From the career of arms which absorbed fourteen years of his life, he carried into his private sphere something more than the incurable wound of a deceived passion. He brought to it that lively and powerful sentiment which constrained him throughout his whole existence, and became his infallible guide; he seemed to personify and also to worship the soldier's moral ideal-Honour, the sans peur et sans reproche of the Chevalier Bayard. From an Englishman's point of view this exalted abstraction is obscure, vague, and impalpable; and even where tangible, changeable according to the impressions of the time and the country. powerful as the sentiment may be in some breasts, it still requires to be defined by the double idea of human duty and of human dignity. De Vigny, however, regards it as something divine, and paid it poetic worship.

As the glory of arms was his dream in active life, so art the most pure, the most elevated, was his dream as a writer. "I have had occasion," says M. Caro, "to say elsewhere, and I repeat it with a conviction strengthened by a renewed reading of his works, that the principal feature which characterises them is the minute carefulness with which he selects his ideas, and the elegance of form in which he expresses them-in a word, his respect for human thought. He has given to his contemporaries a beautiful example of chasteness, temperance, and harmony, well worthy of being reflected upon, at a time of prodigal improvisation of immoderate abandon, of vulgar indiscretion, of sans façon, alike disregardful of art and the public. Lovable and rare is the spirit which thus respects itself in the choice of subjects, in the conscience with which it meditates upon them, and in that search and inquiry after perfection of detail which reveals the true artist. This enthusiasm for idea, this curiosity for expression, this solicitude, this instinct, this taste for the refinements of thought and style, is indeed true faith in art-the real worship of the ideal; it is, in a word, the sentiment of honour applied to letters." It bore out with exquisite fidelity the profound remark of La Bruyère, who says: "Entre toutes les différentes expressions qui peuvent rendre une seule de nos pensées, il n'y en a qu'une que soit la bonne; on ne la rencontre pas toujours en parlant ou en écrivant. Il est vrai néanmoins qu'elle existe, que tout ce que ne l'est point est faible, et ne satisfait point un homme d'esprit qui veut se faire entendre."

M. De Vigny was the last amongst the poets of the day to think of placing himself before the public. As we have said before, he shrank with nervous horror from the world; nor did he in his retirement seek the noisy applause of men. He was chary of his works no less than of himself. To use one of his own expressions, he repelled the temptation of amusing the idle by scraps of his life or the misdirection of his vocation. Many passages full of pleasant and genial irony has he levelled against those vain contemporary writers, the Dumas' and the George Sands', for example, who delight in letting the world look into their heart of hearts, laying bare their consciences, and calling upon their

fellow-creatures to gaze upon the revelations of their lives. De Vigny had too much self-respect to let the light thus publicly in upon his most private thoughts, and wave to the world to come to those chambers of the soul in which its holiest secrets shall be kept. He refused, as others did not, to exhibit his mind confused, perhaps disordered, and still encumbered with familiar souvenirs of the most cherished faults; he did not judge himself either sufficiently illustrious or sufficiently repentant to make his confessions in a loud voice, and to intrust a whole nation with his sins. If ever a cry breaks from him, a cry that has been drawn from his bosom by bitter experience, it is only through the medium of another that the voice is heard. Into his ideal creations alone is it that he has thrown any of his passion and his pain; and if his first occasionally betrays, like that of Byron, personal emotion, it is under a veil that he becomes emotional and that his heart beats.

Every where throughout his works he was mindful of his art. was subordinate to every thing. Peruse his most exquisite morceaux, and it will be perceived that they are never written haphazard, but that they are connected by a general conception, they are instinct with one motive. The dominant idea in Cinq-Mars is the end of the Monarchy, prepared by the great revolutionary Richelieu; Stello is the true mission of the poet and the artist; whilst Servitude et Grandeur militaire is a consistent denunciation of that demoralising institution, a permanent army.

