few Christians so convinced of the splendour of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions, than they would have been if the Queen had sent for them to live at Court: nor has the Church's most ardent 'desire to depart, and be with Christ,' ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure. On the contrary, a brave belief in death has been assuredly held by many not ignoble persons; and it is a sign of the last depravity in the Church itself, when it assumes that such a belief is inconsistent with either purity of character or energy of hand. The shortness of life is not, to any rational person, a conclusive reason for wasting the space of it which may be granted him; nor does the anticipation of death, to-morrow, suggest, to anyone but a drunkard, the expediency of drunkenness to-day. To teach that there is no device in the grave, may indeed make the deviceless person more contented in his dulness; but it will make the deviser only more earnest in devising: nor is human conduct likely, in every case, to be purer, under the conviction that all its evil may in a moment be pardoned, and all its wrong-doing in a moment redeemed; and that the sign of repentance, which purges the guilt of the past, will waft the soul into a felicity which forgets its pain, that it may be under the sterner, and to many not unwise minds, more probable, apprehension, that 'what a man soweth that shall he also reap'-or others reap,-when he, the living seed of pestilence, walketh no more in darkness, but lies down therein. (From The Crown of Wild Olive.) The First Sight of the Alps. Entered once into this mountain Paradise, we wound on through its balmy glens, past cottage after cottage on their lawns, still glistering in the dew. The road got into more barren heights by the midday, the hills arduous; once or twice we had to wait for horses, and we were still twenty miles from Schaffhausen at sunset; it was past midnight when we reached her closed gates. The disturbed porter had the grace to open them-not quite wide enough; we carried away one of our lamps in collision with the slanting bar as we drove through the arch. How much happier the privilege of dreamily entering a medieval city, though with the loss of a lamp, than the free ingress of being jammed between a dray and a tramcar at a railroad station! It is strange that I but dimly recollect the following morning; I fancy we must have gone to some sort of church or other; and certainly, part of the day went in admiring the bow-windows projecting into the clean streets. None of us seem to have thought the Alps would be visible without profane exertion in climbing hills. We dined at four, as usual, and the evening being entirely fine, went out to walk, all of us-my father and mother and Mary and I. We must have still spent some time in town-seeing, for it was drawing towards sunset when we got up to some sort of garden promenade-west of the town, I believe; and high above the Rhine, so as to command the open country across it to the south and west. which open country of low undulation, far into blue,gazing as at one of our own distances from Malvern of Worcestershire, or Dorking of Kent,-suddenly-behold -beyond, At There was no thought in any of us for a moment of their being clouds. They were clear as crystal, sharp on the pure horizon sky, and already tinged with rose by the sinking sun. Infinitely beyond all that we had ever thought or dreamed,-the seen walls of lost Eden could not have been more beautiful to us; not more awful, round heaven, the walls of sacred Death. It is not possible to imagine, in any time of the world, a more blessed entrance into life, for a child of such a temperament as mine. True, the temperament belonged to the age: a very few years, within the hundred,before that, no child could have been born to care for mountains, or for the men that lived among them, in that way. Till Rousseau's time, there had been no 'sentimental' love of nature; and till Scott's, no such apprehensive love of all sorts and conditions of men," not in the soul merely, but in the flesh. St Bernard of La Fontaine, looking out to Mont Blanc with his child's eyes, sees above Mont Blanc the Madonna; St Bernard of Talloires, not the Lake of Annecy, but the dead between Martigny and Aosta. But for me, the Alps and their people were alike beautiful in their snow, and their humanity; and I wanted, neither for them nor myself, sight of any thrones in heaven but the rocks, or of any spirits in heaven but the clouds. Thus, in perfect health of life and fire of heart, not wanting to be anything but the boy I was, not wanting to have anything more than I had; knowing of sorrow only just so much as to make life serious to me, not enough to slacken in the least its sinews; and with so