Have fallen upon the course; a thousand others Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace. Father John. Had Launoy lived, he might have passed And many a cloud drifts by, and none sojourns. In a wide solitude of wintry sky Twinkles the reilluminated star, And all is out of sight that smirched the ray. We have no time to mourn. [again. But this thou know'st. (From Philip van Artevelde, Part I.) As fancy led, or choice or chance, Be it avowed, when all is said, Too young she loved, and he on whom Yet gay and sportive as a child, At times o'ertook him in his course, For grace and beauty far above Their due deserts betrayed a heart Which might have else performed a prouder part. First love the world is wont to call Love early marked her for his own; Upon her, had the seed been sown In soil which needed not the plough; (From Philip van Artevelde, Part I.) A collected edition of Taylor's works appeared in five volumes in 1878. The Autobiography (2 vols. 1885) contains a fine series of penportraits of such contemporaries as Wordsworth, Southey, Scott, Sydney Smith, Mill, Sir James Stephen, Spedding, Carlyle, Tennyson and Aubrey de Vere. It was supplemented by his only less delightful Correspondence (1888), a selection of two hundred and two letters, edited by Professor Dowden, including also letters to Taylor from Wordsworth, Southey, Stephen, Mrs Norton, Macaulay, Spedding, Tennyson, Aubrey de Vere, Gladstone, Dr John Brown, and Swinburne. Leitch Ritchie (1800-65) came from Greenock to a Glasgow merchant's office, and at eighteen began writing for the magazines. By 1820 he had fairly begun in London his literary life as a diligent compiler, editor, and author, writing books of travel, editing a library of romance, preparing the text for books of pictures (such as Turner's Liber Fluviorum), and contributing to innumerable magazines. In his later years he edited Chambers's Journal and did other work for its publishers. Of his original novels the most important were Schinderhannes, The Robber of the Rhine, The Magician, and Wearyfoot Common. Edward William Lane (1801-76), Arabic scholar, the son of a clergyman in Hereford, began life as an engraver; but delicate health took him to Egypt, and he became one of the most accomplished Orientalists of his time, who did probably more than any contemporary to interest Britain and Europe in the Arabic and Moslem East. The result of his first (1825-28) and second (1833-35) visits to Egypt was his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836; 5th ed. 1871; reprints in 1890, 1894, &c.), still a standard authority. This was followed by the annotated translation of the Thousand and One Nights (1838-40), really the first accurate rendering, and by Selections from the Koran (1843). Lane's third visit to Egypt (1842-49) was devoted to laborious preparation for the great work of his life, the Arabic Lexicon (5 vols. 1863-74), completed (1876-90) by his grand-nephew, Professor Stanley Lane Poole, who also wrote his Life (1877). Abraham Hayward (1802-84), of an old Wiltshire house, was articled to a country lawyer, but entered himself at the Inner Temple in 1824, and was called to the Bar in 1832. He founded and edited the Law Magazine, and was made a Q.C.. in 1845. In 1833 he published his prose translation of the first part of Faust, and soon became a busy contributor to the newspapers and magazines, especially the Quarterly. His tongue was sharp, his temper was not improved by his missing the professional success he aimed at, and his later years were devoted to literature and social relaxations. He was rather a marvellously wellinformed man and an admirable teller of anecdotes than a brilliant talker; but his stories and good sayings, his whist-playing, and his genial and artistic interest in the art of dining' delighted society almost down to his death. Many of his best articles were reprinted in his Biographical and Critical Essays (1858–73) and Eminent Statesmen and Writers (1880). Other books, besides many legal ones, were on whist, on Junius, and on Goethe; Lives of George Selwyn and Lord Chesterfield; an edition of Mrs Piozzi's autobiography, letters, and literary remains; an edition of The Diaries of a Lady of Quality; and his famous Art of Dining. His Selected Essays appeared in 1878, his Select Correspondence in 1886. George Payne Rainsford James (1801–60), the son of a well-known London physician, was educated at Putney and in France, and by seventeen had written some Eastern tales which found favour with Washington Irving. He soon thereafter began to write romances, and became one of the most prolific and popular novelists of the period; in all he produced something like a hundred