find your auditors ready to go to sleep or to run away. The girls may, indeed, brighten up, if a famous dress or set of jewels, a great party or grand wedding, is described; and the boys may open their eyes, if the story turns upon a smart horse-race or a plucky fight. Children, in their normal state, do not enter into the romance of the passion, nor should they be trained to it. They may be bred in all courtesy and refinement without it; and the girls and boys may be true to their sex, and have all the gentle manners that should come from proper companionship. The boys will not want a certain chivalry in the schoolroom, play-ground, and parlor, and the girls will learn from instinct as well as discipline the delicacy that is their charm and shield. Nothing can be worse than to ply them with love-stories, or throw them into the false society that fosters morbid sentiments and impulses, and gives them the passions without the judgment and control of men and women. Kind Providence, in the gift of play, has mercifully averted this danger, and brought our children into a companionship that needs no precocious passion to give it charm.

How wonderful it is, this instinct for play, and how worthy of our careful and serious study! It is the key to the whole philosophy of juvenile literature: for we take it for granted that books for children belong to the easy play, rather than to the hard work of life; and that they are an utter failure, if they do not win their way by their own charms. Here, in fact, we distinguish between juvenile literature and school-books. School-books are for children, indeed, but not for them alone, but for the teacher also, and they are to be as interesting as possible; yet they are not for play, but for work, and it is best to be quite honest at the outset, and let the little people know that study is work and not play, and that their usual gift-books are not for study mainly, but for entertainment. In this way, study is the more patient and comforting, and reading more free and refreshing. Children make the distinction very shrewdly, and are quite willing to pore carefully over their school-lessons, but are very impatient of lessons that are sugared over with pleasantry, and detect the pedagogue under the mask of the playmate. They are willing to have their pills sugared over, but do not like to have them called sugar-plums.

Playfulness does not require the sacrifice of good sense or sound principle or serious purpose, but subjects them to certain conditions; and there is no form in which exalted characters or sacred truths are brought home more effectually to the hearts both of young and old than in the stones and dramas that make life speak for itself, and play themselves into the affections and fancy. It does require that the laws of attention and emotion, the unities and the varieties of aesthetic art, shall be observed; and as soon as the book is dull, and offers no sparkling waters nor fair flowers nor tempting fruits to lure the flagging reader over its intervals of dusty road or sandy waste, it is a failure, and not what it pretends to be. With children, play demands more the _varieties_ than the _unities_ of Art; and their first education deals with those spontaneous sensibilities and impulses that insist upon being played upon freely, with little regard to exact method. Those sports are most pleasing to young children, especially, that touch the greatest number of the keys of sensation and will, and make them answer to the pulse of Nature and companionship. One may learn a deal of philosophy from the most popular nursery rhymes; and Mother Goose, good old soul, who has sung many of those strange old verses to children for a thousand years, if the antiquaries are not mistaken, proves to us that the way to please little ears and eyes is by presenting a variety of images in the easiest succession, without any attempt at intellectual method or logical unity. Her style is that of the kaleidoscope, and she turns words and pictures over as rapidly, and with as little method, as that instrument shows in its handling of colors. As the child's development advances, the varieties need more of the unities, and the favorite sports rise into more method and sequence, nearer the rule of actual life: marbles give way to cricket, and blindman's bluff yields to chess. For a long time, however, anything like severe intellectual unity of plan is irksome, and even the toys that require careful thought and embody extraordinary workmanship are less agreeable than the rude playthings that can be knocked about at will, and made to take any shape or use that the changing mood or fancy may decree. The rag baby is more popular with the little girl than the mechanical doll; and a tin pot, with a stick to drum upon it, pleases little master more than the elegant music-box. As long as the child's mind is in a chaos of unsorted sensations and impulses, he does not like plays that are so utterly in advance of his position as to present a perfect order that calls up Kosmos within him before its time. There is a good Providence in this necessity, and Nature is servant of God in her attempt to touch and voice the separate keys of the great organ, before she tunes them together to the great harmonies and symphonies that are to be performed. She is busy with each key first by itself; and there is something winning, as well as healthful, in that intensity which attaches to the sensations and impulses of children in this their first education. They are finding themselves and the universe at once; and the marvellous zest with which they see and feel and hear and handle whatever comes within their reach is a kind of rapturous wedding of the senses to the world of Nature and life, and a prelude to that more interior and spiritual union that is to be.

Our best books for children must not forget this great fact, and they must present great variety of impression and images in such sequence and unity as the young reader's mind can easily appreciate and enjoy. The great juvenile classics are rich illustrations of this law, and they have a "variety" as "infinite" as Cleopatra's, whilst they aim at a purpose far more true and persistent than hers, and do not end with a broken life and a serpent's sting. They are invariably _sensuous_ in their imagery, but not _sensual_; and the great masters of the nursery well know that the senses are not made to be earth-born drudges of the flesh, but godly ministers of the spirit, and their true office is to open the gates of the whole world of truth and goodness and beauty. All who know the ways of true children will understand the distinction between _sensual_ and _sensuous_ impression. Hold up before a true child a ripe, red apple, or a bunch of purple grapes, and how the eye sparkles and the hand reaches forth! But the desire expressed is half aspiration and half appetite, and the dainty rises into ideal beauty under this dear little aspirant's gaze, and is seen in a light quite other than that which falls on a gourmand's table, after he is gorged with viands and wine, and ends his gross banquet with a dessert of fruit which his stupid and uncertain eye can hardly distinguish. The child is _sensuous_, the gourmand is _sensual_. We should give the benefit of this distinction to all of our authors who abound in graphic description and encourage pictorial illustration. The senses should be skilfully appealed to, and the higher spheres of the reason, conscience, and affections may thus be effectually reached. Pictures, whether in words or lines or colors, are symbols; and the child's mind is a rare master of all the true symbolism of Nature and Art. There is no end to the range of susceptibility in children to impressions from this source; and all the chords of feeling and impulse, pathos and humor, seem waiting and eager to be played upon. Instead of needing to be laboriously schooled to pass from one emotion or mental state to another, they go by alternations as easy as the changing feet that pass from a walk to a run and back again, as if change were the necessity of Nature, not the work of the striving will.

Our books for children should study this great law, and be free to go "from grave to gay, from gentle to severe," as is the habit of all high literature. They should not be afraid to let the child have a good hearty laugh before or after telling him that he should study or should pray. It is odd to see the rapid transitions through which very well-behaved children will go in an instant; and I have known a child who has been romping in a complete gale of innocent roguery to burst into tears, if not duly called to the table in time to hear grace said, and, after clucking with the hens, crying as if heart-broken over a dead bird. I went last spring with a friend to witness a great religious festival at a distinguished ecclesiastical community,--the festival of Corpus Christi, with its gorgeous procession. We were admitted through the private entrance, and saw the altar-boys in the entry waiting in caps and robes to lead off the pageant. They were in high spirits, and pulling and nudging each other like boys of the usual mould. Soon they appeared in church with folded hands, chanting the "Lauda Sion" before the uplifted Host as demurely as if they had walked down from the pictures of seraphs on the walls. "What little hypocrites!" the Philistines at once cry; "what a trick, thus to affect to be pious, after those pranks of mischief!" I say, No such thing; and although not personally given to Corpus-Christi ceremonials as a devotee, I interpret such transitions as I would interpret the conduct of my own children who came from a frolic on the lawn or a game of croquet to a Scripture lesson or the household worship. Let us be true to human nature, and give every genuine faculty and impulse fair play. Our American literature can afford to be more generous to children than it has been, and let them gambol on the play-ground none the less from keeping the library open for grave reading, and the chapel not closed in ghostly gloom.

Our books for children must be truthful as well as interesting; and we are quite strong in the belief that they should be true to all our just American ideas. It cannot be expected, indeed, that our story-tellers, poets, and biographers for the young will desert their pleasant arts, and inflict upon their readers prosy essays upon American law, society, reform, and progress. What we should expect and demand is, that our children should be brought up to regard American principles as matters of course; and their books should take these principles for granted, and illustrate them with all possible interest and power. They should be trained in the belief that here the opportunities for education, labor, enterprise, freedom, influence, and prosperity are to be thrown open to all; and the highest encouragement should be given to every one to seek the chief good. We are not afraid to say that our children's books should be thoroughly republican, or, in the best sense of the word, democratic, and should aim to give respect to the genuine man more than to his accidents, and to rank character above circumstance. They should rebuke the ready American failings, the haste to be rich, the passion of ostentation, the rage for extravagance, the habit of exaggeration, the impatience under moderate means, the fever for excitement, and the great disposition to subordinate the true quality of life to the quantity of appliances of living. They should especially assail the failing to which our children are tempted,--the morbid excitement, precocious sensibility, and airs and ambition to which they are prone. Some of our best juvenile books, especially some of our best magazine writers, do great service in this way; and it has seemed to use that we may well learn wisdom from the juvenile literature of France in this matter, and translate with profit many of those excellent books for children which do not for a moment countenance the idea that they are to have any hot-bed forcing, or have their senses and fancy turn upon the passions and cares that belong to mature years. Christendom has no cause for gratitude to France for its adult romantic literature; and it is an offence to American as to English homes for its free notions of married life. But the French literature for the young is quite another matter, and may teach purity and wisdom to the parents who allow their sons and daughters to ape the ways and often the follies of men and women, and spoil the flower and fruit of maturity by forcing open the tender bud of childhood and youth.

We may take quite as serious lessons against the wrong of schooling the young in precocious care and calculation, and setting a bounty upon the too ready covetousness of our people. We spend freely, indeed, as well as accumulate eagerly; but there is a fearful over-estimate of wealth amongst us, in the absence of other obvious grounds of distinction; and the evil is nurtured sometimes from childhood. Such books as "The Rich Poor Man and the Poor Rich Man" do vast good; and it is very important that our sons and daughters should have a loving, helpful, cheerful, devout childhood, a true age of gold, to look back upon and ever to remember, without the taint of Mammon-worship that multiplies care, blasts prosperity with inordinate desires, and curses adversity by making it out to be the loss of the supreme good, and little short of hell. It is well to take very high ground with them, and train them to know and enjoy the supreme treasures that are open to them all, to make them observers and lovers of Nature and Art, and to take it for granted that the best gifts of God and humanity are freely offered to every true life. Our magnificent country should be held before them as their rightful heritage, and its flowers, plants, trees, minerals, animals, lakes, rivers, seas, mountains, should be made a part of every child's property. What observers of Nature, in its uses and beauty, bright children are, and how much may be made of their aptness by good books and magazines! I confess, for my own part, that I never saw and enjoyed Nature truly until I learned to see it through a bright child's eyes. Good Providence gave us our little farm and our little May at about the same time; and the child has been the priestess of our domain, and has made spring of our autumn, May of our September. She noticed first only bright colors and moving objects and striking sounds; but with what zest she noticed them, and jogged our dull eyes and ears! Then she observed the finer traits of the place, and learned to call each flower and tree, and even each weed, by name, and to join the birds and chickens in their glee. She gathered bright weeds as freely as garden-flowers, and, with larger wisdom than she knew, came shouting and laughing with a lapful of treasures, in which the golden-rod or wild aster, the violet or buttercup, the dandelion or honeysuckle, were as much prized as the pink or larkspur, the rose or lily. Darling seer, how much wiser and better might we be, if we had as open eye for loveliness and worth within and without the inclosures of our pride and our pets! I called the first rustic arbor that I built by her name; and May's Bower, on its base of rock, with solid steps cut in the granite by a faithful hand, and with a sight of the distant sea through its clustering vines, is to us a good symbol of childhood, as observer, interpreter, and lover of Nature. When I see in a handsome book or magazine for children any adequate sketch of natural scenes and objects, I am grateful for it as a benefaction to children, and a help to them in their playful yearning to read that elder alphabet of God.

How much power there is in the elements of the beautiful that so abound in the universe, and what capacity in children for enjoying them, especially in our American children, may we not say! The constitution of Americans is in some respects delicate, and shows great susceptibility in early life, and capability of aesthetic culture. Our children are vastly wiser and happier by being taught to distinguish beauty from tinsel pretence, and to see the difference between the fine and superfine. The whole land groans in ignorance of this distinction; and the most extravagant outlay for children and adults is made for dress and furniture, toys and ornaments, that are an abomination to true taste. We may begin the reform at the beginning, and apply the ideas of the truly beautiful in the books and magazines that we put before our children. We can make Preraphaelites of them of the right kind, by training their eye, not to love bald scenes and ghostly figures, but to appreciate natural form, feature, and color, and composition, and so possess their senses and fancy with the materials and impressions of loveliness, that, when the constructive reason or the ideal imagination begins to work, it will work wisely and well, and not only dream fair visions and speak and write fair words, but carve true shapes, and plan noble grounds, and rear goodly edifices for dwelling, or for study, art, humanity, or religion. The child that learns to see the beautiful has the key of a blessed gate to God's great temple, and can find everywhere an entrance to the shrine. What a new and higher Puritanism will come, when we learn to apply pure taste to common affairs, and carry out all the laws of truth and beauty, as the old saints carried out the letter of the Bible! The day is coming, and is partly come. Do not many New-Yorkers look upon the Central Park as being, with its waters and flowers and music for all, as good a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount as any in the Astor Library? and does not solid Boston regard its great organ as a part of that great interpretation of the Divine Mind which Cotton and Winthrop sought only in the sacred book? Give us a thirty years' fair training of our children in schools and reading, galleries and music-halls, gardens and fields, and our America, the youngest among the great nations, will yield to none the palm of strength or of beauty; and as she sits the queen, not the captive, in her noble domain, her children, who have learned grace under her teaching, shall rise up and call her blessed.