Bearing in mind, then, what we have said, it is easy to understand why M. de Vigny condemned the last thirty years of his life to a sort of exile from the world. In the fine, exquisite, passionate, nervous temperament of the poet, ardent in the pursuit of the ideal and of glory, but rendered vulnerable by these very qualities, may be found many causes which would make a contact with the public exceedingly painful. Popularity, that noisy part of glory, he never sought; but the glory which he · obtained was subdued as the reflection of the light in an alabaster lamp. By his fortunate flight from the world M. de Vigny was able to preserve pure and intact that which would otherwise, perhaps, have been compromised, and its lustre diminished, had he written, and written prodigally, for the world. His object was of a higher character, and the greatness he achieved he has unquestionably obtained. Amongst his own countrymen he will hold a high niche in the Temple of Fame; his memory will be cherished with the memory of Alfred de Musset, Béranger, St.-Beuve, and Victor Hugo.

VOL. IX.

NN

Marriage not à-la-mode.

PLUTARCH records with evident sympathy the declaration of Themistocles, that he had rather his daughter married a man without money than money without a man. But the son of Neocles had been in early youth disinherited by his father for his extravagant vices; and as his incidental poverty was probably the spur which, still more than the trophies of Miltiades, goaded him into greatness, it was but natural that he should retain in the height of his glory some toleration for the circumstances which had evoked it. Besides, the hard day of Salamis had convinced its hero of the value of brave hearts and stubborn thews. Whether his daughter shared these views, the biographer in all probability did not know; and even had he known, he was too little of a social philosopher to have thought it deserving of mention in his pages. Indeed, the opinion of women on that or any other subject was not much canvassed among the Athenians. And the only conclusion which we can draw from Themistocles' thinking it worth his while to lay stress upon his saying, and from Plutarch thinking it worth while to commemorate it, is, that it was not one which was usually acted upon.

Indeed, it must be pretty evident that in all ages of the world, even before money transactions had superseded those of simpler barter, some preference must have been extended, in the choice of husbands, to those who possessed, or were likely to possess, substance, as against those who had neither possessions nor prospects. The lacklands and vauriens must ever have been at a discount in a matter which concerned the feeding of a second mouth, and the rearing of a progeny which brings no capital into the world and no immediate available labour. And though we may come across such a peculiar custom as exists among the Dyaks of Borneo, whereby no man is permitted to marry till he can produce a certain number of enemies' skulls, it is not unlikely that a price is affixed to hostile heads by the governing powers; and hence these skulls may be regarded as so much matrimonial stock-in-trade. In all centuries and places it is an immutable condition of human existence, that physical necessities must be satisfied; and whenever a man proposes to himself so wild a scheme as the wooing a woman whom he cannot decently maintain, he has no right to howl and turn round and abuse the world should he get refused, if not by the girl, at least by her parents. Every paterfamilias has not the peculiar experience or the lofty notions of a Themistocles; and the duties of a husband lie nearer to Threadneedle Street than to the Bay of Salamis. Hence no one has cause for wonder if the heroic dictum be usually reversed, and a man without money be considered less eligible than money even without a man. How much muscle, conversational power, skill in fence, capacity of riding across

country, ease in entering a drawing-room, entitles a person to be considered a man, would be, if raised, a vexed question to the end of time, and is altogether incapable of definition by the most muscular Christian or the strictest magister elegantiarum. But how much money is required to keep up a domestic establishment is, though a moot-point, one quite capable of being fixed, as I trust to show in this Essay. Therefore, if marriage be a man's object, let him not forget that a sufficient incomenot pleasant balinage, nor fluent speaking, nor a good seat is the first essential condition. And though he may be a tip-top classic, stroke-oar, nay, the most accomplished fellow of his circle, he has no ground for complaint, no right to claim sympathy, if, not having this essential condition, he runs a losing race against some dullard who has.

