English Lands Letters and Kings

always inviting; now threading dark glens, and again winding under hoary forest trees that grow on uplands; now giving glimpses of brook or pool, and now of grassy glade on which some group of century

ing his harp; and as I was scanning the details of this picture, the guide touched some hidden spring; Ossian straightway disappeared, sliding into the wall, and through the chasm one looked out upon clouds of spray, behind which an Alpine water-fall with roar and foam plunged down sheer forty feet into a seething pool below. The water-fall through an artful colloca

h we spoke in the last chapter, is the Macpherson Stone, which some twenty-five miles farther

somewhat to say of the poet Crabbe, and of his long and successful poems-now little read; and of those other poems by Cowper, some of which will be always read

on W

of Sel

sidle into the country again, for our first studies to-day;-into the county of Hampshire, where lived, toward the close of the last century, two personages-not far apart in tha

tleman saw and learned through twenty odd years of observation, about the birds, the beasts, the fishes, the trees, the flowers, the storms, the sunshine and the clouds of that little country parish of Selborne. And yet that simple story is told with such easy frankness, such delicacy, such simplicity, such truthfulness, such tender feeling for all God's creatures, whether beast or bird, that the little book has become almost as much a classic as Walton's Complete Angler; and the name of Gilbert White, which scarce a hundred Londoners knew when h

hes and his titlarks; his daws and his fern-owl are strange to us; and his robin red-breast-though undoubtedly the

inf

them wit

the old pitying, feathered mourners in the British wood, with the rollicking, joyous singer who perches every sunrise, thr

e by everybody. If only we could have an edition of Gray's Botany-for instance-with some ten lines of Parson White's homely descriptive English about the height and bigness, an

f this old gentleman, as giving value to a book or to any literary work whatever. They are not qualities, to be sure, which of themselves carry perfor

and the stuff, and the train, and the lace, and the sleeves, and the trimmings, and all the mysteries of its fit-to one who shall give a simple, clear-drawn, and intelligible account of a new flower, or new tree, or a strange bird. Thus you will perceive that I have made of this old gentleman-whom I greatly respect-a stalking horse, to fire a sermon at my readers;

r left it; his oaken book-case was still there; so was the thermometer attached to the shelves by which he made his observations; his dial by which he counted the hours stands at the foot of the garden; and in the

hire No

Aus

friend the parson; indeed she was only beginning to try her pen when Gilbert White was ready to lay his down. She had all his simplicities of treatment and all his acuteness of observation-to which she added a charming humor and large dramatic power; but her subjects were men and women, and not birds. She wrote many good old-fashioned novels which people read now for their light and delicate touches, their happy characterizations, their charming play of humor, and their lack of exaggera

niece of the authoress, that "she would give her hand," if she could write a story like Miss Austen. We may not and must not doubt her quality and her genius, whatever old-time stiffness we may find in her conversations. One book of hers at least you should read, if only to learn her manner; and as you read it remember that it was written by a young woman who had passed nearly her wh

There are fine woods and walks; but there is plenty of mud, and bad-going. The very heroines you often want to clutch away from their uncomely surroundings; and as for the elderly Mrs. Bennett, whose tongue is forever at its "click-clack," you cannot help wishing that she might-innocently-get choked off the scene, and appear no more. But that is not the deft Miss Austen's way; that gossiping, silly, irr

but with bold, striking naturalism in it; all the littlenesses and plottings and vain speech of the Bath Pump-Room seem to come to life in its pages; to just such life as we may find about our Cape Mays, and Pequod, and Ocean houses, every blessed summer's day! Miss Austen's earlier novels, which made her reputation, were written before she was twenty-five, and published later, and under many difficulties-anonymously; so she had none of that public incense regaling he

e was lived within narrow lines; but what she saw, she saw true, and she remembered. That wonderful masterly Shakespearian alertness of mind in seizing upon traits and retaining their relations and colors, is what distinguishes her, as it distinguishes every kindred genius. I can understand how many people cannot overmuch relish the stories of Miss Austen-because they do not relish the people to whom she introduces us; but I cannot understand how any reader can fail to be impressed

Juve

rd & M

culcations of that eminently respectable work? Sixty years ago it was a stunning book for all good boys, and for the good sisters of good boys. Whoever was at the head of his class was pretty apt to get Sandford and Merton; whoever had a birthday present was very likely to get San