In claiming thus for our children's books this embodiment of wholesome truth in beautiful forms, we are not favoring any feeble _dilettanteism_, or sacrificing practical strength to pleasant fancy. Nay, quite the contrary; for it is certain that truth has power, especially with the young, only when it is so embodied as to show itself in the life, and to speak and act for itself. We believe in dynamic reading for children; and we now make a distinct and decided point of this, quite positive, as we are, that books are a curse, if they merely excite the sensibilities and stimulate the nerves and brain, and bring on sedentary languor, and do not stir the muscles, and quicken the will, and set the hand and foot to work and play under the promptings of a cheerful heart. Undoubtedly many children read too much, and spindle legs and narrow chests and dropsical heads are the sad retribution upon the excess. But the best books are good tonics, and as refreshing and strengthening as the sunshine and the sea-water, the singing-circle, and the play-ground. Let us encourage this tonic quality in our juvenile literature, and favor as much of sound muscular morality and religion as stories of adventure, sketches of sports, hints of exercise and health, with all manner of winning illustrations, can give. It is well that Dio Lewis is now on a mission to our Young Folks, and after exhorting adults, and especially the clergy, to repent of their manifold sins against the body, he is now carrying the gospel of health to children; and I have been quite amused at having him quoted against my own physical transgressions, by his most attentive reader, the youngest member of the family. The cure should not stop there; but the tonic force should knock at every door of the mental and moral faculties, and touch every chord of latent power. A fresh, free, dauntless will should breathe through every page, and be the invigorating air of our juvenile literature, and be as essential to its strength as truth is to its light and beauty to its color. The great social, civil, and religious forces that move the nation should be brought to bear upon the young, not by learned essays or by ambitious philosophizing, but by living portraitures and taking life-sketches, stirring songs and ballads. A good home story can express as much of the law and economy of the household as a chapter of Paley or Wayland. Our girls and boys will feel the great pulse-beat of patriotism and loyalty more free, by following the brave old flag through perils to final peace, in graphic sketches of our history, from Washington's times to Lincoln's, from the days of Greene and Putnam to those of Sherman and Grant, than from any learned lectures on the Constitution, or abridgments of Kent and Story. Those more universal and spiritual forces that bind us to our race and to God are surely not to be ignored in books for children, difficult as it is to present them adequately; and the absence of a national church makes religion so various in its ideas and forms as not to offer that ready and common symbolism that makes the cross as expressive as the flag to some nations, and binds the home and country to the altar. But our best writers are finding the way to touch the chords of supreme religion in the young, and the nation is fast developing a faith and worship that meet the wants of youthful feeling and fancy better than catechisms and lectures. Our children have a much more genial church nurture now than their parents had, and the worship in their chapels is sometimes more impressive than that in the churches. I confess to great regret that we, who are now in our prime, had so little joy and action in connection with our early religious impressions, and wish better things for our children, and delight to see the signs of amendment. Our best books are helping it on, and bringing poetry and art, as well as good sense and devout faith, to the rescue of our boys and girls from the prosy pedantry that forgets that the religion of the Bible itself did not begin in the dry letter, but was a rich and various life with Nature and among men, before it was made into a book.

All moving forces, whether domestic, social, civil, or religious, reach children most effectually through personal influence; and not only do they imitate the examples, but they seem to imbibe or breathe in the spirit of their associates and teachers. Hence the importance of having our best people write for children, and give them the precious ministry of all their high qualities of mind and heart. The little readers may not take in the whole of the influence consciously at once, but they are more receptive than they know, and take in the grace of refined manner and pure culture, even as they take diseases, without being aware of the fact at the time. Is it not well to treat them in their relation to human life as God treats them in their relation to the universe? He puts before them the broad earth and the glorious heavens from the first, and He does not strike off a toy edition of Nature to come down to little eyes and ears. Children look upon the whole universe at once, and their first impressions store up truths that years may interpret, but cannot exhaust. Why not throw open the best minds, and their earth and heaven of earthly sense and starry wisdom, with equal generosity to the young, and put them into communication with the best writers and thinkers of the land? They will not take the whole sense and spirit of the talk or story in at once, but they will have a certain impression or germinal seed of it within; and even before they can interpret or explain what they have learned, they will feel and enjoy and apply most of its meaning and power. Especially do they take in more than they know of the higher manifestations of moral and spiritual life; and a good story of a true soul, or an earnest sermon or devout prayer, goes deeper into their minds and hearts than they can understand, and they may have a great deal of religion before they know a word of theology.

In view of this assimilating force of example and personal character, it is cheering to note the number of our first-class writers who are giving their pens and studies to our children. The authors who figure on the list of contributors to our leading juvenile magazine need not hide their heads before any staff of contributors to any periodical in the country; and they do not seem to lose their wisdom or their wit in getting down from their stately heights to chat and romp with the boys and girls who come thronging to meet them. It is a good sign for our American letters; and I am not ashamed to say, that, after reading some of the numbers of that monthly, and talking over the remainder with a bright child of six, and as bright a girl of eighteen, I felt somewhat envious of the position of those writers, and wondered whether I could write anything that the rising millions of American children would be eager to read. Who might not be envious of the distinction, and which of our poets may not be proud to walk in the steps of Whittier, and sing loving words for the nursery and play-ground, after ringing the liberty-bell and sounding the bugle-call of liberty through the nation?

We close these cursory thoughts by presenting one idea that seems to us of the highest importance, although it may strike others as far-fetched or fanciful. It refers to the start that our children are to take in life, or, rather, to the ground from which they are to start. Their destiny depends, of course, upon what they make of themselves in their career; but does it not also depend upon their starting-ground, and is there not something dreary in the frequent remark that we can make anything of ourselves, and the implication that we are nothing at all at the outset? The old civilization reversed this and the great question was not, What shall a man make of himself? but, What is his _status_? and his family or national birthright was more urged than his individual enterprise. Now I am not fighting against our American individualism, or expecting to establish a new national caste; yet may I not hint that it would be well, if our children were brought up in such sense of their native privilege, worth, and respectability as to start upon a solid ground of loyalty and reliance, and to go forth into the world with the feeling, that, whilst they have much to win, they have also much to hold? I would not have them bred in Jewish exclusiveness or pride; yet even that is better than no sense of birthright at all. How striking and suggestive is that trait in the life of one of the most benevolent and liberal-minded of our American Israelites, who, when his leg was broken, and his physician advised amputation, stoutly refused to submit to the knife, and said that he would rather die first, since he was of the tribe of Levi, and none of that tribe were allowed to enter the sanctuary with mutilated limbs! A plucky son of Abraham indeed; and his pluck would be worthy of our imitation, if we insisted on such a _status_ of manly integrity as to refuse to do any wrong to our manhood, on the ground of its destroying our position and selling our birthright. We do need certainly some deeper sense of our personal and national worth at the outset: and our children should be trained to look upon themselves as heirs of the ages, children of Providence, and bound to keep the priceless trust confided to them. A cheerful home should love them before they can return the love, a great nation guard over themselves, and a broad and exalted and genial and helpful church should be mother to them before they know how to interpret her care; and the golden light of the first home should shine upon them as but the faint, earthly gleam of that uncreated light that kindles every rational intelligence, and sends it into the world, as if, "trailing clouds of glory," we came "from God who is our home." We ask our writers for children to throw this cheerful radiance upon the outset of their pilgrimage, and relieve the sore pressure of care, and the anxious burden of never ceasing responsibility, and the force of incessant temptation, by the great and blessed conviction that we start from the supreme good, and, if we go away from it, we not only come short of a precious prize, but we forfeit a sacred birthright. All the ages, nations, leaders, sages, heroes, apostles, have endowed us and our children with a priceless heritage; and we are not to start in life as if we were a set of beggars, aliens, slaves, or heathen. Rome has thought to bless and enrich our America by putting the land under the watch of the immaculate and supernatural Mother. I will not stop now to fight against Rome, but will be content to say that our children have from God a peculiar guardianship from the natural mother who bore them, and from that natural humanity which is the daughter of God and the recipient of all natural and supernatural graces. Mystical as this thought may seem, when stated in general terms, every genuine American poem and story is full of its meaning; and our best juvenile literature is making it our household faith and love. We shall see good days, when our children start from the true home feeling, and a sacred memory joins hands with a brave and cheerful hope. Our good old mothers thought so; and our books are good as they repeat their wisdom and renew their love. We might weary our readers, if we tried to say what is in our minds of the American mother in history, and the ideal mother that should charm our books and pictures; but no more now.

DIOS TE DE.[1]

In the green and shadowy woodpath, Where the Fly-bird's[2] golden hue, Like a shower of broken fire, Lights the forests of Peru, 'Mid primeval sward and tree, Lives the bird, DIOS TE DE.

There the Indian hunter roaming Softly through the massive shade, By the Laurel and Cinchona And the thick-leaved Balsam made, Halts beneath the canopy At the sounds, DIOS TE DE.

And the bow unbent reposes, And the poisoned arrows rest, And a gush of solemn feeling Thrills with awe the savage breast, While the bird unharmed and free Rocks and sings, DIOS TE DE.

If the name of God thus dropping From the preacher of the wild, In the solitude of Nature, Wraps with awe the forest child,-- What a meaning deep have we In the bird, DIOS TE DE!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "May God give thee."

[2] _Trochilas Chrysurus._

MODE OF CATCHING JELLY-FISHES.

Not the least attractive feature in the study of these animals is the mode of catching them. We will suppose it to be a warm, still morning at Nahant, in the last week of August, with a breath of autumn in the haze, that softens the outlines of the opposite shore, and makes the horizon line a little dim. It is about eleven o'clock, for few of the Jelly-Fishes are early risers; they like the warm sun, and at an earlier hour they are not to be found very near the surface. The sea is white and glassy, with a slight swell, but no ripple, and seems almost motionless as we put off in a dory from the beach near Saunders's Ledge. We are provided with two buckets: one for the larger Jelly-Fishes, the Zygodactyla, Aurelia, etc.; the other for the smaller fry, such as the various kinds of Ctenophorae, the Tima, Melicertum, etc. Besides these, we have two nets and glass bowls, in which to take up the more fragile creatures that cannot bear rough handling. A bump or two on the stones before we are fairly launched, a shove of the oar to keep the boat well out from the rocks along which we skirt for a moment, and now we are off. We pull around the point to our left and turn toward the ledge, filling our buckets as we go. Now we are crossing the shallows that make the channel between the inner and outer rocks of Saunders's Ledge. Look down: how clear the water is, and how lovely the sea-weeds above which we are floating! dark brown and purple fronds of the Ulvae, and the long blades of the Laminaria with mossy green tufts between. As we issue from this narrow passage we must be on the watch, for the tide is rising, and may come laden with treasures, as it sweeps through it. A sudden cry from the oarsman at the bow, not of rocks or breakers ahead, but of "A new Jelly-Fish astern!" The quick eye of the naturalist of the party pronounces it unknown to zoologists, undescribed by any scientific pen. Now what excitement! "Out with the net!--we have passed him! he has gone down! no, there he is again! back us a bit." Here he is floating close by us; now he is within the circle of the net, but he is too delicate to be caught safely in that way; while one of us moves the net gently about, to keep him within the space inclosed by it, another slips the glass bowl under him, lifts it quickly, and there is a general exclamation of triumph and delight;--we have him! And now we look more closely. Yes, decidedly he is a novelty as well as a beauty (_Ptychogena lactea_, A. Ag.). Those white mossy tufts for ovaries are unlike anything we have found before, and not represented in any published figures of Jelly-Fishes. We float about here for a while, hoping to find more of the same kind, but no others make their appearance, and we keep on our way to East Point, where there is a capital fishing-ground for Medusae of all sorts. Here two currents meet, and the Jelly-Fishes are stranded, as it were, along the line of juncture, able to move neither one way nor the other. At this spot the sea actually swarms with life: one cannot dip the net into the water without bringing up Pleurobrachia, Bolina, Idyia, Melicertum, etc., while the larger Zygodactyla and Aurelia float about the boat in numbers. These large Jelly-Fishes produce a singular effect as one sees them at some depth beneath the water; the Aureliae, especially, with their large disks, look like pale phantoms wandering about far below the surface; but they constantly float upward, and if not too far out of reach, one may bring them up by stirring the water under them with the end of the oar.

When we passed an hour or so floating about just beyond East Point, and have nearly filled our buckets with Jelly-Fishes of all sizes and descriptions, we turn and row homeward. The buckets look very pretty as they stand in the bottom of the boat with the sunshine lighting up their living contents. The Idyia glitters and sparkles with ever-changing hues; the Pleurobrachiae dart about, trailing their long, graceful tentacles after them; the golden Melicerta are kept in constant motion by their quick, sudden contractions; and the delicate, transparent Tima floats among them all, not the less beautiful because so colorless. There is an unfortunate Idyia, who, by some mistake, has got into the wrong bucket, with the larger Jelly-Fish, where a Zygodactyla has entangled it among his tentacles and is quietly breakfasting upon it.

During our row the tide has been rising, and as we near the channel of Saunders's Ledge, it is running through more strongly than before, and at the entrance of the shallows a pleasant surprise is prepared for us: no less than half a dozen of our new friends, (the Ptychogena, as he has been baptized,) come to look for their lost companion perhaps, await us there, and are presently added to our spoils. We reach the shore heavily laden with the fruits of our morning's excursion.

The most interesting part of the work for the naturalist is still to come. On our return to the Laboratory, the contents of the buckets are poured into separate glass bowls and jars; holding them up against the light, we can see which are our best and rarest specimens; these we dip out in glass cups and place by themselves. If any small specimens are swimming about at the bottom of the jar, and refuse to come within our reach, there is a very simple mode of catching them. Dip a glass tube into the water, keeping the upper end closed with your finger, and sink it till the lower end is just above the animal you want to entrap; then lift your finger, and as the air rushes out the water rushes in, bringing with it the little creature you are trying to catch. When the specimens are well assorted, the microscope is taken out, and the rest of the day is spent in studying the new Jelly-Fishes, recording the results, making notes, drawings, etc.