novels and other works, and many of the romances, mostly of historical type and after the style of Scott, have been frequently reprinted. He was British consul at Richmond, Virginia, from 1852 till 1856, and then at Venice until his death. G. P. R. James's' best stories were among the earliest-Richelieu (1829) and Henry Masterton (1832). Among the others may be mentioned, Philip Augustus (1831), Mary of Burgundy (1833), Darnley (1833), The Manat-Arms (1840), Consi de Léon (1841), Agincourt (1844), The Smugglers (1845). A few poems from his pen are of no importance. He also undertook a good deal of historical work, and published a Life of the Black Prince (1836), Lives of Eminent Foreign Statesmen (1838-40), Life and Times of Louis XIV. (1838), and Dark Scenes of History. William IV. appointed him historiographer royal, and he produced a History of the United States Boundary Question (1839), a disquisition on the Corn Laws (1841), and several other works bearing on political questions. Though his specifically literary talent was not great and his style was putable faculty for ready and picturesque writing, melodramatic and grandiloquent, he had an indis and of so employing historical incidents as to make his romances eminently attractive, especially to young people. He may be classed as a hybrida productive hybrid-between Dumas and Mrs Ann Radcliffe. Leigh Hunt writes kindly of him, and Sir Archibald Alison could revert with pleasure to his varied compositions,' which even yet may be safely recommended to the young person.' But the two horsemen' who so frequently opened his novels will be remembered best, if not indeed solely, by Thackeray's parody, Barbazure. An Opening. On the morning of the 24th day of March 1520 a traveller was seen riding in the small rugged cross-road which, traversing the eastern part of Kent, formed the immediate communication between Wye and Canterbury. . . . The rider was a man of about five or six and twenty, perhaps not so old; but the hardy, exposed life which had dyed his florid cheek with a tinge of deep brown had given also to his figure that look of set, mature strength which is not usually concomitant with youth. But strength with him had nothing of ungracefulness, for the very vigour of his limbs gave them ease of motion. Yet there was something more in his aspect and in his carriage than can rightly be attributed to the grace induced by habits of martial exercise, or to the dignity derived from consciousness of skill or valour; there was that sort of innate nobility of look which we are often weakly inclined to combine in our minds with nobility of station, and that peculiar sort of grace which is a gift, not an acquirement. . . . In those days, when, as old Holinshed assures us, it was not safe to ride unarmed, even upon the most-frequented road, a small bridle-path, such as that which the traveller pursued, was not likely to afford much greater security. However, he did not appear to have furnished himself with more than the complement of offensive arms usually worn by every one above the rank of a simple yeoman-namely, the long straight double-edged sword, which, thrust through a broad buff belt, hung perpendicularly down his thigh, with the hilt shaped in form of a cross, without any further guard for the hand; while in the girdle appeared a small dagger, which served also as a knife: added to these was a dag or pistol, which, though small, considering the dimensions of the arms then used, would have caused any horse-pistol of the present day to blush at its own insignificance. In point of defensive armour he carried none, except a steel cap, which hung at his saddle-bow, while its place on his head was supplied by a Genoa bonnet of black velvet, round which his rich chestnut hair curled in thick profusion. . . . Very different, however, were his mental sensations, if one might believe the knitted look of thought that sat upon his full broad brow, and the lines that early care seemed to have busily traced upon the cheek of youth. Deep meditation, at all events, was the companion of his way; for, confident in the surefootedness of his steed, he took no care to hold his bridle in hand, but suffered himself to be borne forward almost unconsciously, fixing his gaze upon the line of light that hung above the edge of the hill before him, as if there he spied some object of deep interest; yet, at the same time, with that fixed intensity which told that, whilst the eye thus occupied itself, the mind was far otherwise employed. A Mêlée. (From Darnley.) In an instant Sir Osborne's visor was down, his spear was in the rest, and his horse in full gallop. 'Darnley ! Darnley! shouted he, with a voice that made the welkin ring. 