, and a farmer, and a donkey. This goes on very well for awhile; but at last the tables are turned, and he gets bitten by the blind beggar, and beaten by the lame beggar, and thrashed by the farmer, and is thrown by the donkey, and a large dog seizes him by the leg; this latter is printed in capitals, and the

the Thames, who sympathized strongly with Americans in Revolutionary times; who was also a disciple of Rousseau, and undertook to educate a young girl-two of them in fact, one b

a current book down to a time when respectable, and even mirth-loving people, did pass their evenings at home, and enjoyed doing so. The book commands even now, in some old-fashioned households, about the same sort of

Bar

hich she struggled bravely. That home was for a time out at Hampstead, only a half hour's drive from London, and she knew people worth knowing there; Fox and Johnson among the rest-though Johnson did give her a big slap for marrying as she did and for teaching an infant school.[7]

vagula,

vious chapter; but the good woman's evolution of th

now not wh

at thou and

r how, or w

me's a se

know, when

lay these li

o valuele

t then rem

whither dos

seen thy trac

is strang

I must seek t

*

e been lon

nt and through

part when fri

ill cost a

way, give li

thine o

ght; but in som

Good mo

r last poem of Eighteen hundred and eleven; the republican sympathies alienated a good many of her Tory friends, and brought to her temporary disrepute. Wherefor, I thi

Edgew

h story

s a good friend of Mrs. Barbauld, and who scored Dr. Johnson and

A most proper and interesting old lady we reckoned her, and do still. I for one never counted on her being young; it seemed to me that she must have been born straight into the severities of middle age and of story-telling. I could never imagine her at a game of romps, or buying candies on the sly. Though I had never seen her portrait-and no one else, for that matter-yet I knew the face-as well as that of my own grandmother; and what a good, kind, serene, mothe

Edgew

eing widowed shortly after, married three other wives[10] successively, whose children filled the great house at Edgeworthtown in Ireland, where the authoress

s-that Miss Edgeworth in "making the English familiar with the character of their gay and kind-hearted neighbors may truly be said to have done more toward completing the union than perhaps all the legislative enactments by which it has been followed up." Su

ffering without sympathy, and never any joys of even the most vulgar, without a tender satisfaction. Add to this a shrewd common sense-which never lost its way in romantic pitfalls, and an unblinking honesty, and charity of purpose-always making itself felt, and always driving a nail-and you have an array of qualities which will, I think, keep good Miss Edgeworth's name

ing type of our municipal Milesians-who resented highly his non-appointment to some fat place, after unwearied support of the government, "against his conscience, in a most honorable ma

, we believe that those gates were

rly Rom

Romant

uice of literature-from which some phosphorescent sparkles are still distinguishable in our time-in brilliant red and yellow covers. I allude to the Children of the Abbey, by Miss Roche[1

chances are strong that most of such readers have dipped into them; and if people dipped

ldren of the Abbey; and if the book came into the hands of one of a bevy of boys or girls

t were understood to be only "glancing at it;" the sentiment is so very profuse and gushing. None of us like to make a show of our allegiance to Master Cupid. Mis

ly enough, even from America there came, under the guiding providence of Mr. John Harper,[13] then I believe Mayor of the City of New York, an elegant carved armchair, trimmed with crimson plush, to testify "the admiring gratitude of the American people" to the author of Thaddeus of Warsaw. The book, by its amazing popularity, and by t

. Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho had more of the conventionally artistic qualities than either of those last named, though never so infectiously popular. There are gloomy Italian chieftains in it, splendid dark fellows with swords and pistols and plumes to match; and there are purple sunsets and massive castles with secret passages and stairs; and marks of blo

th

Beck

y son and heir of this benevolent Mayor,-William Beckford,[14] then a boy of ten,-would have had a different bringing up. At twenty, this youth printed-though he did not publish-some journals of continental travel which he had conducted in the spirit and with the large accompaniments of a young man who loves the splendor of life, and who had at command an annual revenue of six hundred thousand dollars, at that day said to be the largest moneyed income in England. What a little fragment of this sum which was squand

t be Beckford himself, wanders through a world of delights, where evil phantoms and genii assail him, and fascinating maidens allure him; and after adventures full of escapes and dangers and feastings, in which he listens to the melody of lutes and

arcades which gradually diminished till they terminated in a point radiant as the sun when he darts his last beams athwart the ocean.... The pavement, which was strewed over with gold-dust and saffron, exhaled so subtle an odor as almost overpowered them.... In the midst of this immense hall a vas