Still more attractive than the rows by day are the night expeditions in search of Jelly-Fishes. For this object we must choose a quiet night; for they will not come to the surface if the water is troubled. Nature has her culminating hours, and she brings us now and then a day or night on which she seems to have lavished all her treasures. It was on such a rare evening, at the close of the summer of 1862, that we rowed over the same course by Saunders's Ledge and East Point described above. The August moon was at her full, the sky was without a cloud, and we floated on a silver sea; pale streamers of the aurora quivered in the north, and notwithstanding the brilliancy of the moon, they, too, cast their faint reflection in the ocean. We rowed quietly along past the Ledge, past Castle Rock, the still surface of the water unbroken, except by the dip of the oars and the ripple of the boat, till we reached the line off East Point, where the Jelly-Fishes are always most abundant, if they are to be found at all. Now dip the net into the water. What genie under the sea has wrought this wonderful change? Our dirty, torn old net is suddenly turned to a web of gold, and as we lift it from the water, heavy rills of molten metal seem to flow down its sides and collect in a glowing mass at the bottom. The truth is, the Jelly-Fishes, so sparkling and brilliant in the sunshine, have a still lovelier light of their own at night; they give out a greenish golden light, as brilliant as that of the brightest glow-worm, and on a calm summer night, at the spawning season, when they come to the surface in swarms, if you do but dip your hand into the water, it breaks into sparkling drops beneath your touch. There are no more beautiful phosphorescent animals in the sea than the Medusae. It would seem that the expression, "rills of molten metal," could hardly apply to anything so impalpable as a Jelly-Fish, but, although so delicate in structure, their gelatinous disks give them a weight and substance; and at night, when their transparency is not perceived, and their whole mass is aglow with phosphorescent light, they truly have an appearance of solidity which is most striking, when they are lifted out of the water and flow down the sides of the net.

The various kinds present very different aspects. Wherever the larger Aureliae and Zygodactylae float to the surface, they bring with them a dim spreading halo of light, the smaller Ctenophorae become little shining spheres, while a thousand lesser creatures add their tiny lamps to the illumination of the ocean: for this so-called phosphorescence of the sea is by no means due to the Jelly-Fishes alone, but is also produced by many other animals, differing in the color as well as the intensity of their light; and it is a curious fact that they seem to take possession of the field by turns. You may row over the same course which a few nights since glowed with a greenish golden light wherever the surface of the water was disturbed, and though equally brilliant, the phosphorescence has now a pure white light. On such an evening, be quite sure, that, when you empty your buckets on your return and examine their contents, you will find that the larger part of your treasures are small Crustacea (little shrimps). Of course there will be other phosphorescent creatures, Jelly-Fishes, etc., among them, but the predominant color is given by these little Crustacea. On another evening the light will have a bluish tint, and then the phosphorescence is principally due to the Dysmorphosa.

Notwithstanding the beauty of a moonlight row, if you would see the phosphorescence to greatest advantage, you must choose a dark night, when the motion of your boat sets the sea on fire around you, and a long undulating wave of light rolls off from your oar as you lift it from the water. On a brilliant evening this effect is lost in a great degree, and it is not until you dip your net fairly under the moonlit surface of the sea that you are aware how full of life it is. Occasionally one is tempted out by the brilliancy of the phosphorescence, when the clouds are so thick, that water, sky, and land become one indiscriminate mass of black, and the line of rocks can be discerned only by the vivid flash of greenish golden light, when the breakers dash against them. At such times there is something wild and weird in the whole scene, which at once fascinates and appalls the imagination; one seems to be rocking above a volcano, for the surface around is intensely black, except where fitful flashes or broad waves of light break from the water under the motion of the boat or the stroke of the oars. It was on a night like this, when the phosphorescence was unusually brilliant, and the sea as black as ink, the surf breaking heavily and girdling the rocky shore with a wall of fire, that our collector was so fortunate as to find in the rich harvest he brought home the entirely new and exceedingly pretty little floating Hydroid, described under the name of Nanomia. It was in its very infancy, a mere bubble, not yet possessed of the various appendages which eventually make up its complex structure; but it was nevertheless very important to have seen it in this early stage of its existence, since, when a few full-grown specimens were found in the autumn, which lived for some days in confinement and quietly allowed their portraits to be taken, it was easy to connect the adult animal with its younger phase of life, and thus make a complete history.

Marine phosphorescence is no new topic, and we have dwelt too long, perhaps, upon a phenomenon that every voyager has seen, and many have described; but its effect is very different, when seen from the deck of a vessel, from its appearance as one floats through its midst, distinguishing the very creatures that produce it; and any account of the Medusae which did not include this most characteristic feature would be incomplete.

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.

In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the weekly journal, "Household Words," a short poem among the proffered contributions, very different, as I thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually setting through the office of such a periodical, and possessing much more merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a circulating-library in the western district of London. Through this channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was accepted, and was invited to send another. She complied, and became a regular and frequent contributor. Many letters passed between the journal and Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never seen.

How we came gradually to establish at the office of "Household Words" that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. But we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was governess in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and returned; and that she had long been in the same family. We really knew nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable; so I suppose we insensibly invented the rest. For myself, my mother was not a more real personage to me than Miss Berwick the governess became.

This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number, entitled "The Seven Poor Travellers," was sent to press. Happening to be going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, distinguished in literature as "Barry Cornwall," I took with me an early proof of that number, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table, that it contained a very pretty poem, written by a certain Miss Berwick. Next day brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of the poem to the mother of its writer, in its writer's presence; that I had no such correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that the name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss Adelaide Anne Procter.

The anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to explain why the parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to me for these poor words of remembrance of their lamented child, strikingly illustrates the honesty, independence, and quiet dignity of the lady's character. I had known her when she was very young; I had been honored with her father's friendship when I was myself a young aspirant; and she had said at home, "If I send him, in my own name, verses that he does not honestly like, either it will be very painful to him to return them, or he will print them for papa's sake, and not for their own. So I have made up my mind to take my chance fairly with the unknown volunteers."

Perhaps it requires an editor's experience of the profoundly unreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to accept unsuitable articles--such as having been to school with the writer's husband's brother-in-law, or having lent an alpenstock in Switzerland to the writer's wife's nephew, when that interesting stranger had broken his own--fully to appreciate the delicacy and the self-respect of this resolution.

Some verses by Miss Procter had been published in the "Book of Beauty," ten years before she became Miss Berwick. With the exception of two poems in the "Cornhill Magazine," two in "Good Words," and others in a little book called "A Chaplet of Verses," (issued in 1862 for the benefit of a Night Refuge,) her published writings first appeared in "Household Words" or "All the Year Round."

Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of October, 1825. Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an age, that I have before me a tiny album, made of small note-paper, into which her favorite passages were copied for her by her mother's hand before she herself could write. It looks as if she had carried it about, as another little girl might have carried a doll. She soon displayed a remarkable memory and great quickness of apprehension. When she was quite a young child, she learned with facility several of the problems of Euclid. As she grew older, she acquired the French, Italian, and German languages, became a clever piano-forte player, and showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing. But as soon as she had completely vanquished the difficulties of any one branch of study, it was her way to lose interest in it and pass to another. While her mental resources were being trained, it was not at all suspected in her family that she had any gift of authorship, or any ambition to become a writer. Her father had no idea of her having ever attempted to turn a rhyme, until her first little poem saw the light in print.

When she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary number of books, and throughout her life she was always largely adding to the number. In 1853 she went to Turin and its neighborhood, on a visit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic lady. As Miss Procter had herself professed the Roman Catholic faith two years before, she entered with the greater ardor on the study of the Piedmontese dialect, and the observation of the habits and manners of the peasantry. In the former she soon became a proficient; and on the latter head, I extract from her familiar letters, written home to England at the time, two pleasant pieces of description.

A BETROTHAL.

"We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a description. Last Tuesday we had just done dinner at about seven, and stepped out into the balcony to look at the remains of the sunset behind the mountains, when we heard very distinctly a band of music, which rather excited my astonishment, as a solitary organ is the utmost that toils up here. I went out of the room for a few minutes, and on my returning, Emily said,--

"'Oh! that band is playing at the farmer's near here. The daughter is _fiancee_ to-day, and they have a ball.'

"I said,--

"'I wish I was going!'

"'Well,' replied she, 'the farmer's wife did call to invite us.'

"'Then I shall certainly go,' I exclaimed.

"I applied to Madame B., who said she would like it very much, and we had better go, children and all. Some of the servants were already gone. We rushed away to put on some shawls, and put off any shred of black we might have about us, (as the people would have been quite annoyed, if we had appeared on such an occasion with any black,) and we started. When we reached the farmer's, which is a stone's throw above our house, we were received with great enthusiasm; the only drawback being, that no one spoke French, and we did not yet speak Piedmontese. We were placed on a bench against the wall, and the people went on dancing. The room was a large whitewashed kitchen, (I suppose,) with several large pictures in black frames, and very smoky. I distinguished the 'Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian,' and the others appeared equally lively and appropriate subjects. Whether they were Old Masters or not, and if so, by whom, I could not ascertain. The band were seated opposite us. Five men, with wind instruments, part of the band of the National Guard, to which the farmer's sons belong. They played really admirably, and I began to be afraid that some idea of our dignity would prevent my getting a partner; so, by Madame B.'s advice, I went up to the bride, and offered to dance with her. Such a handsome young woman! Like one of Uwins's pictures. Very dark, with a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale. The children were already dancing, as well as the maids. After we came to an end of our dance, which was what they call a Polka-Mazourka, I saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of _fiance_ to ask me to dance, which, after a little hesitation, he did. And admirably he danced, as indeed they all did,--in excellent time, and with a little more spirit than one sees in a ball-room. In fact, they were very like one's ordinary partners, except that they wore ear-rings and were in their shirt-sleeves, and truth compels me to state that they decidedly smelt of garlic. Some of them had been smoking, but threw away their cigars when we came in. The only thing that did not look cheerful was, that the room was only lighted by two or three oil-lamps, and that there seemed to be no preparation for refreshments. Madame B., seeing this, whispered to her maid, who disengaged herself from her partner, and ran off to the house; she and the kitchen-maid presently returning with a large tray covered with all kinds of cakes, (of which we are great consumers and always have a stock,) and a large hamper full of bottles of wine, with coffee and sugar. This seemed all very acceptable. The _fiancee_ was requested to distribute the eatables, and a bucket of water being produced to wash the glasses in, the wine disappeared very quickly,--as fast as they could open the bottles. But elated, I suppose, by this, the floor was sprinkled with water, and the musicians played a Monferrino, which is a Piedmontese dance. Madame B. danced with the farmer's son, and Emily with another distinguished member of the company. It was very fatiguing,--something like a Scotch reel. My partner was a little man, like Pierrot, and very proud of his dancing. He cut in the air and twisted about, until I was out of breath, though my attempts to imitate him were feeble in the extreme. At last, after seven or eight dances, I was obliged to sit down. We stayed till nine, and I was so dead beat with the heat that I could hardly crawl about the house, and in an agony with the cramp, it is so long since I have danced."

A MARRIAGE.

"The wedding of the farmer's daughter has taken place. We had hoped it would have been in the little chapel of our house; but it seems some special permission was necessary, and they applied for it too late. They all said, 'This is the Constitution. There would have been no difficulty before!'--the lower classes making the poor Constitution the scapegoat for everything they don't like. So, as it was impossible for us to climb up to the church where the wedding was to be, we contented ourselves with seeing the procession pass. It was not a very large one; for, it requiring some activity to go up, all the old people remained at home. It is not the etiquette for the bride's mother to go, and no unmarried woman can go to a wedding,--I suppose for fear of its making her discontented with her own position. The procession stopped at our door, for the bride to receive our congratulations. She was dressed in a shot silk, with a yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold chain. In the afternoon they sent to request us to go there. On our arrival, we found them dancing out-of-doors, and a most melancholy affair it was. All the bride's sisters were not to be recognized, they had cried so. The mother sat in the house, and could not appear; and the bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand. The most melancholy spectacle of all, to my mind, was, that the bridegroom was decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted at all the distress. We danced a Monferrino,--I with the bridegroom, and the bride crying the whole time. The company did their utmost to enliven her, by firing pistols, but without success; and at last they began a series of yells, which reminded me of a set of savages. But even this delicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye began. It was altogether so melancholy an affair, that Madame B. dropped a few tears, and I was very near it,--particularly when the poor mother came out to see the last of her daughter, who was finally dragged off between her brother and uncle, with the last explosion of pistols. As she lives quite near, makes an excellent match, and is one of nine children, it really was a most desirable marriage, in spite of all the show of distress. Albert was so discomfited by it that he forgot to kiss the bride, as he had intended to, and therefore went to call upon her yesterday, and found her very smiling in her new house, and supplied the omission. The cook came home from the wedding declaring she was cured of any wish to marry; but I would not recommend any man to act upon that threat, and make her an offer. In a couple of days we had some rolls of the bride's first baking, which they call Madonna's. The musicians, it seems, were in the same state as the bridegroom; for, in escorting her home, they all fell down in the mud. My wrath against the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by finding that it is considered bad luck, if he does not get tipsy at his wedding."

* * * * *

Those readers of Miss Procter's poems who should suppose from their tone that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast would be curiously mistaken. She was exceedingly humorous, and had a great delight in humor. Cheerfulness was habitual with her; she was very ready at a sally or a reply; and in her laugh (as I remember well) there was an unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery. She was perfectly unconstrained and unaffected; as modestly silent about her productions as she was generous with their pecuniary results. She was a friend who inspired the strongest attachments; she was a finely sympathetic woman, with a great accordant heart and a sterling noble nature. No claim can be set up for her, thank God, to the possession of any of the conventional poetical qualities. She never, by any means, held the opinion that she was among the greatest of human beings; she never suspected the existence of a conspiracy on the part of mankind against her; she never recognized in her best friends her worst enemies; she never cultivated the luxury of being misunderstood and unappreciated; she would far rather have died without seeing a line of her composition in print than that I should have maundered about her here as "the Poet" or "the Poetess."

With the recollection of Miss Procter, as a mere child and as a woman, fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my way to the close of this brief record, avoiding its end. But even as the close came upon her, so must it come here, and cannot be staved off.

Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favorite pursuits must be balanced by action in the real world around her, she was indefatigable in her endeavors to do some good. Naturally enthusiastic, and conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her Christian duty to her neighbor, she devoted herself to a variety of benevolent objects. Now it was the visitation of the sick that had possession of her; now it was the sheltering of the houseless; now it was the elementary teaching of the densely ignorant; now it was the raising up of those who had wandered and got trodden under foot; now it was the wider employment of her own sex in the general business of life; now it was all these things at once. Perfectly unselfish, swift to sympathize, and eager to relieve, she wrought at such designs with a flushed earnestness that disregarded season, weather, time of day or night, food, rest. Under such a hurry of the spirits, and such incessant occupation, the strongest constitution will commonly go down; hers, neither of the strongest nor the weakest, yielded to the burden, and began to sink.