much of science mixed with feeling as to make the sight of the Alps not only the revelation of the beauty of the earth, but the opening of the first page of its volume,— I went down that evening from the garden-terrace of Schaffhausen with my destiny fixed in all of it that was to be sacred and useful. To that terrace, and the shore of the Lake of Geneva, my heart and faith return to this day, in every impulse that is yet nobly alive in them, and every thought that has in it help or peace. (From Præterita.) For Ruskin's life, as has been indicated above, his own writings are the best and the fullest authority. A complete list of them is given in the Bibliography of the Writings of John Ruskin, by T. J. Wise (2 vols. 1889-93). The Life and Work of Ruskin, by his pupil and secretary, W. G. Collingwood (2 vols, 1893), may be called his official biography up to that date. Among the many works dealing with his ideas or attempting to analyse his teaching and influence may be named Studies in Ruskin, by E. T. Cook (1890); Ruskin, by Mrs Meynell (1900); Ruskin, Social Reformer. by J. A. Hobson (1898); John Ruskin, by Frederic Harrison (1902), and for a foreign view, Le Mouvement Idéaliste et Social dans la Littérature Anglaise au 19me Siècle: John Ruskin, by Jacques Bardoux (1900); and Ruskin et la Réligion de la Beauté, by R. de la Sizeranne (1897; English translation, 1900). A collected edition of the whole of Ruskin's works, including much material hitherto unpublished, began to be issued in 1903 under the supervision of his literary executors. J. W. MACKAIL. William Johnson Cory (1823-92), the son of a Devonshire squire, was born at Torrington, and till 1878, when he inherited an estate and assumed the name of Cory, was beloved and revered by his Eton pupils (including Sir Frederick Pollock and Lord Rosebery) as William Johnson. Schooled at Eton, he was a brilliant student at Cambridge and became a Fellow of King's; and for over quarter of a century (from 1845) was the most eminent of Eton masters. After his retirement (1878) he lived at Madeira and at Hamp stead. At Cambridge he had won the Chancellor's medal for an English poem on Plato; his sapphics and alcaics were pronounced by Munro 'the best and most Horatian since Horace's own time. But it was his Ionica (1858; enlarged 1891) that revealed at first only to a very limited circle-his unique gift as an English lyrist, 'Anteros' and 'Mimnermus in Church' having an especial charm. He wrote handbooks of Latin and Greek verse composition, defended Eton against the attacks of 'Jacob Omnium,' and published a suggestive and original (but debatable) Guide to English History from 1815 to 1835. A volume of extracts from his Letters and Journals, illustrating his attractive character and at times paradoxical opinions, was published in 1897. Heraclitus. They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remembered how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, James Robinson Planché (1796-1880), whose name suggests his Huguenot descent, was born in London, and curiously combined the professions of antiquary and official herald (Rouge Croix from 1854, Somerset Herald from 1866) with that of writer of burlesques and other pieces for the theatre. His first extravaganza, Amoroso, was produced at Drury Lane in 1818. In 1824 he wrote English words for Weber's Der Freischütz, in 1826 for Oberon; from this time on he produced over ninety adaptations or translations and more than seventy original pieces (some with collaborators). To the other side of his life-work belong two histories of British costume and a Cyclopædia of Costume, Regal Records (1838), The Pursuivant of Arms (1852; 3rd ed. 1874), and The Conqueror and his Companions (1874), besides his autobiographical Recollections (1872). The Extravaganzas (1879) fill five volumes. Richard William Church (1815-90) was born at Lisbon, a nephew of Sir Richard Church (famous in the Neapolitan service and as generalissimo of the insurgent Greeks in 1827). He spent much of his boyhood in Italy, was a friend of Newman at Oxford, took a first-class from Wadham College, was elected a Fellow of Oriel, in 1853 became rector of Whatley near Frome, and as Dean of St Paul's from 1871 was a distinguished and revered representative of the High Church on its best side. Among his score of works, besides several volumes of sermons, were Essays and Reviews (1854), The Beginning of the Middle Ages (1877), and The Oxford Movement (1891); and books on Anselm and Dante, on Spenser and Bacon (in the 'Men of Letters' series). He was one of the founders of the Guardian. There is a Life of him by his daughter (1894). Thomas Hughes (1823-96), born at Uffington, Berks, the son of a country squire, was educated at Rugby under Dr Arnold; studied at Oriel College, Oxford, 1841-45; was called to the Bar in 1848; and became a member of the Chancery Bar. His first literary venture, published anonymously, was Tom Brown's Schooldays (1856), a story of boy-life at Rugby under Arnold's reign, based mainly on his own experiences and impressions. 