'Darnley to the rescue! Traitor of Shoenvelt, turn to your death !' 'Darnley! Darnley!' shouted Longpole, following his lord. 'St George for Darnley! Down with the traitors!' The shout was not lost upon either Shoenvelt or the traveller. The one instantly turned, with several of his men, to attack the knight; the other, seeing unexpected aid at hand, fell back towards Darnley, and with admirable skill and courage, defended himself with nothing but his sword against the lances of the marauders, who -their object being more to take him living than to kill him-lost the advantage which they would have otherwise had by his want of armour. Like a wild beast, raging with hatred and fury, Shoenvelt charged towards the knight, his lance quivering in his hand with the angry force of his grasp. On, on, bore Sir Osborne at full speed towards him, his bridle in his left hand, his shield upon his breast, his lance firmly fixed in the rest, and levelled in such manner as to avoid its breaking. In a moment they met. Shoenvelt's spear struck Sir Osborne's shield, and, aimed firmly and well, partially traversed the iron; but the knight, throwing back his left arm with vast force, snapped the head of the lance in twain. In the meanwhile his own spear, charged at the marauder's throat with unerring exactness, passed clean through the gorget-piece and the upper rim of the corslet, and came bloody out at the back. You might have heard the iron plates and bones cranch as the lance rent its way through. Down went Shoenvelt, horse and man borne over by the force of the knight's course. 'Darnley, Darnley!' shouted Sir Osborne, casting from him the spear which he could not disengage from the marauder's neck, and drawing his sword. 'Darnley, Darnley to the rescue! Now, Wilsten, now!' And turning, he galloped up to where the traveller, with Longpole and Frederick by his side, firmly maintained his ground against the adventurers. (From Darnley.) Douglas Jerrold (in full, Douglas William Jerrold; 1803-57) was a Londoner born, youngest son of an actor who was from 1807 lessee of the theatre at Sheerness. Even as a child he began to manifest a voracious appetite for books; in 1809 he was at school in Sheerness; in 1813 he went on board the Namur guardship as a midshipman, not a little proud of his uniform. At the close of the war his ship was paid off; and in 1816, settled with the rest of the family in London, the eager book-loving boy started life anew as a printer's apprentice. He was diligent in business, but seized every moment of his leisure time for selfinstruction. In 1819, a compositor on the Sunday Monitor, he had been to see Der Freischütz, and, having written a criticism on it, dropped it into his employer's letter-box. Next morning he had his own copy handed to him to set up, with an editorial note to the anonymous correspondent requesting further contributions. Jerrold was not yet fairly launched on literature. His capacity for study was enormous, and his perseverance indefatigable; night and morning he worked at Latin, French, and Italian, besides getting through a vast amount of English reading; and erelong he was dramatic critic, as well as compositor, on the Monitor. Before his marriage in 1824 he had made a start as a dramatist; four of his pieces had been produced, the first of which, More Frightened than Hurt (written when its author was about fifteen), came out in 1821. In 1825 he was engaged at a weekly salary to write dramas, farces, and other 'entertainments' for the Coburg Theatre. Four years later he was engaged at five pounds a week in a like capacity at the Surrey Theatre, where in 1829 Black-eyed Susan was acted for the first time. From this date up to 1854, when The Heart of Gold came out at the Princess's Theatre, a long series of plays (including Bubbles of the Day, 1841, and Retired from Business, 1851) was produced, every one of them characterised by Jerrold's sprightly style and sparkling dialogue. His contributions to periodical literature began soon after he commenced life in London, with occasional verses and sketches in the various magazines of the day; as his position became more assured he contributed to the Monthly, the New Monthly, the Athenæum, Blackwood, and other periodicals. To Punch he was a constant and important contributor from its second number in 1841 up to the time of his death. Between 1843 and 1848 he edited one after another two magazines and a weekly paper of his own, and in these and in Punch much of his best work appeared. In politics a Liberal, in 1852 he accepted the editorship of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper; 'he found it in the street, and annexed it to