To have saved her life then, by taking action on the warning that shone in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been impossible, without changing her nature. As long as the power of moving about in the old way was left to her, she must exercise it, or be killed by the restraint. And so the time came when she could move about no longer, and took to her bed.

All the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of her natural disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, she lay upon her bed through the whole round of changes of the seasons. She lay upon her bed through fifteen months. In all that time her old cheerfulness never quitted her. In all that time not an impatient or a querulous minute can be remembered.

At length, at midnight on the 2d of February, 1864, she turned down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up.

The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny album was soon around her neck; and she quietly asked, as the clock was on the stroke of one,--

"Do you think I am dying, mama?"

"I think you are very, very ill to-night, my dear."

"Send for my sister. My feet are so cold! Lift me up."

Her sister entering as they raised her, she said, "It has come at last!" and, with a bright and happy smile, looked upward, and departed.

Well had she written,--

"Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death, Who waits thee at the portals of the skies, Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath, Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?

Oh, what were life, if life were all? Thine eyes Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies, And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee."

BEYOND.

From her own fair dominions, Long since, with shorn pinions, My spirit was banished: But above her still hover, in vigils and dreams, Ethereal visitants, voices, and gleams, That forever remind her Of something behind her Long vanished.

Through the listening night, With mysterious flight, Pass those winged intimations: Like stars shot from heaven, their still voices fall to me; Far and departing, they signal and call to me, Strangely beseeching me, Chiding, yet teaching me Patience.

Then at times, oh! at times, To their luminous climes I pursue as a swallow! To the river of Peace, and its solacing shades, To the haunts of my lost ones, in heavenly glades, With strong aspirations Their pinions' vibrations I follow.

O heart, be thou patient! Though here I am stationed A season in durance, The chain of the world I will cheerfully wear; For, spanning my soul like a rainbow, I bear, With the yoke of my lowly Condition, a holy Assurance,--

That never in vain Does the spirit maintain Her eternal allegiance: Through suffering and yearning, like Infancy learning Its lesson, we linger; then skyward returning, On plumes fully grown We depart to our own Native regions!

CLEMENCY AND COMMON SENSE.

A CURIOSITY OF LITERATURE; WITH A MORAL.

_Instabile est regnum quod non elementia firmat. Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._

Here are two famous verses, both often quoted, and one a commonplace of literature. That they have passed into proverbs attests their merit both in substance and in form. Something more than truth is needed for a proverb. And so also something more than form is needed. Both must concur. The truth must be expressed in such a form as to satisfy the requirements of art.

Most persons whose attention has not been turned especially to such things, if asked where these verses are to be found, would say at once that it was in one of the familiar poets of school-boy days. Both have a sound as of something that has been heard in childhood. The latter is very Virgilian in its tone and movement. More than once I have heard it insisted that it was by Virgil. But nobody has been able to find it there, although the opposite dangers are well represented in the voyage of AEneas:[3]--

"Dextrum Scylla latus, laevum implacata Charybdis Obsidet."

Thinking of the historical proverb, I am reminded of the eminent character who first showed it to me in the heroic poem where it appears. I refer to the late Dr. Maltby, Bishop of Durham, who had been a favorite pupil of Dr. Parr, and was unquestionably one of the best scholars in England. His amenity was equal to his scholarship. I was his guest at Auckland Castle early in the autumn of 1838. Conversation turned much upon books and the curiosities of study. One morning after breakfast the learned Bishop came to me with a small volume in his hand, printed in the Italian character, and remarking, "You seem to be interested in such things," he pointed to this much-quoted verse. It was in a Latin poem called "Alexandreis, sive Gesta Alexandri Magni," by Philippus Gualterus, a mediaeval poet of France.

Of course the fable of Scylla and Charybdis is ancient; but this verse cannot be traced to antiquity. For the fable Homer is our highest authority, and he represents the Sirens as playing their part to tempt the victim.

These opposite terrors belong to mythology and to geography. Mythologically, they were two voracious monsters, dwelling opposite to each other,--Charybdis on the coast of Sicily, and Scylla on the coast of Italy. Geographically, they were dangers to the navigator in the narrow strait between Sicily and Italy. Charybdis was a whirlpool, in which ships were often sucked to destruction; Scylla was a rock, on which ships were often dashed to pieces.

Ulysses in his wanderings encountered these terrors, but by prudence and the counsels of Circe he was enabled to steer clear between them, although the Sirens strove to lure him on to the rock. The story is too long; but there are passages which are like pictures, and they have been illustrated by the genius of Flaxman. The first danger on the Sicilian side is thus described in the Odyssey:[4]--

"Beneath, Charybdis holds her boisterous reign Midst roaring whirlpools, and absorbs the main; Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas subside, Thrice in dire thunders she refunds the tide. Ah, shun the horrid gulf! by Scylla fly! 'T is better six to lose than all to die."

But endeavoring to shun this peril, the navigator encounters the other:--

"Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes, Tremendous pest, abhorred by men and gods! Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads; Her jaws grin dreadful with three rows of teeth; Jaggy they stand, the gaping den of death; Her parts obscene the raging billows hide; Her bosom terribly o'erlooks the tide."

Near by were the Sirens, who strove by their music to draw the navigator to certain doom:--

"Their song is death, and makes destruction please. Unblest the man whom music wins to stay Nigh the cursed shore and listen to the lay: No more the wretch shall view the joys of life, His blooming offspring, or his beauteous wife!"

Forewarned is forearmed. Ulysses took all precautions against the opposite perils. Avoiding the Sicilian whirlpool, he did not run upon the Italian rock or yield to the voice of the charmer. And yet he could not renounce the opportunity of hearing the melody. Stuffing the ears of his companions with wax, so that they could not be entranced by the Sirens, or comprehend any countermanding order which his weakness might induce him to utter, he caused himself to be tied to the mast,--like another Farragut,--and directed that the ship should be steered straight on. It was steered straight on, although he cried out to stop. His deafened companions heard nothing of the song or the countermand,--

"Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay."

The dangers of both coasts were at length passed, not without the loss of six men, "chiefs of renown," who became the prey of Scylla. But the Sirens, humbled by defeat, dashed themselves upon the rocks and disappeared forever.

There are few stories which have been more popular. It was natural that it should enter into poetry and become a proverb. Milton more than once alludes to it. Thus, in the exquisite "Comus," He shows these opposite terrors subdued by another power:--

"Scylla wept And chid her barking waves into attention And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause."

In the "Paradise Lost," while portraying Sin, the terrible portress at the gates of Hell, the poet repairs to this story for illustration:[5]--

"Far less abhorred than these, Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore."

And then again, when picturing Satan escaping from pursuit, he shows him[6]

"harder beset And more endangered than when Argo passed Through Bosphorus betwixt the justling rocks, Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis and by the other whirlpool steered."

Though thus frequently employing the story, Milton did not use the proverb.

Not only the story but the proverb, was known to Shakspeare, who makes Launcelot use it in his plain talk with Jessica:[7]--"Truly, then, I fear you are damned both by father and mother; thus, when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are gone both ways." Malone, in his note to this passage, written in the last century, says,--"Alluding to the well-known line of modern Latin poet, Philippe Gaultier, in his poem entitled 'Alexandreis.'" To this note of Malone's, another editor, George Steevens, whose early bibliographical tastes inspired the praise of Dibdin, adds as follows:--"Shakspeare might have met with a translation of this line in many places; among others in the Dialogue between _Custom and Veretie_, concerning the use and abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie:--

"'While Silla they do seem to shun, In Charibd they do fall.'"

But this proverb had already passed into tradition and speech. That Shakspeare should absorb and use it was natural. He was the universal absorbent.

The history of this verse seemed for a while forgotten. Like the Wandering Jew, it was a vagrant, unknown in origin, but having perpetual life. Erasmus, whose learning was so vast, quotes the verse in his great work on Proverbs, and owns that he does not know the author of it. Here is this confession:--"_Celebratur apud Latinos_ hic versiculus, quocunque natus auctore, _nam in presentia non occurrit_."[8] It seems from these words that this profound scholar regarded the verse as belonging to antiquity: at least I so interpret the remark, that it was "celebrated among the Latins." But though ignorant of its origin, it is clear that the idea which it embodies found much favor with this representative of moderation. He dwells on it with particular sympathy, and reproduces it in various forms. Here is the equivalent on which he hangs his commentary: _Evitata Charybdi, in Scyllam incidi_. It is easy to see how inferior in form this is to the much-quoted verse. It seems to be a literal translation of some Greek iambics, also of uncertain origin, although attributed to Apostolius, one of the learned Greeks scattered over Europe by the fall of Constantinople. There is also something like it in the Greek of Lucian.[9] Erasmus quotes words of kindred sentiment from the "Phormio" of Terence: _Ita fugias ne praeter casam_, which he tells us means that we should not so fly from any vice as to be carried into a greater.[10] He quotes also another proverb with the same signification: _Fumum fugiens, in ignem incidi_, which warns against running into the fire to avoid the smoke. In his letters the ancient fable recurs more than once. On one occasion he warns against the dangers of youth, and says that the ears must be stopped, not, as in the Homeric story, by wax, but "by the precepts of philosophy."[11] In another letter he avows a fear lest in shunning Scylla he may fall on Charybdis:--"_Nunc vereor ne sic vitemus hanc Scyllam, ut incidamus in Charybdim multo perniciosiorem_."[12] Thus did his instinctive prudence find expression in this familiar illustration.

If Erasmus had been less illustrious for learning,--perhaps if his countenance were less interesting, as we now look upon it in the immortal portraits by two great artists, Hans Holbein and Albert Duerer,--I should not be tempted to dwell on this confession of ignorance. And yet it belongs to the history of this verse, which has had strange ups and downs in the world. The poem from which it is taken, after enjoying an early renown, was forgotten,--and then again, after a revival, was forgotten, again to enjoy another revival. The last time it was revived through this solitary verse, without which, I cannot doubt, it would have been extinguished in night.

"How far that little candle throws his beams!"

Even before the days of Erasmus, who died in 1536, this verse had been lost and found. It was circulated as a proverb of unknown origin, when Galeotto Marzio, an Italian, of infinite wit and learning[13] who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and was for some time the instructor of the children of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, pointed out its author. In a work of _Ana_, amusing and instructive, entitled "De Doctrina Promiscua," which first saw the light in Latin, and was afterwards translated into Italian, the learned author says,--"Hoc carmen est Gualteri Galli de Gestis Alexandri, et non vagum proverbium, ut quidam non omnino indocti meminerint." It was not a vague proverb, as some persons not entirely unlearned have supposed, but a verse of the "Alexandreis." And yet shortly afterwards the great master of proverbs, whose learning seemed to know no bounds, could not fix its origin. At a later day, Pasquier, in his "Recherches de la France,"[14] I made substantially the same remark as Marzio. After alluding to the early fame of its author, he says,--"C'est lui dans les oeuvres duquel nous trouvons un vers, souvent par nous allegue sans que plusieurs sachent qui en fut l'auteur." In quoting this verse the French author uses _Decidis_ instead of _Incidis_. The discovery by Marzio, and the repetition of this discovery by Pasquier, are chronicled at a later day in the Conversations of Menage, who found a French Boswell before the Bosweil of Dr. Johnson was born.[15] Jortin, in the elaborate notes to his Life of Erasmus, borrows from Menage, and gives the same history.[16]

When Galeotto Marzio made his discovery, this poem was still in manuscript; but there were several editions before the "Adagia" of Erasmus. An eminent authority--the "Histoire Litteraire de la France,"[17] that great work commenced by the Benedictines, and continued by the French Academy--says that it was printed for the first time at Strasburg, in 1513. This is a mistake, which has been repeated by Warton.[18] Brunet, in his "Manuel de Libraire," mentions an edition, without place or date, with the cipher of Guillaume Le Talleur, who was a printer at Rouen, in 1487. Panzer, in his "Annales Typographici,"[19] describes another edition, with the monogram of Richard Pynson, the London printer, at the close of the fifteenth century. Beloe, in his "Anecdotes of Literature,"[20] also speaks of an edition with the imprint of R. Pynson. There appears to have been also an edition under date of 1496. Then came the Strasburg edition of 1513, by J. Adelphus. All these are in black letter. Then came the Ingolstadt edition, in 1541, in Italic, or, as it is called by the French, "cursive characters," with a brief life of the poet, by Sebastian Link. This was followed, in 1558, by an edition at Lyons, also in Italic, announced as now for the first time appearing in France, _nunc primum in Gallia_, was a mistake. This edition seems to have enjoyed peculiar favor. It has been strangely confounded with imaginary editions which have never existed; thus, the Italian Quadrio assures us that the best was at London, in 1558;[21] and the French Millin assures us that the best was at Leyden, in 1558.[22] No such editions appeared; and the only edition of that year was at Lyons. After a lapse of a century, in 1659, there was another edition, by Athanasius Gugger, a monk of the Monastery of St. Gall, in France, published at the Monastery itself, according to manuscripts there, and from its own types, _formis ejusdem_. The editor was ignorant of the previous editions, and in his preface announces the poem as _a new work_, although ancient; according to his knowledge, never before printed; impatiently regarded and desired by many; and not less venerable for antiquity than for erudition:--"En tibi, candide lector, opus novum, ut sic antiquum, nusquam quod sciam editum, a multis cupide inspectum et desideratum, non minus antiquitate quam eruditione venerabile."