'Tom' in the story was the story-teller's brother George; 'Arthur' was Stanley, afterwards Dean Stanley. The book achieved an instant popularity which has been well maintained, and despite some faults of emphasis and sentimentality it remains yet the best literary picture of English public school life. It was followed by The Scouring of the White Horse (1858); Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), a continuation of the 'Schooldays,' and, like most continuations, a failure; and Alfred the Great (1869). Hughes became a Q.C. in 1869, and a County Court Judge in 1882. He was closely associated with Maurice and Kingsley in their work amongst the London poor. In 1865-68 he represented Lambeth as a Liberal in Parliament; in 1868-74 he sat for Frome; and in 1880 he assisted in founding a settlement in the United States, of which Rugby, Tennessee (1881), is an account. He also wrote Memoirs of his eldest brother, G. C. Hughes (1873), Lives of Daniel Macmillan (1882) and Bishop Fraser (1887), and Vacation Rambles (1895). He is buried at Brighton, and a statue of him was erected at Rugby in 1899. Sir William Howard Russell, a professional and past master in that art of which Crabb Robinson was pioneer in a comparatively casual and amateurish manner, is perhaps the most conspicuous of English war-correspondents. Born at Lilyvale, County Dublin, in 1821, he joined the staff of the Times in 1843, and was called to the Bar in 1850. From the Crimea he wrote those famous letters (published in bookform in 1856) which opened the eyes of Englishmen to the sufferings of the soldiers during the winter of 1854-55, and greatly contributed to break down, in the interests of army efficiency and the well-being of the soldiers, an antiquated system of official routine. He witnessed and described the events of the Indian Mutiny. In 1860 he established the Army and Navy Gazette, of which he was still editor and chief proprietor in 1993; and in 1861 the Civil War drew him to America, where he provoked much resentment by an eminently outspoken account of the Federal defeat at Bull Run. He accompanied the Austrians during the war with Prussia (1866), and the Prussians during the war with France (1870-71); visited Egypt and the East (1874) and India (1877) as private secretary to King Edward, then Prince of Wales; and was with Wolseley in South Africa in 1879 and in Egypt in 1883. And he has travelled in Canada, the United States, and South America. Among his books are a novel, The Adventures of Dr Brady (1868); Hesperothen (1882); A Visit to Chile (1890); and The Great War with Russia (1895), an autobiographical record of Crimean experiences. Made LL.D., a Knight of the Iron Cross, and a Commander of the Legion of Honour, he received an English knighthood in 1895. The fearless and energetic correspondent did not escape the temptations of his less distinguished colleagues-to send home sensational and unverified impressions as facts; in aiming at picturesque style and flowing narrative, to luxuriate in too frequent and too strong purple patches; and in distributing praise and blame to generals and soldiers, to arrogate to himself all but infallible skill in strategy, tactics, and political combination. William Hepworth Dixon (1821-79) was born at Great Ancoats, Manchester, and became a merchant's clerk, but soon determined to devote himself to a literary life. He had already written a good deal, and for a month or two had even edited a Cheltenham paper, when in 1846 he settled in London; and though in 1854 he was called to the Bar, he did not practise. A series of papers in the Daily News on 'The Literature of the Lower Orders,' and another on London Prisons,' attracted attention, the latter being republished in a volume issued in 1850. He had ere this written John Howard, and the Prison World of Europe; but it was with difficulty he could induce a publisher to accept it, yet when published (1850) it went through three editions in one year. Dixon now devoted himself principally to historical biography. His William Penn (1851) was called into existence by the onslaught made by Macaulay on the eminent Quaker, in which Dixon undertook, not without success, to disprove the great historian's charges. Robert Blake, Admiral (1852), and his Personal History of Lord Bacon (1860) were indeed popular, but failed to satisfy competent critics. For his various historical works, he from time to time undertook rather extensive researches in archives and