d in supplication, Vathek sees-through his bosom which was "transparent as crystal"-his heart enveloped in flames. Perhaps Haw

wonder of old days and are a wonder now. At Cintra, the picturesque suburb of Lisbon, he established a

well, here schemes

untain's ever

if a thing u

elling is as

eds a passage

rted, portals

to the think

leasaunces on

s anon by Time's

in Pimlico order. It is one of the show places of Cintra; and if Moorish domes, and marble halls, and sculpture delicate as that of the Alhambra, and fountains, and palms, and oranges, and

s, towers, and halls-some six hundred men often working together night and day on these constructions-which he equipped with the rare and munificent spoils brought back from his travel. To this Fairy land, however, Byron's lament would better apply; the walls are down and the towers have fallen; the property is divided; o

the father favored, was treated therefor with severities that would have become an Eastern caliph-for whic

rt B

rn

I dare not, and will not speak critically of his verses; there they are-in their little budget of gilt-bound, or paper-bound leaves; rhythmic, tender, coarse, glowing, burning, with a grip in many of them at our heart-strings

born; we have been there perhaps; we have seen other Scottish peasants boozing there over their ale; and have noted the names scribbled over tables and cupboards and walls to testify to the world's yea

ades, his mattoc

n in ease and

moor, his course d

to be printed;" and so presently after, the first poor, thin, dingy volume finds it way to the light, and gives to far-away Edinboro' people their earliest hint of this strange, fine, new, human plant which has begun to blossom under the damps of Mossgiel. But the farm life is hard; t

f he h

ark, rolling eyes, and lips that command all shapes of language, holds his dignity with these fine ladies of the Northern capital; gives compliments that make them tremble; prints other and fuller edition of his poems; goes northward amongst the highlands-dropping jewels of verse as he goes-to beautiful women, to waterfalls, to noble patrons. The next season in Edinboro', however

dded pence by the gauging of beer-barrels and looking after frauds upon the revenue; married too-having out of all the loose love-strings, which held him more or less weakly, at last knotted one, which ties the quiet, pretty, womanly, much injured Jea

brewed a pe

nd Allen

hearts that

find in Ch

ou, we're n

drappie i

y craw, the

l taste the

moon, I ke

kin in the

e bright, to

ooth, she'll

y craw, the

l taste the

and better; he has no tact at bargaining; a stanza of Tam O'Shanter is worth more than ten plough-days, yet he makes gifts of his best songs. Household affairs go all awry, let poor Jeanie Armour struggle as she may; the cottage palings are down;

erson, my

the hill

a canty d

wi' ane

n totter d

in hand

thegither

derson,

range, the fields, the daisies of Ellisland, must go to one of the foulest and least attractive streets of Dumfries, and to a home as little attractive as the street. Fifty years thereafter I went over that house and found it small, pinched, and pitiful

are planting themselves in fresh hearts and brains; every day his wild passions are dealing him back-handed blows. Old neighbors have to pass him by; modest women

s wind! when

dead leaves

ath! when wi

life that

rply; he is on his back-"uneasy" the nurse said, and "chafing"; when suddenly by a great effort-as if at last he would shake off all the beleaguerments of sense, a

made the acquaintance of that coming man, S. T. Coleridge, who is living at Clevedon, over by Bristol Channel, with that newly married wife, who has decoyed him from his schemes of American migration; and the poet of the Ancient Mariner (as yet unwritten) has published his little booklet with Mr. Cottle, of Bristol, in which are some modest verses signed C. L. And Charles Lamb (for whom those initials stand

xford man; Fellow in 1744; curate of F

ered home and other objects of interest, was published by Macmillan & Co. in 1875 (edited b

y, published 1811. Life was written by her nephew J. Au

f an old oil painting that Lord Brabourne gives, which m

. Oxford man; married, 1778; San

sant sketch of Mrs. Barbauld and (for a wonder) an approving and commenda

, it appears, had been

Johnson, vol

es are given in Cra

olume of Parent's Assistant was published, 179

ra Sneyd among

l du XIX. Siècle enumerates no less than thirteen other romances by

1764; d. 1823; Romance of the Fores

d 1803; Scottish Chiefs, 1810; Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative (i

he old firm of J. & J.

published (in French), 1787; better known by an

blished 1786. First collected edition, 1800;