This edition seems to have been repeated at St. Gall in 1693; and these two, which were the last, appear to have been the best. From that time this poem rested undisturbed until our own day, when an edition was published at Hanover, in Germany, by W. Mueldener, after the Paris manuscripts, with the following title:--"Die zehn Gedichte des Walther von Lille, genannt von Chatillon. Nach der pariser Handschrift berichtigt, und zum ersten Male vollstaendig herausgegeben von W. Mueldener." Hanover, 1859, 8vo. Such an edition ought to be useful in determining the text, for there must be numerous manuscripts in the Paris libraries. As long ago as 1795 there were no less than nineteen in the National Library, and also a manuscript at Tours, which had drawn forth a curious commentary by M. de Forcemagne.[23]

I ought not to forget here that in 1537 a passage from this poem was rendered into English blank verse, and is an early monument of our language. This was by Grimoald Nicholas, a native of Huntingdonshire, whose translation is entitled "The Death of Zoroas, an Egyptian Astronomer, in the First Fight that Alexander had with Persians."[24] This is not the only token of the attention it had awakened in England. Alexander Ross, the Scotch divine and author, made preparations for an edition. His dedicatory letter was written, bearing date 1644; also two different sets of dedicatory verses, and verses from his friend David Eclin, the scholarly physician to the king,[25] who had given him this "great treasure." But the work failed to appear. The identical copy presented by Eclin, with many marginal notes from Quintus Curtius and others, is mentioned as belonging to the Bishop of Ely at the beginning of the present century.[26] But the homage of the Scotchman still exists in his dedicatory letter:--"Si materiam consideres, elegantissimam utilissimamque historiam gestorum Alexandri magni continet; certe sive stylum, sive subjectum inspicias, dignam invenies quae omnium teratur manibus, quamque adolescentes nocturna versentque manu, versentque diurna."[27] It will be observed that he does not hesitate to dwell on this poem as "most elegant and most useful," and by its style and subject worthy of the daily and nightly study of youth. In his verses Ross announces that Alexander was not less fortunate in his poet than the Greek chieftain in Homer:--

"Si felix praecone fuit dux Graecus Homero, Felix nonne tuo est carmine dux Macedo?"

There was also another edition planned in France, during the latter part of the last century, by M. Daire, the librarian of the Celestines in Paris, founded on the Latin text, according to the various manuscripts, with a French translation; but this never appeared.[28]

Until the late appearance of an edition in Germany, it was only in editions shortly after the invention of printing that this poem could be found. Of course these are rare. The British Museum, in its immense treasure-house, has the most important, one of which belonged to the invaluable legacy of the late Mr. Grenville. The copy in the library of Lord Spencer is the Lyons edition of 1558. By a singular fortune, this volume was missing some time ago from its place on the shelves; but it has since been found; and I have now before me a tracing from its title-page. My own copy--and perhaps the only one this side of the Atlantic--is the Ingolstadt edition. It once belonged to John Mitford, and has on the fly-leaves some notes in the autograph of this honored lover of books.

Bibliography dwells with delight upon this poem, although latterly the interest centres in a single line. Brunet does full justice to it. So does his jealous rival, Graesse, except where he blunders. Watt, in his "Bibliotheca Britannica," mentions only the Lyons edition of 1558, on which he remarks, that "the typography is very singular." Clarke, in his "Repertorium Bibliographicum," bearing date 1819, where he gives an account of the most celebrated British libraries, mentions a copy of the first edition in the library of Mr. Steevens, who showed his knowledge of the poem in his notes to Shakspeare;[29] also a copy of the Lyons edition of 1558 in the library of the Marquis of Blandford, afterwards Duke of Marlborough. This learned bibliographer has a note calling attention to the fact that "there are variations in the famous disputed line in different editions of this poem": that in the first edition the line begins _Corruis in Scyllam_, but in the Lyons edition, _Incidis in Scyllam_; while, as we have already seen, Pasquier says, _Decidis in Scyllam_. Bohn, in his "Bibliographer's Manual," after referring in general terms to the editions, says of the poem, "In it will be found that trite verse so often repeated, _Incidis_, &c.,"--words which he seems to have borrowed from Beloe.[30] "Trite" seems to be hardly respectful.[31]

Very little is known of the author. He is called in Latin Philippus Gualterus or Galterus; in French it is sometimes Gaultier and sometimes Gautier. The French biographical dictionaries, whether of Michaud or of Didot, attest the number of persons who bore this name, of all degrees and professions. There was the Norman knight _sans Avoir_, who was one of the chiefs of the first Crusade. There also was another Gautier, known as the Sire d'Yvetot, stabbed to death by his sovereign, Clotaire, who afterwards in penitence erected the lordship of Yvetot into that kingdom which Beranger has immortalized. And there have been others of this name in every walk of life. Fabricius, in his "Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et Infimae AEtatis,"[32] mentions no less than seventy-six Latin authors of this name. A single verse has saved one of these from the oblivion which has overtaken the multitude.

He was born at Lille, but at what precise date is uncertain. Speaking generally, it may be said that he lived and wrote during the last half of the twelfth century, while Philip Augustus was King of France, and Henry II. and Richard Coeur-de-Lion ruled England, one century after Abelard, and one century before Dante. After studying at Paris, he went to establish himself at Chatillon; but it is not known at which of the three or four towns of this name in France. Here he was charged with the direction of schools, and became known by the name of this town, as appears in the epitaph, somewhat ambitiously Virgilian, which he wrote for himself:--

"Insula me genuit, rapuit Castellio nomen; Perstrepuit modulis Gallia tota meis."

But he is known sometimes by his birthplace, and sometimes by his early residence. The highest French authority calls him Gaultier of Lille or of Chatillon.[33] He has been sometimes confounded with Gaultier of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who was born in the island of Jersey;[34] and sometimes with the Bishop of Maguelonne of the same name, who was the author of an Exposition of the Psalter, and whose see was on an island in the Mediterranean, opposite the coast of France.[35]

Not content with his residence at Chatillon, he repaired to Bologna in Italy, where he studied the civil and canon law. On his return to France he became the secretary of two successive Archbishops of Rheims, the latter of whom, by the name of William,--a descendant by his grandmother from William the Conqueror,--occupied this place of power from 1176 to 1201. The secretary enjoyed the favor of the Archbishop, who seems to have been fond of letters. It was during this period that he composed, or at least finished, his poem. Its date is sometimes placed at 1180; and there is an allusion in its text which makes it near this time. Thomas a Becket was assassinated before the altar of Canterbury in 1170; and this event, so important in the history of the age, is mentioned as recent: "_Nuper--caesum dolet Anglia Thomam_." The poem was dedicated to the Archbishop, who was to live immortal in companionship with his secretary:[36]--

"Vivemus pariter, vivet cum vate superstes Gloria Guillermi nullum moriture per aevum."

The Archbishop was not ungrateful, and he bestowed upon the poet a stall in the cathedral of Amiens, where he died of the plague at the commencement of the thirteenth century.[37]

This does not appear to have been his only work. Others are attributed to him. There are dialogues _adversus Judaeos_, which Oudin publishes in his collection entitled "Veterum aliquot Galliae et Belgii Scriptorum Opuscula Sacra nunquam edita." This same Oudin, in another publication, speaks of a collection, entitled "Opuscula Varia," preserved among the manuscripts in the Imperial Library of France, as by Gaultier, although the larger part of these Opuscula have been attributed to a very different person, Gaultier Mapes, chaplain to Henry II., King of England, and Archdeacon of Oxford.[38] But more recent researches seem to restore them to Philip Gaultier. Among these are satirical songs in Latin on the world, and also on prelates, which, it is said, were sung in England as well as throughout France. Indeed, the second verse of the epitaph already quoted seems to point to these satires:--

"Perstrepuit _modulis_ Gallia tota _meis_."

In these pieces, as in the "Alexandreis," we encounter the indignant sentiments inspired by the assassination of Becket. The victim is called "the flower of priests," and the king, _Neronior est ipso Nerone_.[39] But these poems, whether by Walter Mapes or by Philip Gaultier, are now forgotten. The "Alexandreis" has had a different fortune.

The poem became at once famous. It had the success of Victor Hugo or Byron. Its author took rank, not only at the head of his contemporaries, but even among the classics of antiquity, Leyser chronicles no less than one hundred Latin poets in the twelfth century,[40] but we are assured that not one of them is comparable to Gaultier.[41] M. Edelestand du Meril, who has given especial attention to this period, speaks of the "Alexandreis" as "a great poem," and remarks that its "Latinity is very elegant for the time."[42] Another authority calls him "the first of the modern Latin poets who appears to have had a spark of true poetic genius."[43] And still another says, that, "notwithstanding all its defects, we must regard this poem, and the 'Philippis' of William of Brittany, which appeared about sixty years later, as two brilliant phenomena in the midst of the thick darkness which covered Europe from the decline of the Roman Empire to the revival of letters in Italy."[44] Pasquier, to whom I have already referred, goes so far, in his chapter on the University of Paris, as to illustrate its founder, Peter Lombard, by saying that he had for a contemporary "one Galterus, an eminent poet, who wrote in Latin verses, under the title of the 'Alexandreis,' a great imitator of Lucan"; and the learned writer then adds, that it is in his work that we find a verse often quoted without knowing the author,[45] These testimonies show his position among his contemporaries; but there is something more.

An anonymous Latin poet of the next century, who has left a poem on the life and miracles of Saint Oswald, calls Homer, Gaultier, and Lucan the three capital heroic poets. Homer, he says, has celebrated Hercules, Gaultier the son of Philip, and Lucan has sung the praises of Caesar; but these heroes deserve to be immortalized in verse much less than the holy confessor Oswald.[46] In England, the Abbot of Peterborough transcribed Seneca, Terence, Martial, Claudian, and the "Gesta Alexandri."[47] In Denmark, Arnas Magnseus made a version in Icelandic of the "Alexandreis Gualteriana," which has been called "_Incomparabile antiguitatis septentrionalis monumentum_."[48] It appears that the new poem was studied, even to the exclusion of ancient masters and of Virgil himself. Henry of Ghent, who wrote about 1280, says that it "was of such dignity in the schools, that for it the reading of the ancient poets was neglected."[49] This testimony is curiously confirmed by the condition of the manuscripts which have come down to us, most of which are loaded with glosses and interlinear explanations, doubtless for public use in the schools.[50] It is sometimes supposed that Dante repaired to Paris. It is certain that his excellent master, Brunette Latini, passed much time there. This must have been at the very period when the new poem was taught in the schools. Perhaps it may be traced in the "Divina Commedia."

Next after the tale of Troy, the career of Alexander was at this period the most popular subject for poetry, romance, or chronicle. The Grecian conqueror filled a vast space in the imagination. He was the centre of marvel and of history. Every modern literature, according to its development, testifies to this predominance. Even dialects testify. In France, the professors of grammar at Toulouse were directed by statutes of the University, dated 1328, to read to their pupils "De Historiis Alexandri."[51] In England, during the reign of Henry I., the sheriff was ordered to procure the Queen's chamber at Nottingham to be painted with the History of Alexander,--"_Depingi facias Historiam Alexandri undiquaque_."[52] Chaucer, in his "House of Fame," places Alexander with Hercules, and then again shows the universality of his renown:--

"Alisaundres storie is so commune, That everie wight that hath discrecioune Hath herde somewhat or al of his fortune."

We have the excellent authority of the poet Gray for saying that the Alexandrine verse, which "like a wounded snake drags its slow length along," took its name from an early poem in this measure, called "La View d'Alexandre." There was also the "Roman d'Alexandre," contemporary with the "Alexandreis," which Gray thinks was borrowed from the latter poem, apparently because the authors say that they took it from the Latin.[53] There was also "The Life and Actions of Alexander the Macedonian," originally written in Greek, by Simeon Seth, magister and protovestiary or wardrobe-keeper of the palace at Constantinople in 1070, and translated from Greek into Latin, and then into French, Italian, and German.[54] Arabia also contributed her stories, and the Grecian conqueror became a hero of romance. Like Charlemagne, he had his twelve peers; and he also had a horn, through which he gave the word of command, which took sixty men to blow it, and was heard sixty miles,--being the same horn which afterwards Orlando sounded at Roncesvalles. That great career which was one of the epochs of mankind,--which carried in its victorious march the Greek language and Greek civilization,--which at the time enlarged the geography of the world, and opened the way to India,--was overlaid by an incongruous mass of fable and anachronism, so that the real story was lost. Times, titles, and places were confounded. Monks and convents, churches and confessors, were mixed with the achievements of the hero; and in an early Spanish History of Alexander, by John Lorenzo, we meet such characters as Don Phoebus, the Emperor Jupiter, and the Count Don Demosthenes; and we are assured that the mother of Alexander fled to a convent of Benedictine nuns.

Philip Gaultier, With all his genius, has his incongruities and anachronisms; but his poem is founded substantially upon the History of Quintus Curtius, which he has done into Latin hexameters, with the addition of long speeches and some few inventions. Aristotle is represented with a hideous exterior, face and body lean, hair neglected, and the air of a pedant exhausted by study. The soldiers of Alexander are called _Quirites_, as if they were Romans. The month of June in Greece is described as if it were in Rome:--

"Mensis erat, cujus juvenum de nimine nomen."

Events connected with the passion of Jesus Christ are treated as having already passed in the time of Alexander.

The poem is divided into ten books,[55] and the ten initial letters of these books, when put together like an acrostic, spell the name of the Archbishop, _Guillermus_, the equivalent for William at that time, who was the patron of the poet. Besides this conceit, there is a dedication both at the beginning and at the end. Quantity, especially in Greek or Asiatic words, is disregarded; and there are affectations in style, of which the very beginning is an instance:--

"_Gesta_ ducis Macedum totum _digesta_ per orbem Musa, refer."

In the same vein is the verse,--

"Inclitus ille Clitus," etc.;

and another verse, describing the violence of the soldiers after victory:--

"Extorquent torques, et inaures perdidit auris."

A rapid analysis of the poem will at least exhibit the order of the events it narrates, and its topics, with something of its character.

Alexander appears, in the first book, a youth panting for combat with the Persians, enemies of his country and of his father. There also is his teacher, Aristotle. Philip dies, and the son repairs to Corinth to be crowned. Under the counsels of Demosthenes, the Athenians declare against him. The young King arrives under the walls of Athens. Demosthenes speaks for war; AEschines for peace. The party of peace prevails; and the Macedonian turns to Thebes, which he besieges and captures by assault. The poet Cloades, approaching the conqueror, chants in lyric verses an appeal for pardon, and reminds him that without clemency a kingdom is unstable:--

"_Instabile est regnum quod non clementia firmat._"

And the words of this chant are still resounding. But Alexander, angry and inexorable, refuses to relent. He levels the towers which had first risen to the music of Amphion, and delivers the city to the flames: thus adding a new act to that tragic history which made Dante select Thebes as the synonyme of misfortune.[56] Turning from these smoking ruins, he gathers men and ships for his expedition against Persia. Traversing the sea, he lands in Asia; and here the poet describes geographically the different states of this continent,--Assyria, Media, Persia, Arabia, with its Sabaean frankincense and its single Phoenix, ending with Palestine and Jerusalem, where a God was born of a Virgin, at whose death the world shook with fear. Commencing his march through Cilicia and Phrygia, the ambitious youth stops at Troy, and visits the tomb of Achilles, where he makes a long speech.