amongst documents, and made some not inconsiderable finds; but he was liable to misapprehensions, and his most elaborate historical works were disfigured by frequent inaccuracies. From 1853 to 1869 Dixon was editor of the Athenæum. His books of travel, all bright and interesting, include The Holy Land (1865), New America (1867), Free Russia (1870), The Switzers (1872), The White Conquest (1875), and British Cyprus (1879). Spiritual Wives, dealing with Mormonism in a less polemical spirit than usual, he issued in 1868. Later historical works include Her Majesty's Tower, The History of Two Queens (Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn), and Royal Windsor. His novels, Diana Lady Lyle and Ruby Gray, issued in 1877 and 1878, are unimportant. James Grant (1822-87) was born in Edinburgh, the son of an officer in the Gordons who was proud of his old Highland and Jacobite descent, and in 1832 sailed with his father for Newfoundland. Home again in 1839, he next year became an ensign in the 62nd Foot, but in 1843 resigned, and, after a spell of draftsmanship in an architect's office, turned to literature. Having contributed copiously to the United Service Magazine and the Dublin University Magazine, he in 1846 published his Romance of War, the first of a long series of romances and histories, illustrative mainly of the achievements of Scottish arms abroad. The novels abound in incident, glorify dauntless daring, and have a brisk and vigorous style without much literary charm. The histories are at times too picturesque and not historical enough. Of upwards of fifty novels the best known are The Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp; Frank Hilton, or the Queen's Own; Bothwell; The Yellow Frigate; and Harry Ogilvie; but his latest stories were meant to illustrate the British occupation of Burma and the reconquest of the Soudan. Of his other works, Old and New Edinburgh had the largest sale. But he wrote Memoirs of Kirkaldy of Grange, of Montrose and other Scottish heroes, and books of battles on land and sea. Cardinal Manning received Grant into the Roman communion twelve years before his death. The Songs and Ballads of Ireland. In Ireland they who make the people's ballads do not exactly make the people's laws. But the ballad-writers have always been accurate and sympathetic exponents of popular sentiment. And in the nineteenth century the patriotic ballad has constituted a very considerable part of the total poetic production of Irish writers. What may be termed the political poetry of Ireland is purely English in form. It does not date much farther back than the era of the Volunteers; and the great period which followed that movement, the period of the Grattan Parliament, added singularly little to the ballad literature of Ireland. It was, indeed, only at the close of that era, in the convulsions of the rebellion, that the emotions of the masses began to be expressed in verses, often simple, sometimes rude, but always charged with patriotic feeling. The stirring events of those times gave opportunities for the production of that poetry of action and passion for which, as Sir Charles Gavan Duffy has noted in the preface to his Ballad Poetry of Ireland, the Celtic race have always had an intense relish. Of the earliest of these songs of the people many of the most successful have been the work of writers otherwise unknown, and some have been anonymous. Among the latter must be included the most characteristic example of the class to which it belongs 'The Wearin' o' the Green,' a ballad which has been called the National Anthem of Ireland, though it comes nearer perhaps to a dirge or a requiem than to an anthem. From the Union to the days of Catholic Emancipation the lyrical voice of Ireland was practically inarticulate, save for the exception-an immense exception of course-of Moore's Melodies. But the Melodies belong to a poetical category more formal and more self-conscious than the ballad. With the Repeal movement, however, the ballad impulse again made itself felt. In the hands of Thomas Davis, Gavan Duffy, and their colleagues of the Nation newspaper, a school of patriotic poetry, popular in form and feeling, was founded, which expressed with much power and concentration the national aspirations of the mass of Irishmen. The poetry of this period was at its best during the Young Ireland movement, and its most striking examples will be found in the collections compiled in the forties. Of these The Ballad Poetry of Ireland, edited by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy; The Book of Irish Ballads, edited by Denis Florence MacCarthy; The Songs of Ireland, edited by M. J. Barry; and The Spirit of the Nation are the best known, and the best. In all of these the dominant note is the note