All this is so true, say you, that very little need be urged to demonstrate it. But some little has certainly to be said in order to recall it to many who too often forget it, and to protect myself, by anticipation, against others who, but for my distinctly stating and dwelling on it, would accuse me of forgetting or ignoring it, now that I am going to advocate, not the opposite, but another side of the question. There are plenty of more or less penniless young fellows who are exquisite waltzers, dead shots, good raconteurs, admirable judges of scarfs, superbly selfpossessed—in a word, the owners of all that floating capital which makes girls admire, if it does not induce them to marry, men. Hark to some of these gentlemen, and you will very soon know that, when the Fortunatus of a huckster's stall, who cannot for his life dance a step, tell a good story, knock over his bird, or wear a white tie fit to be seen, who blushes as he comes into a room and stumbles as he goes out of it, withal rushes quietly to the front and walks off with the girl they are all raving about, they think it "uncommon hard lines," instead of regarding it as the most natural thing in the world. Again; there are plenty of well-to-do, worldly, unsentimental people, who will quite agree with you as long as you laugh at these splenetic boys; but the moment you denounce a good man with a thousand a year being thrown over for a worse with five, they will forthwith set you down as a very unpractical person. In order, therefore, to protest against the unreasonableness of the former class, and to screen myself from the suspicions and imputations of the latter, I have in the commencement stated distinctly the proper and natural preponderance which, in a state of existence requiring food, clothing, and lodgment, an income sufficient to insure these has over no income at all, or an income insufficient for the wants and results of marriage.

Having cleared the ground of the possibility of one misconception, let me now endeavour to combat another. We are all agreed that a certain amount of money-to be approximately fixed later on-should be within the possession or reach of him who aspires to be married. But are we all agreed that it is not a greater absurdity for a man without this certain sum so to aspire, than it is a wickedness to discourage or prevent his

aspiration because it is contested by a second man who, though cateris paribus we will say neither better nor worse, has twice that certain sum? I suspect that there will be mighty disagreement amongst us. At any rate, there ought to be, unless most people are prepared to abandon either their practice or its defence. It is incontestable, as a fact, that the second man is regarded by society as a better "catch," and will be favoured and given opportunities at the expense of his rival. Yet surely this should not be. Each has what I have called the "essential condition of marriage," the "certain amount of money," which I will not fail shortly to calculate. All the rest is not essential, but accidental; valuable, perhaps, but not absolutely necessary; and should be weighed in the same scale as the size of hands, the colour of hair, or swiftness of foot. And these latter are clearly more for the consideration of the girl than for the interference of her parents or society at large. A father has as much right to prevent his daughter from marrying a pauper as from cutting her carotid artery. But he has no more right to insist that she shall prefer a man with twice the "certain amount of money" to one with only exactly the "certain amount of money," than he has to force her to wear buttoned boots instead of laced ones, or to use Truefitt's Columbian dye rather than Douglas's Mexican balm. I make no stipulation in favour of the "certain - amount man," as many would do in order to excite special prejudice in his favour. I do not assume that he is better-looking, more virtuous, courageous, genial, generous, what you will, than his competitor the "twice - amount man.' I am supposing that there is, on these scores, nothing to choose between them; that they are guests at the same houses, the father's house among the rest; both well-behaved members of society, one being preferred by these people, the other by those, as is invariably the case in this world; but neither objectionable on any accepted estimate. Each is sound in lung, and would pass the examination of an insurance office; each regularly pays his bills; each is free from the imputation of profane language, hard drinking, or loose practices; each has his faults, his peculiarities, his queer ways, his odd notions, as every body will have, or will at least seem to have, as long as ever we all of us have our own opinions. The only appreciable, tangible, uncontested difference between them is, that one has the "certain amount" which will enable him to support the girl and her offspring, and the other has "twice the amount." Should there be here a fair field and no favour? or should the girl be petted, or bullied, or-the more common case-driven, by opportunity given to the one and denied to the other, to marry the richer suitor? I know well enough whether or not there usually is a fair field in such cases; I feel convinced enough that there ought to be.

Probably, were this a spoken instead of a written discourse, some would be inclined to interrupt me at this point, and object that nothing would be gained by giving the fair field and no favour asked for, since the girl herself would be sure to be influenced by what, though not an