The second book opens with the impression produced on the mind of Darius, menaced by his Macedonian enemy. He writes an insolent letter, which Alexander answers simply by advancing. At Sardes he cuts the Gordian knot, and then advances rapidly. Darius quits the Euphrates with his vast army, which is described. Alexander bathes in the cold waters of the Cydnus, is seized with illness, and shows his generous trust in the physician that attended him,--drinking the cup handed him, although it was said to be poisoned. Restored to health, he shows himself to his troops, who are transported with joy. Meanwhile the Persians advance. Darius harangues his soldiers. Alexander harangues his. The two armies prepare for battle.

The third book is of battle and victory at Issus, described with minuteness and warmth. Here is the death of Zoroas, the Egyptian astronomer, than whom nobody was more skilled in the stars, the origin of winter's cold or summer's heat, or in the mystery of squaring the circle,--_circulus an possit quadrari_.[57] The Persians are overcome. Darius seeks shelter in Babylon. His treasures are the prey of the conqueror. Horses are laden with spoils, and the sacks are so full that they cannot be tied. Rich ornaments are torn from the women, who are surrendered to the brutality of the soldiers. The royal family alone is spared. Conducted to the presence of Alexander, they are received with the regard due to their sex and misfortune. The siege and destruction of Tyre follow; then the expedition to Egypt and the temple of Jupiter Ammon. Here is a description of the desert, which is said, like the sea, to have its perils, with its Scylla and its Charybdis of sand:--

"Hic altera sicco Scylla mari latrat; hic pulverulenta Charybdis."[58]

Meanwhile Darius assembles new forces. Alexander leaves Egypt and rushes to meet him. There is an eclipse of the moon, which causes a sedition among his soldiers, who dare to accuse their king. The phenomenon is explained by the soothsayers, and the sedition is appeased.

The fourth book opens with a funeral. It is of the queen of the Persian monarch. Alexander laments her with tears. Darius learns at the same time her death and the generosity of his enemy. He addresses prayers to the gods for the latter, and offers propositions of peace. Alexander refuses these, and proceeds to render funeral honors to the queen of the king he was about to meet in battle. Then comes an invention of the poet, which may have suggested afterwards to Dante that most beautiful passage of the "Purgatorio," where great scenes are sculptured on the walls. At the summit of a mountain a tomb is constructed by the skilful Hebrew Apelles, to receive the remains of the Persian queen; and on this tomb are carved, not only kings and names of Greek renown, but histories from the beginning of the world:--

"Nec solum reges et nomina gentis Achaeae, Sed generis notat hisorias, ab origine mundi Incipiens."

Here in breathing gold is the creation in six days; the fall of man, seduced by the serpent; Cain a wanderer; the increase of the human race; vice prevailing over virtue; the deluge; the intoxication of Noah; the story of Esau, of Jacob, of Joseph; the plagues of Egypt,--

"Hic dolet AEgyptus denis percussa flagellis";

the flight of the Israelites,--

"et puro livescit pontus in auro";

the manna in the wilderness; the giving of the law; the gushing of water from the rock; and then the succession of Hebrew history, stretching through a hundred verses, to the reign of Esdras,--

"Totaque picturae series finitur in Esdra."

After these great obsequies Alexander marches at once against Darius. And here the poet dwells on the scene presented by the Persian army watching by its camp-fires. Helmets rival the stars; the firmament is surprised to see fires like its own reflected from bucklers, and fears lest the earth be changed into sky and the night become day. Instead of the sun, there is the helmet of Darius, which shines like Phoebus himself, and at its top a stone of flame, obscuring the stars and yielding only to the rays of the sun: for, as much as it yields to the latter, so much does it prevail over the former. The youthful chieftain, under the protection of a benignant divinity, passes the night in profound repose. His army is all marshalled for the day, and he still sleeps. He is waked, gives the order for battle, and harangues his men. The victory of Arbela is at hand.

The fifth book is occupied by a description of this battle. Here are episodes in imitation of the ancients, with repetitions or parodies of Virgil. The poet apostrophizes the unhappy, defeated Darius, as he is about to flee, saying,--"Whither do you go, O King, about to perish in useless flight? You do not know, alas! lost one, you do not know from whom you flee. While you flee from one enemy, you run upon other enemies. Desiring to escape Charybdis, you run upon Scylla."

"Quo tendis inerti, Rex, periture, fuga? Nescis, heu! perdite, nescis Quern fugias; hostesque incurris, dum fugis hostem; _Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim_."[59]

The Persian monarch finds safety at last in Media, and Alexander enters Babylon in triumph, surpassing all other triumphs, even those of ancient Rome: and this is merited,--so sings the poet,--for his exploits are above those of the most celebrated warriors, whether sung by Lucan in his magnificent style, or by Claudian in his pompous verses. The poet closes this book by referring to the condition of Christianity in his own age, and exclaiming, that, if God, touched by the groans and the longings of his people, would accord to the French such a king, the true faith would soon shine throughout the universe.

The sixth book exhibits the luxury of Alexander at Babylon, the capture of Susa, the pillage of Persepolis. Here the poet forgets the recorded excesses of his hero with Thais by his side, and the final orgy when the celebrated city was given to the flames at the bidding of a courtesan; but he dwells on an incident of his own invention, which is calculated to excite emotions of honor rather than of condemnation. Alexander meets three thousand Greek prisoners, wretchedly humiliated by the Persians, and delivers them. He leaves to them the choice of returning to Greece, or of fixing themselves in the country there on lands which he promises to distribute. Some propose to return. Others insist, that, in their hideous condition, they cannot return to the eyes of their families and friends, when an orator declares that it is always pleasant to see again one's country, that there is nothing shameful in the condition caused by a barbarous enemy, and that it is unjust to those who love them to think that they will not be glad to see them. A few follow the orator; but the larger part remain behind, and receive from their liberator the land which he had promised, also money, flocks, and all that was necessary for a farmer.

The seventh book exhibits the treason of Bessus substantially as in Quintus Curtius. Darius, with chains of gold on his feet, is carried in a covered carriage to be delivered up. Alexander, who was still in pursuit of his enemy, is horror-struck by the crime. He moves with more rapidity to deliver or to avenge the Persian monarch than he had ever moved to his defeat. He is aroused against the criminals, like Jupiter pursuing the giants with his thunder. Darius is found in his carriage covered with wounds and bathed in his blood. With the little breath that remains, and while yet struggling on the last confines of life, he makes a long speech, which the poet follows with bitter ejaculations of his own against his own age, beginning with venal Simon and his followers, and ending with the assassins of Thomas a Becket:--

"Non adeo ambiret cathedraae venalis honorem Jam vetus ille Simon, non incentiva malorum Pollueret sacras funesta pecunia sedes."

Thus here again the poet precedes Dante, whose terrible condemnation of Simon has a kindred bitterness:--

"O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci, Che le cose di Dio, che di bontate Denno essere spose, voi rapaci Per oro e per argento adulterate."

These ejaculations are closed by an address to the manes of Darius, and a promise to immortalize him in the verse of the poet. The grief of Alexander for the Persian queen is now renewed for the sovereign. The Hebrew Apelles is charged to erect in his honor a lofty pyramid in white marble, with sculptures in gold. Four columns of silver, with base and capitals of gold, support with admirable art a concave vault where are represented the three continents of the terrestrial globe, with their rivers, forests, mountains, cities, and people. In the characteristic description of each nation, France has soldiers and Italy wine:--

"_Francia militibus_, celebri Campania Bacco."

From funeral the poet passes to festival, and portrays the banquets and indulgence to which Alexander now invites his army. A sedition ensues. The soldiers ask to return to their country. Alexander makes an harangue, and awakens in them the love of glory. They swear to affront all dangers, and to follow him to the end of the world.

The eighth book chronicles the march into Hyrcania; the visit of Talestris, queen of the Amazons, and her Amazonian life, with one breast burnt so as to accommodate the bent bow; then the voluntary sacrifice of all the immense booty of the conqueror, as an example for the troops; then the conspiracy against Alexander in his own camp; then the examination and torture of the Son of Parmenio, suspected of complicity; and then the doom of Bessus, the murderer of Darius, who is delivered by Alexander to the brother of his victim. Then comes the expedition to Scythia. The Macedonian, on the banks of the Tanais, receives an embassy. The ambassador fails to delay him: he crosses the river, and reduces the deserts and the mountains of Scythia to his dominion. And here the poet likens this people, which, after resisting so many powerful nations, now falls under the yoke, to a lofty, star-seeking Alpine fir, _astra petens abies_, which, after resisting for ages all the winds of the east, of the west, and of the south, falls under the blows of Boreas. The name of the conqueror becomes a terror, and other nations in this distant region submit voluntarily, without a blow.

The ninth book commences with a mild allusion to the murder of Clitus, and other incidents, teaching that the friendships of kings are not perennial:--

"Eternim testatur eorum Finis amicitias regum non esse perennes."

Here comes the march upon India. Kings successively submit. Porus alone dares to resist. With a numerous army he awaits the Macedonian on the Hydaspes. The two armies stand face to face on opposite banks. Then occurs the episode of two youthful Greeks, Nicanor and Symmachus, born the same day, and intimate, like Nisus and Euryalus. Their perilous expedition fails, under the pressure of numbers, and the two friends, cut off and wounded, after prodigies of valor, at last embrace, and die in each other's arms. Then comes the great battle. Porus, vanquished, wounded, and a prisoner, is brought before Alexander. His noble spirit touches the generous heart of the conqueror, who returns to him his dominions, increases them, and places him in the number of friends,--

"Odium clementia vicit."

The gates of the East are now open. His movement has the terror of thunder breaking in the middle of the night,--

"Quean sequitur fragor et fractae collisio nubis."

A single city arrests the triumphant march. Alexander besieges it, and himself mounts the first to the assault. His men are driven back. Then from the top of the ladder, instead of leaping back, he throws himself into the city, and alone confronts the enemy. Surrounded, belabored, wounded, he is about to perish, when his men, learning his peril, redouble their efforts, burst open the gates, inundate the place, and massacre the inhabitants. After a painful operation, Alexander is restored to his army and to his great plans of conquest. The joy of the soldiers, succeeding their sorrow, is likened to that of sailors, who, after seeing the pilot overboard, and ready to be ingulfed by the raging floods, as Boreas dances, _Borea bacchante_, at last behold him rescued from the abyss and again at the helm. But the army is disturbed by the preparation for distant maritime expeditions. Alexander avows that the world is too small for him; that, when it is all conquered, he will push on to subjugate another universe; that he will lead them to the Antipodes and to another Nature; and that, if they refuse to accompany him, he will go forth alone and offer himself as chief to other people. The army is on fire with this answer, and vow again never to abandon their king.

The tenth book is the last. Nature, indignant that a mortal should venture to penetrate her hidden places, suspends her unfinished works, and descends to the world below for succor against the conqueror. Before the gates of Erebus, under the walls of the Stygian city,--

"Ante fores Erebi, Stygiae sub moenibus urbis,"--

are sisters, monsters of the earth, representing every vice,--thirst of gold, drunkenness, gluttony, treachery, detraction, envy, hypocrisy, adulation. In a distant recess is a perpetual furnace, where crimes are punished, but not with equal flames, as some are tormented more lightly and others more severely. Leviathan was in the midst of his furnace, but he drops his serpent form and assumes that divine aspect which he had worn when he wished to share the high Olympus,--

"Cum sidere solus Clarior intumuit, tantamque superbia mentem Extulit, ut summum partiri vellet Olympum."

To him the stranger appeals against the projects of Alexander, which extend on one side to the unknown sources of the Nile and the Garden of Paradise, and on the other to the Antipodes and ancient Chaos. The infernal monarch convenes his assembly. He calls the victims from their undying torments,--

"quibus mors Est non posse mori,"--

where ice and snow are punishments, as well as fire. The satraps of Styx are collected, and the ancient serpent addresses sibilations from his hoarse throat:--

"Hie ubi collecti satrapae Stygis et tenebrarum, Consedere duces, et gutture sibila rauco Edidit antiquus serpens."

He commands the death of the Macedonian king before his plans can be executed. Treason rises and proposes poison. All Hell applauds; and Treason, in disguise, fares forth to instruct the agent. The whole scene suggests sometimes Dante and sometimes Milton. Each was doubtless familiar with it. Meanwhile Alexander returns to Babylon. The universe is in suspense, not knowing to which side he will direct his arms. Ambassadors from all quarters come to his feet. In the pride of power he seems to be universal lord. At a feast, surrounded by friends, he drinks the fatal cup. His end approaches, and he shows to the last his grandeur and his courage. The poet closes, as he began, with a salutation to his patron.

* * * * *

Such is the sketch of a curiosity of literature. It is interesting to look upon this little book, which for a time played so considerable a part; to imagine the youthful students who were once nurtured by it; to recognize its relations to an age when darkness was slowly yielding to light; to note its possible suggestions to great poets who followed, especially to Dante; and to behold it lost to human knowledge, and absolutely forgotten, until saved by a single verse, which, from its completeness of form and its proverbial character, must live as long as the Latin language endures. The verse does not occupy much room; but it is a sure fee simple for the poet. And are we not told by an ancient, that it is something, in whatever place or recess you may be, to have made yourself master of a single lizard?

"Est aliquid, quocumque loco, quocumque recessu, Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertae."

A poem of ten books shrinks to a very petty space. There is a balm of a thousand flowers, and here is a single hexameter which is the express essence of many times a thousand verses. It was the jest of the grave-digger, in "Hamlet," that the noble Alexander, returning to dust and loam, had stopped a bung-hole. But the memorable poem celebrating him is reduced as much, although it may be put to higher uses.

MORAL.

At the conclusion of a fable there is a moral, or, as it is sometimes called, the application. There is also a moral now, or, if you please, the application. And, believe me, in these serious days, I should have little heart for any literary diversion, if I did not hope to make it contribute to those just principles which are essential to the well-being, if not the safety of the Republic. To this end I have now written. This article is only a long whip with a snapper to it.