of patriotism, sometimes triumphant, sometimes chastened, now a pæan, more often a dirge. But the verses are invariably occupied with the same theme in its almost countless variations. Under the influence of Davis, and later of Ferguson, this national poetry became largely infused with an historical spirit, the writers seeking sometimes in the legend, more often in the actual chronicles of the country, fresh sources of inspiration, and the political ballad thus began to assume a more artificial tone, or at any rate a more elaborated style. Many examples of this kind of writing have already been given in this volume in the specimens of the poetry of Davis, Ferguson, Mangan, the Banims, and others (see pages 353365). But the earlier poetry is for the most part simpler in form, and it is chiefly this which is illustrated here. After the middle of the nineteenth century the intense lyrical impulse which the Young Ireland movement had stimulated was greatly weakened. Certainly the movements of Irish latter-day politics have been less abundantly illustrated by Tyrtæan music, and the Fenian movement produced no poet and scarcely a song. But bards have not been wholly wanting. In such writers as Timothy D. Sullivan the traditions of 'Young Ireland' have been carried on, if not exactly maintained; and 'The Spirit of the Nation' may still be felt in them. C. LITTON FALKINER. The Wearin' o' the Green. Oh Paddy, dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round? The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground. No more St Patrick's Day we 'll keep, his colour can't be seen, For there's a cruel law agin the wearin' o' the green! She's the most disthressful country that iver yet was seen, For they're hangin' men and women there for wearin' o' the green. An' if the colour we must wear is England's cruel red, And never fear, 'twill take root there tho' under foot 'tis trod. When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow, And when the leaves in summer-time their colour dare not show, Then I will change the colour too I wear in my caubeen; But till that day, plaze God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the green. ANON. The Shan Van Vocht ['The Little Old Woman'-a name for Ireland]. Oh the French are on the sea, Says the Shan Van Vocht; Says the Shan Van Vocht; And where will they have their camp? Says the Shan Van Vocht; Where will they have their camp? Says the Shan Van Vocht; Then what will the yeomen do? Says the Shan Van Vocht; To the Shan Van Vocht? And what colour will they wear? Where our fathers' homes have been Says the Shan Van Vocht. And will Ireland then be free? Says the Shan Van Vocht; Will Ireland then be free? Says the Shan Van Vocht; Yes! Ireland shall be free From the centre to the sea; Then hurrah for Liberty, Says the Shan Van Vocht. The Memory of the Dead. Who fears to speak of Ninety-Eight? Will fill your glass with us. We drink the memory of the brave, The fame of those who died; Remember them with pride. Some on the shores of distant lands Their weary hearts have laid, And by the strangers' heedless hands Their lonely graves were made; But though their clay be far away Beyond the Atlantic foam, In true men, like you, men, Their spirit's still at home. The dust of some in Irish earth, Among their own they rest; ANON. And the same land that gave them birth Has caught them to her breast: And we will pray that from their clay They rose in dark and evil days They fell, and passed away; But true men, like you, men, Are plenty here to-day. Then here's their memory-may it be For us a guiding light, To cheer our strife for liberty, And teach us to unite! Through good and ill, be Ireland's still Though sad as theirs your fate; And true men, be you, men, Like those of Ninety-Eight. JOHN K. INGRAM. The Sea-divided Gael. Hail to our Celtic brethren, wherever they may be, Or spread beneath the sightless north experimental sails. Though fallen the state of Erin, and changed the Scottish land, Though small the power of Mona, though unwaked Llewellyn's band; Though Ambrose Merlin's prophecies are held as idle tales, Though Iona's ruined cloisters are swept by northern gales, One in name and in fame Are the sea-divided Gaels. In northern Spain and Italy our brethren also dwell, And brave are the traditions of their fathers that they tell: The Eagle or the Crescent in the dawn of history pales Before the advancing banner of the great Rome-conquering Gaels. One in name and in fame Are the sea-divided Gaels. A greeting and a promise unto them all we send ; T. DARCY M'GEE. Fair is my Native Isle. Fair is my native isle, Proud is she too ; Sweet is her kindly smile, Loving and true. Exiled ones sigh for her, Brave men would die for her, Such love have I for her, So would I do. |