literature.' For his peculiar kind of wit, for his 'flashing insight,' Jerrold stands alone. The conversations in his novels are perhaps too witty, too much like dra- I matic dialogue. The incidents and characters in his plays are well managed and arranged for dramatic effect, but lack breadth and simplicity. In social conversation Jerrold was brilliant and unique, and from keen sarcasm could pass lightly to touching pathos. As a journalist he was a zealous advocate of reform, a passionate hater of cant, given to speaking at times unadvisedly with his pen as with his lips, and nowise infallible, but an honest man and a generous friend. His humour was spontaneous and overflowing, if some of his fun was farther fetched; he was a genial wit rather than an intentional satirist, though it must be admitted that some of his brightest sayings seem acrid and rude, if not cruel. But, as has been justly said, 'there are men who can and do say the sharpest things without wounding. The look, the manner, the twinkle in the eye, the known | character of the man- these turn bitterness to merry banter in the very utterance.' A collected edition of Jerrold's works, in eight volumes, was published during his lifetime; it contains his principal writings, St Giles and St James, A Man made of Money, The Story of a Feather, Cakes and Ale, Punch's Letters to his Son, Punch's Complete Letter-writer, Chronicles of Clovernook, and the inimitably funny and enormously popular Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures, and fewer than half of Jerrold's dramatic works. It is said that he tired of making professional fun confessedly he would greatly have preferred to see one of his more considerable stories, or of his most successful plays, accounted his masterpiece rather than Mrs Caudle. Fancy Fair for Painting St Paul's. Sir Phenix Clearcake. I come with a petition to you -a petition not parliamentary but charitable. We propose, my lord, a fancy fair in Guildhall; its object so benevolent, and more than that, so respectable. Lord Skindeep. Benevolence and respectability! Of course, I'm with you. Well, the precise object? Sir P. It is to remove a stain-a very great stain -from the city; to give an air of maiden beauty to a most venerable institution; to exercise a renovating taste at a most inconsiderable outlay; to call up, as it were, the snowy beauty of Greece in the coalsmoke atmosphere of London; in a word, my lordbut as yet 'tis a profound secret-it is to paint St Paul's! To give it a virgin outside-to make it so truly respectable. Lord Skin. A gigantic effort! Sir P. The fancy fair will be on a most comprehensive and philanthropic scale. Every alderman takes a stall; and to give you an idea of the enthusiasm of the city Sir P. A stupendous speculation! I should say that, when its countless advantages are duly numbered, it will be found a certain wheel of fortune to the enlightened capitalist. Smoke. Now, sir, if you would but take the chair at the first meeting-(Aside to Chatham: We shall make it all right about the shares)-if you would but speak for two or three hours on the social improvement conferred by the lucifer-match, with the monopoly of sulphur secured to the company-a monopoly which. will suffer no man, woman, or child to strike a light without our permission. Chatham. Truly, sir, in such a cause, to such an auditory--I fear my eloquence. Smoke. Sir, if you would speak well anywhere, there's nothing like first grinding your eloquence on a mixed meeting. Depend on 't, if you can only manage a little humbug with a mob, it gives you great confidence for another place. Lord Skin. Smoke, never say humbug; it's coarse. Smoke. Pardon me, my lord, it was coarse. But the fact is, humbug has received such high patronage that now it's quite classic. Chat. But why not embark his lordship in the lucifer question? Smoke. I can't I have his lordship in three companies already. Three. First, there's a company-half a million capital-for extracting civet from asafœtida. The second is a company for a trip all round the world. We propose to hire a three-decker of the Lords of the Admiralty, and fit her up with every accommodation for families. We've already advertised for wet-nurses and Smoke. Pleasure and education. At every new country we shall drop anchor for at least a week, that the children may go to school and learn the language. The trip must answer: 'twill occupy only three years, and we've forgotten nothing to make it delightful— nothing from hot rolls to cork jackets. Brown. And now, sir, the third venture? Smoke. That, sir, is a company to Iuy the Serpentine River for a Grand Junction Temperance Cemetery. Brown. What! so many watery graves? Smoke. Yes, sir, with