Two verses saved from the wreck of a once popular poem have become proverbs, and one of these is very famous. They inculcate clemency, and that common sense which is found in not running into one danger to avoid another. Never was their lesson more needed than now, when, in the name of clemency to belligerent traitors, the National Government is preparing to abandon the freedmen, to whom it is bound by the most sacred ties; is preparing to abandon the national creditor also, with whose security the national welfare is indissolubly associated; and is even preparing, without any probation or trial, to invest belligerent traitors, who for four bloody years have murdered our fellow-citizens, with those Equal Rights in the Republic which are denied to friends and allies, so that the former shall rule over the latter. Verily, here is a case for common sense.

The lesson of clemency is of perpetual obligation. Thanks to the mediaeval poet for teaching it. Harshness is bad. Cruelty is detestable. Even justice may relent at the prompting of mercy. Do not fail, then, to cultivate the grace of clemency. Perhaps no scene in history is more charming than that of Caesar, who, after vows against an enemy, listened calmly to the appeal for pardon, and, as he listened, let the guilty papers fall from his hand. Early in life he had pleaded in the Senate for the lives of conspirators; and afterwards, when supreme ruler of the Roman world, he practised the clemency he had once defended, unless where enemies were incorrigible, and then he knew how to be stern and positive. It is by example that we are instructed; and we may well learn from the great master of clemency that the general welfare must not be sacrificed to this indulgence. And we may learn also from the Divine Teacher, that, even while forgiving enemies, there are Scribes and Pharisees who must be exposed, and money-changers who must be scourged from the temple. But with us there are Scribes and Pharisees, and there are also criminals, worse than any money-changers, who are now trying to establish themselves in the very temple of our government.

Cultivate clemency. But consider well what is embraced in this charity. It is not required that you should surrender the Republic into the hands of pardoned criminals. It is not required that you should surrender friends and allies to the tender mercies of these same pardoned criminals. Clearly not. Clemency has its limitations; and when it transcends these, it ceases to be a virtue, and is only a mischievous indulgence. Of course, one of these limitations, never to be disregarded, is the _general security_, which is the first duty of government. No pardon can be allowed to imperil the nation; nor can any pardon be allowed to imperil those who have a right to look to us for protection. There must be no vengeance upon enemies; but there must be no sacrifice of friends. And here is the distinction which cannot be forgotten. _Nothing for vengeance; everything for justice._ Follow this rule, and the Republic will be safe and glorious. Thus wrote Marcus Aurelius to his colleague and successor in empire, Lucius Verus. These words are worthy to be repeated now by the chief of the Republic:--

"Ever since the Fates Placed me upon the throne, two aims have I Kept fixed before my eyes; and they are these,-- Not to revenge me on my enemies, _And not to be ungrateful to my friends_."

It is easy for the individual to forgive. It is easy also for the Republic to be generous. But forgiveness of offences must not be a letter of license to crime; it must not be a recognition of an ancient tyranny, and it must not be a stupendous ingratitude. There is a familiar saying, with the salt of ages, which is addressed to us now:--"Be just before you are generous." Be just to all before you are generous to the few. Be just to the millions _only half rescued_ from oppression, before you are generous to their cruel taskmasters. Do not imitate that precious character in the gallery of old Tallemant de Reaux, of whom it was said, that he built churches without paying his debts.[60] Our foremost duties now are to pay our debts, and these are twofold:--first, to the national freedman; and, secondly, to the national creditor.

Apply these obvious principles practically. A child can do it. No duty of clemency can justify injustice. Therefore, in exercising the beautiful power of pardon at this moment in our country, several conditions must be observed.

(1.) As a general rule, belligerent traitors, who have battled against the country, must not be permitted _at once_, without probation or trial, to resume their old places of trust and power. Such a concession would be clearly against every suggestion of common sense, and President Johnson clearly saw it so, when, addressing his fellow-citizens of Tennessee, 10th June, 1864, he said,--"I say that traitors should take a back seat in the work of restoration. If there be but five thousand men in Tennessee, loyal to the Constitution, loyal to freedom, loyal to justice, these true and faithful men should control the work of reorganization and reformation absolutely."

(2.) Especially are we bound, by every obligation of justice and by every sentiment of honor, to see to it that belligerent traitors, who have battled against their country, are not allowed to rule the constant loyalists, whether white or black, embracing the recent freedmen, who have been our friends and allies.

(3.) Let belligerent traitors be received slowly and cautiously back into the sovereignty of citizenship. It is better that they should wait than that the general security be imperilled, or our solemn obligations, whether to the national freedman or the national creditor, be impaired.

(4.) Let pardons issue only on satisfactory assurance that the applicant, who has been engaged for four years in murdering our fellow-citizens, shall sustain the Equal Rights, civil and political, of all men, according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence; that he shall pledge himself to the support of the national debt; and, if he be among the large holders of land, that he shall set apart homesteads for all his freedmen.

Following these simple rules, clemency will be a Christian virtue, and not a perilous folly.

The other proverb has its voice also, saying plainly, Follow common sense, and do not, while escaping one danger, rush upon another. You are now escaping from the whirlpool of war, which has threatened to absorb and ingulf the Republic. Do not rush upon the opposite terror, where another shipwreck of a different kind awaits you, while Sirens tempt with their "song of death." Take warning: _Seeking to escape from Charybdis, do not rush upon Scylla_.

Alas! the Scylla on which our Republic is now driving is that old rock of _concession and compromise_ which from the beginning of our history has been a constant peril. It appeared in the convention which framed the National Constitution, and ever afterwards, from year to year, showed itself in Congress, until at last the Oligarchy, nursed by our indulgence, rebelled. And now that the war is over, it is proposed to invest this same Rebel Oligarchy with a new lease of immense power, involving the control over loyal citizens, whose fidelity to the Republic has been beyond question. Here, too, are Sirens, in the shape of belligerent traitors, suing softly that the Republic may be lured to the old concession and compromise. _Alas! that, escaping from Charybdis, we should rush upon Scylla!_

The old Oligarchy conducted all its operations in the name of State Rights, and in this name it rebelled. And when the Republic sought to suppress the Rebellion, it was replied, that a State could not be coerced. Now that the Rebellion is overthrown, and a just effort is made to obtain that "security for the future" without which the war will have been in vain, the same cry of State Rights is raised, and we are told again that a State cannot be coerced,--as if the same mighty power which directed armies upon the Rebellion could be impotent to exact all needful safeguards. It was to overcome these pretensions, and stamp _E Pluribus Unum_ upon the Republic, that we battled in war; and now we surrender to these tyrannical pretensions again. Escaping from war, we rush upon the opposite peril,--_as from Charybdis to Scylla_.

Again, we are told gravely, that the national power which decreed emancipation cannot maintain it by assuring universal enfranchisement, because an imperial government must be discountenanced,--as if the whole suggestion of "imperialism" or "centralism" were not out of place, until the national security is established, and our debts, whether to the national freedman or the national creditor, are placed where they cannot be repudiated. A phantom is created, and, to avoid this phantom, we rush towards concession and compromise,--_as from Charybdis to Scylla_.

Again, we are reminded that military power must yield to the civil power and to the rights of self-government. Therefore the Rebel States must be left to themselves, each with full control over all, whether white or black, within its borders, and empowered to keep alive a Black Code abhorrent to civilization and dangerous to liberty. Here, again, we rush from one peril upon another. Every exercise of military power is to be regretted, and yet there are occasions when it cannot be avoided. War itself is the transcendent example of this power. But the transition from war to peace must be assured by all possible safeguards. "Civil power and self-government cannot be conceded to belligerent enemies until after the establishment of security for the future." Such security is an indispensable safeguard, without which there will be new disaster to the country. Therefore, in escaping from military power, care must be taken that we do not run upon the opposite danger,--_as from Charybdis to Scylla_.

Again, it is said solemnly, that "we must trust each other"; which, being interpreted, means, that the Republic must proceed at once to trust the belligerent enemies who have for four years murdered our fellow-citizens. Of course, this is only another form of concession. In trusting them, we give them political power, including the license to oppress loyal persons, whether white or black, and especially the freedman. For four years we have met them in battle; and now we rush to trust them, and to commit into their keeping the happiness and well-being of others. There is peril in trusting such an enemy, more even than in meeting him on the field. God forbid that we rush now upon this peril,--_as from Charybdis to Scylla_!

The true way is easy. Follow common sense. Seeking to avoid one peril, do not rush upon another. Consider how everything of worth or honor is bound up with the national security and the national faith; and that until these are fixed beyond change, agriculture, commerce, and industry of all kinds must suffer. Capital cannot stay where justice is denied. Emigration must avoid a land blasted by the spirit of caste. Cotton itself will refuse to grow until labor is assured its just reward. By natural consequence, that same Barbarism which has drenched the land in blood will continue to prevail, with wrong, outrage, and the insurrections of an oppressed race; the national name will be dishonored, and the national power will be weakened. But the way is plain to avoid these calamities. _Follow common sense; and obtain guaranties commensurate with the danger._ Do this without delay, so that security and reconciliation may not be postponed. Every day's delay is a loss to the national wealth and an injury to the national treasury. But if adequate guaranties cannot be obtained at once, then at least _postpone all present surrender to the Oligarchy_, trusting meanwhile to Providence for protection, and to time for that awakened sense of justice and humanity which must in the end prevail. And finally, _take care not to rush from Charybdis to Scylla_.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _AEneis_, Lib. III. v. 420.

[4] Book XII.

[5] Book II. v. 660.

[6] Ibid. v. 1016.

[7] _Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Sc. 5.

[8] Erasmi _Opera_, Tom. II. p. 183; _Adagiorum_ Chil. I. cent. v. prov. 4.

[9] Erasmi _Adagia_, ubi supra.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Jortin's _Erasmus_, Vol. II. p. 163, note.

[12] _Opera_, Tom. II. p. 645; _Epist._ 574.

[13] For a glimpse of this interesting character, see Tiraboschi, _Storia della Letteratura Italiana_, Tom. VI. pp 289-294; Michaud, _Biographie Universelle, nomen_ Galeotto Marzio.

[14] Tom. I. p. 276, Liv. III. cap. 29.

[15] _Menagiana_, Tom. I. p. 177.

[16] Vol. II. 285.

[17] Tom. XV. p. 117.

[18] _History of English Poetry_, Vol. I. p. clxviii.

[19] Vol. I. p. 510.

[20] Vol. V. p. 256.

[21] _Della Storia e della Ragione d' ogni Poesia_, Tom. VI. p. 480.

[22] _Magasin Encyclopedique_, Tom II. p. 52.

[23] Millin, _Magasin Encyclopedique_, Tom. III. p. 181; _Journal des Savans_, Avril, 1760.

[24] Ritson's _Bibliographia Poetica_, p. 228.

[25] For a list of His works see Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannia_, _nomen_ Echlin.

[26] Beloe's _Anecdotes of Literature_, Vol. V. pp. 255-260.

[27] Ibid. p. 256.

[28] Millin, _Magasin Encyclop._ Tom. III. p. 181.

[29] From a priced catalogue of Mr. Steevens's sale it appears that his copy, which was the edition of Lyons, brought L2 2_s._ in 1800. _Cat._ No. 514.

[30] _Anecdotes of Literature_, Vol. V. p. 258.

[31] See also Graesse, _Tresor de Livres rares et precieux, ou Nouveau Dictionnaire Bibliographique_, _nomen_ Galterus; Millin, _Mag. Encyc._ Tom. III. p. 181; Senebier, _MSS. Franc. de la Bibliotheque de Geneve_, p. 235; _Allg. Lit. Anz._ 1799. pp. 84. 263, 1233, 1858; _Sitzungsber. der Wien. Acad._ T. XIII. p. 314; Giesebrecht, _Allg. Zeits. fuer Wiss. und Lit._ 1853, p. 344.

[32] Tom. VI. p. 328.

[33] _Histoire Litteraire_, Tom. XV. p. 100.

[34] Ibid, Tom. XVI. p. 537.

[35] The latter mistake is gravely made by Quadrio, in his great jumble of literary history, Tom. VI. p. 480; also by Peerlkamp, _De Poetis Latinis Nederlandorum_, p. 15. See also Edelestand du Meril, _Poesies Populaires Latines_, p. 149.

[36] _Alexandreis_, Lib. X. _ad finem._

[37] Graesse, in his _Tresor de Livres Rares_, which ought to be accurate, makes a strange mistake in calling Gualterus _Episcopus Insulanus_. He was never more than a canon, and held no post at Lille. Fabricius entitles him simply _Magister_ Philippus Gualterus de Castellione, Insulanus. _Bibliotheca Lat. Med. et Inf. AEtotis_, Tom. VI. p. 328. See also Wright's _Latin Poems_, Preface, xviii.

[38] _Histoire Litteraire_, Tom. XV. p. 101

[39] Edelestand du Meril, _Poesies Populaires Latines_, pp. 144-163; Wright, _Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes_.

[40] _Historia Poematum Medii AEvi._

[41] _Histoire Litteraire_, Tom. XVI. p. 183.

[42] _Poesies Latines Populaires_, p. 149.

[43] Millin, _Magasin Encyclop._ Tom. II, p. 52.

[44] Michaud, _Biographie Universelle_, _nomen_ Gaultier.

[45] _Recherches de la France_, Cap. 29, Tom. I. p. 276.

[46] Warton, _English Poetry_, Vol. I. p. clxix.; Dissertation II.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Fabricius, _Bibliotheca_, Tom. IV. c. 2.

[49] Ibid. Tom. VI. p. 328. See also Leyser, _Historia Poematum Medii AEvi_, _nomen_ Galterus.

[50] _Histoire Litteraire_, Tom. XV. p. 118.

[51] Warton, _History of English Poetry_, Vol. I. p. clxix.; also p. 132.

[52] Madox, _Hist. Exchequer_, pp. 249-259.

[53] Gray, _Observations on English Metre_.

[54] Warton, _History of English Poetry_, Vol. I. p 133.

[55] Vossius, _De Poetis Latinis_, p. 74. is mistaken in saying that it had nine books instead of ten. See also _Menagiana_, Tom. I. P. 177.

[56] _Inferno_, Canto XXXIII.

[57] This is the passage translated into blank verse by the early English poet, Grimoald Nicholas.

[58] There is a contemporary poem in leonine verses on the death of Thomas a Becket, with the same allusion to opposite dangers:--

"Ut post Syrtes mittitur in Charybdim navis, Flatibus et fluctibus transitis tranquille, Tutum portus impulit in latratus Scyllae."

Du Meril, _Poesies Populaires Latines_, p. 82.

[59] Some of the expressions of this passage may be compared with other writers. See Burmanni _Anthologia Latina_, Vol. I. pp. 152, 163; Ovidii _Metam._ Lib. I. 514.

[60] "C'etait un homme qui battait des eglises sans payer ses dettes."

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_The Works of Epictetus, consisting of his Discourses in Four Books, the Enchiridion and Fragments._ A Translation from the Greek, based on that of Elizabeth Carter. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

Happy the youth who has this Stoic repast fresh and untasted before him! Heaven give him appetite and digestion; for here is food indeed!

Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus, at the two extremes of the social system,--the one that most helpless of human beings, a Roman slave, the other that terrestrial god, a Roman Emperor,--are yet so associated in fame that he who names either thinks of the other also. Neither of them men of astonishing intellect, though certainly of a high intelligence, they have yet uttered thoughts that cannot die,--thoughts so simple, vital, and central, so rich in the purest blood of man's moral being, that their audience and welcome are perpetual. Without literary ambition, one of them wrote only for his own eye, merely emphasizing the faith he lived by, while the other wrote not at all, but, like another and yet greater, simply spoke with men as he met them, his words being only the natural respirations of belief. Yet that tide of time which over so many promising ambitions and brilliant fames has rolled remorseless, a tide of oblivion, bears the private notes or casual conversation of these men in meek and grateful service.

A vital word,--how sure is it to be cherished and preserved! All else may be neglected, all else may perish; but a word true forever to the heart of humanity will be held too near to its heart to suffer from the chances of time.

Of these two authors, Epictetus has the more nerve, spirit, and wit, together with that exquisite homeliness which Thoreau rightly named "a high art"; while Antoninus is characterized by more of tenderness, culture, and breadth. The monarch, again, has a grave, almost pensive tone; the slave is full of breezy health and cheer. One commonly prefers him whom he has read last or read most. The distinction of both is, that they hold hard to the central question, How shall man be indeed man? how shall he be true to the inmost law and possibility of his being? Their thoughts are, as we have said, respirations, vital processes, pieces of spiritual function, the soul in every syllable. And hence through their pages blows a breath of life which one may well name a wind of Heaven.

Our favorite was Antoninus until Mr. Higginson beguiled us with this admirable version. For it is, indeed, admirable. It would be hard to name a translation from Greek prose which, while faithful in substance and tone to the original, is more entirely and charmingly readable.

Of mere correctness we do not speak. Correctness is cheap. It may be had for money any day. A passage or two we notice, concerning which some slight question might, perhaps, be opened; but it would be a question of no importance; and the criticism we should be inclined to make might not be sustained. Unquestionably the version is true, even nicely true, to the ideas of the author.

But it is more and better. It is ingenious, felicitous, witty. Mr. Higginson has the great advantage over too many translators (into English, at least) of being not only a man of bright and vivid intelligence, but also a proper proficient in the use of his mother tongue, melodious in movement, elegant in manner, fortunate in phrase. Now that Hawthorne is dead, America has not perhaps a writer who is master of a more graceful prose. His style has that tempered and chaste vivacity, that firm lightness of step, that quickness at a turn, not interfering with continuity and momentum, which charms all whom style can charm. Lowell's best prose--in "Fireside Travels," for example--has similar qualities, and adds to them a surprising delicacy of wit and subtilty of phrase, while it has less movement and less of rhythmical emphasis. Between the two, in the respects mentioned, we are hardly able to choose.

Mr. Higginson is, indeed, a little fastidious, a little inclined to purism, a little rigid upon the mint, anise, and cumin of literary law. But this rendered him only the more fit for his present task. A translator must bear somewhat hard upon minor obligations to his vernacular, in order to overcome the resistance of a foreign idiom.

He has succeeded. He has given us Greek thought in English speech, not merely in English words. It is, indeed, astonishing how modern Epictetus seems in this version. This is due in part to the translator's tact in finding modern _equivalents_ for Greek idioms, or for antiquated allusions and illustrations. Once in a while one is a littled startled by these; but more often they are so happy that one fancies he must have thrown dice for them, or obtained them by some other turn of luck.

But he was favored, not only by literary ability, but by a native affinity with his author and an old love for him. His taste is very marked for this peculiar form of sanctity and heroism, the simple Stoic morality, especially in that mature and mellow form which it assumes with the later Stoic believers. In these first centuries of our era a suffusion of divine tenderness seems to have crept through the veins of the world, partly derived from Christianity, and partly contemporaneous with it. In the case of Epictetus it must have been original. And the peculiar simplicity with which he represents this tender spirit of love and duty, while combining it with the utmost iron nerve of the old Stoic morality,--its comparative disassociation in his pages with the speculative imaginations which glorify or obscure it elsewhere,--is deeply grateful, one sees, to the present translator.

He must have enjoyed his task heartily, while its happy completion has prepared for many others, not only an enjoyment, but more and better than that. May it, indeed, be for many! What were more wholesome for this too luxuriant modern life than a little Stoic pruning?

Having mentioned that the book comes forth under the auspices of Little, Brown, & Co., we have no need to say that it is an elegant volume.

_An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings._ By JOHN STUART MILL. In Two Volumes. Boston: William V. Spencer.

Mr. Mill in this book defends England from the reproach of indifference to the higher philosophy. Americans are at least not indifferent to John Stuart Mill; and for his sake the volumes will no doubt be attempted by many a respectable citizen who would be seriously puzzled whether to class the author as a Cosmothetic Idealist or as a Hypothetical Dualist. And assuming, as such a reader very possibly will, that this last name designates those who are disposed to fight for their hypotheses, he will hardly think it in this case a misnomer. Yet Mr. Mill seems very generous and noble in this attitude. He has consented to put on the gloves since he fought Professors Whewell and Sedgwick without them; and there is perhaps no finer passage in the history of controversy than his simple expression of regret, in his preface, on attacking an antagonist who can no longer defend himself.

Yet his handling of Sir William is tolerably unflinching, when he settles to the work; and he will carry the sympathy of most readers in his criticisms, whatever they may think of his own peculiar views. The students of his Logic were rather daunted, years ago, on discovering that a mind so able was content to found upon mere experience its conviction that two and two make four, and to assume, by implication at least, that on some other planet two and two may make five. He still holds to this attitude. But so perfect are his candor and clearness, that no dissent from his views can seriously impair the value of his writings; and though no amount of clearness can make such a book otherwise than abstruse to the general reader, yet there are some chapters which can be read with pleasure and profit by any intelligent person,--as, for instance, the closing essay on mathematical study. This must not, however, be taken for an indorsement of all which that chapter contains; for it must be pronounced a little inconsistent in Mr. Mill to criticize Hamilton for underrating mathematics without having studied them, when this seems to be precisely his critic's attitude towards the later German metaphysics. He speaks with some slight respect of Kant, to be sure, but complains of the speculations of his successors as "a deplorable waste of time and power," though he gives no hint or citation to indicate that he has read one original sentence of Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel. Indeed, he heaps contempt in Latin superlatives upon the last-named thinker, and then completes the insult by quoting him at second-hand through Mansel, (I. 61,)--that Mansel some of whose doctrines he elsewhere proclaims to be "the most morally pernicious now current." (I. 115.) He afterwards makes it a sort of complaint against Hamilton, that he had read "every fifth-rate German transcendentalist"; but if this was so, surely a competent critic of Hamilton should have followed him at least through the first-rates. This unfairness,--if, indeed, these surmises be correct,--although it seems very much like the Englishman whom our current prejudices represent, seems very unlike John Stuart Mill.

As the ablest work that modern British philosophy has produced, this book will doubtless have many American readers, and well deserves them.

_Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States._ With a Biographical Introduction, by FRANK MOORE. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

The publishers have done well in placing this volume before the public. One among the most important results of the war is that of vastly increasing the practical, however it may be with the theoretical, power of the executive. It has done this, in the first place, by direct addition. The "war powers of the President," though beyond question legitimate, made him for the time being wellnigh absolute; and now that overt war is ended, it is found impracticable to return immediately to the ancient limits of executive authority. Exercises of sovereignty, accordingly, which would once have been called most dangerous encroachments upon coordinate branches of government, pass without protest, it be with general approbation. An instance of such is seen in the appointment of Southern governors who by an explicit law of Congress are ineligible. But, in the second place, this power is increased, perhaps, even more by the marked disposition of the people to accept the initiative of the President. The prodigious bids made by the Democratic party for his countenance, and the extreme reluctance of the Republicans to open an issue with him, illustrate this disposition, and are of great significance.

We are stating facts, not complaining of them. A great change has undoubtedly taken place in the practical economy of the Government,--a significant change in the relative importance of its coordinate branches. It may not be permanent, but it can scarcely be brief.

A the same time the importance of the Government as a whole has been greatly enhanced. We have reached a point where the nation, for, perhaps, the first time, is to be saved by statesmanship, and where it is apparent that only statesmanship of a high order will be equal to the task. Formerly the Government could be contemptible without being fatal. When its imbecility led to civil war, the courage, patriotism, and persistency of the people sufficed to purchase victory; and though the Government was tasked heavily, its tasks were of a simple kind. But now a point is reached where must begin a long stretch of wise, far-seeing, faithful statesman's work, or where, in the want of this, prospects open which on patriot can contemplate with satisfaction.

A series of able, temperate, true-hearted Presidents has now become indispensable; but the highest qualities will be needed in no subsequent administration so much as in the present; and very serious mistakes in the present would go far to render the highest ability in the future unavailing. Under these circumstances, there must be a common and anxious desire to know what may reasonably be expected of President Johnson.

Hence the timeliness and importance of the volume under notice. An attentive perusal of these pages will afford ground for some critical estimate of the man in whose hands so much power is lodged, and whose use of power so great issues depend. The biographical sketch, though somewhat vague, and marked by occasional inaccuracies, affords some tolerable notion of the experience he has passed through; and the speeches, though covering but few years, exhibit that portion of his opinions which is most related to existing problems.

We find here the image of a very honest, patriotic man, vigorous in mind, resolute in will, definite in character, and bearing deeply the impress of a special and marked experience. Of his honesty, to begin with, there can be no doubt. His administration may be mistaken, but it will not be corrupt. And to feel assured of so much is very healthful. But an honest man, in his position, _must_ be patriotic,--must be looking to the welfare of the country, rather than casting about to make bargains for his private advantage; and we gather from this book, that, if any meditate buying or bribing the President, they will learn a lesson in due time. He may come to coincide with them, but it will be by their acquiescence in his judgment, not by his acceptance of their proffers.

It is when we come to inspect his intellectual position, to consider the quality of his honest convictions, as determined chiefly by his peculiar experience, that the real question opens.

Mr. Johnson was a Southern "poor white." He became the ornament, then the champion of his class; rescued it from political subjection in Tennessee, and, in his own election to the Governor's chair, and then to the United States Senate, gave it a first feast of supremacy. In this long struggle, the peculiar opinion and sentiment of his class--that is, of its best portion--became with him, though in an enlarged form, impassioned convictions, deeply incorporated with his character, and held with somewhat of religious fervor.

In the first speech contained in the present collection, dating so lately as 1858, he is found still resting upon this experience. His sympathy is wholly with the simpler forms of country life, with mechanics and small landholders, "the middle class," as he calls them. He hates cities; he cannot help showing some mild jealousy of the commercial and manufacturing interest; literature and science he does not wish to undervalue, but his whole heart is with the class who live a well-to-do, honest life, by manual labor in their own shops or on their own acres. Like his class, he dislikes the cotton lords, but likes Slavery, and has no faith in the negro; it has not occurred to him to think of the negro as a man, and he wished that every white man in the country had a slave to do his "menial" labor.

In the next speech, made two years later, he is confronting the immediate probability of Secession. He grapples with it sturdily, but still regards it from a strictly Southern point of view,--that of his class. The South, he thinks, has real grievances; it has, indeed, been wronged by the election of a "sectional President and Vice-President"; it is entitled to redress; only it should seek redress in the Union, not out of it.

Even when what he feared and fought against was become overt and bloody war, when his own life was vengefully sought, when his own friends were hunted down, and either murdered without mercy or dragged mercilessly away to fight an alien battle with a sword behind and cannon in front, even then he finds great difficulty in changing his point of view. He speaks no more of wrongs which the South has suffered; but it is because his feeling of that is overwhelmed by his sense of the horrible wrong it is committing. He declares, at length, that, if Slavery or the Union must go down, he will stand by the Union; but he evidently accepts the alternative with reluctance, though with resolution. When it becomes apparent that this possible alternative is indeed actual, he is true to his pledge; but it is a new charge in his mind against the Secessionists, that they have forced him to such election. They will have it so, he says, and since they will have it so, be it so; the necessity is not of his making; the retribution is real, but it is deserved. His final proclamation of freedom in Tennessee, in advance of executive warrant, was an intrepid and memorable act, worthy of his resolute spirit,--but was an act rather directed against the Rebels than prompted by sympathy with the slaves. His career in Tennessee was already far advanced before he fairly held forth his hand to the negroes as men, with the rights and interests of human beings; and it needed all the roused passion of his soul, all the touching trust of this people in him as their "Moses," all his intensity of recoil from treason, and all his sense of personal outrage, to nerve him for that triumph over his traditional prejudices.

The impression of Andrew Johnson which this book gives us is that of a deep, powerful, impassioned nature, inflexible, but inflexible rather by definite determination of character and fixity of conviction than by obstinacy of will. A man of large ability, he is, so to speak, deeply immersed in his own past,--limited by the bonds of his earnest, but, until lately, narrow experience. His power to change his point of view upon theoretical considerations is small, for he does little but expand his experience into theory. Facts alone can instruct him; and if these run counter to his intellectual predilection, they must be impressive to be effectual. He follows the law of his mind in proceeding to make an "experiment" in dealing with the South, and in making it as nearly as possible in accordance with the ancient customs of his thought. There is danger, we think, that he will look at facts too much with a traditional eye; but there is no danger that he will not act upon them with vigor, courage, and honest patriotism so far as he shall see them in their true light.

It should be said, that, to learn the latest modifications of his opinions, the reader must consult the Introduction.