floating tombstones. Here's the prospectus. Look here; surmounted by a hyacinth -the very emblem of temperance-a hyacinth flowering in the limpid flood. Now, if you don't feel equal to the lucifers-I know his lordship's goodness-he'll give you up the cemetery. (Aside to Chatham: A family vault as a bonus to the chairman.) Sir P What a beautiful subject for a speech! Water-lilies and aquatic plants gemming the translucent crystal, shells of rainbow brightness, a constant supply of gold and silver fish, with the right of angling secured to shareholders. The extent of the river being necessarily limited, will render lying there so select, so very respectable. (From Bubbles of the Day.) Time's Changes. Florentine. O sir, the magic of five long years! We paint Time with glass and scythe-should he not carry harlequin's own wand? for, oh, indeed Time's changes! Clarence. Are they, in truth, so very great? Flor. Greater than harlequin's; but then Time works them with so grave a face that even the hearts he alters doubt the change, though often turned from very flesh to stone. Clar. Time has his bounteous changes too, and sometimes to the sweetest bud will give an unimagined beauty in the flower. (From Time Works Wonders.) Retirement. Tackle. Kitty, see what you'll get by waiting! I'll grow you such a garland for your wedding. Kitty. A garland, indeed! A daisy to-day is worth a rose-bush to-morrow. Puffins. But, Mr Pennyweight, I trust you are now, in every sense, once and for ever, retired from business? Gunn. No; in every sense, who is? Life has its duties ever; none wiser, better, than a manly disregard of false distinctions, made by ignorance, maintained by weakness. Resting from the activities of life, we have yet our daily task-the interchange of simple thoughts and gentle doings. When, following those already passed, we rest beneath the shadow of yon distant spire, then, and then only, may it be said of us, retired from business. (From Retired from Business.) Winter in London. The streets were empty. Pitiless cold had driven all who had the shelter of a roof to their homes; and the north-east blast seemed to howl in triumph above the untrodden snow. Winter was at the heart of all things. The wretched, dumb with excessive misery, suffered, in stupid resignation, the tyranny of the season. Human blood stagnated in the breast of want; and death in that despairing hour, losing its terrors, looked in the eyes of many a wretch a sweet deliverer. It was a time when the very poor, barred from the commonest things of earth, take strange counsel with themselves, and in the deep humility of destitution, believe they are the burden and the offal of the world. It was a time when the easy, comfortable man, touched with finest sense of human suffering, gives from his abundance, and, whilst bestowing, feels almost ashamed that, with such widespread misery circled round him, he has all things fitting, all things grateful. The smitten spirit asks wherefore he is not of the multitude of wretchedness; demands to know for what especial excellence he is promoted above the thousand thousand starving creatures; in his very tenderness for misery, tests his privilege of exemption from a woe that withers manhood in man, bowing him downward to the brute. And so questioned, this man gives in modesty of spirit— in very thankfulness of soul. His alms are not cold, formal charities, but reverent sacrifices to his suffering brother. It was a time when selfishness hugs itself in its own warmth, with no other thoughts than of its pleasant possessions, all made pleasanter, sweeter, by the desolation around; when the mere worldling rejoices the more in his warm chamber, because it is so bitter cold without; when he eats and drinks with whetted appetite, because he hears of destitution prowling like a wolf around his well-barred house: when, in fine, he bears his every comfort about him with the pride of a conqueror. A time when such a man sees in the misery of his fellowbeings nothing save his own victory of fortune-his own successes in a suffering world. To such a man the poor are but the tattered slaves that grace his triumph. It was a time, too, when human nature often shows its true divinity, and, with misery like a garment cling ing to it, forgets its wretchedness in sympathy with suffering. A time when, in the cellars and garrets of the poor, are acted scenes which make the noblest heroism of life; which prove the immortal texture of the human heart not wholly seared by the branding. iron of the torturing hours. A time when in want, in anguish, in throes of mortal agony, some seed is sown that bears a flower in heaven. (From St Giles and St James, Chap. I.) |