religious, therefore Oxbridge and heaven were outside of his universe and irrelevant to it. They may still find admirers in the cultured few, but the steely wit and erudition of their dialogues can never touch the great heart of the people. They are-trite though it sounds-'caviare to the general.'

The War-song of Dinas Vawr.
The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;

We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.

We made an expedition;

We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

On Dyfed's richest valley,

Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,

To furnish our carousing.

Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;

We met them, and o'erthrew them :

They struggled hard to beat us;

But we conquered them, and slew them.

As we drove our prize at leisure,

The king marched forth to catch us;

His rage surpassed all measure,

But his people could not match us.

He fled to his hall-pillars;

And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.

We there, in strife bewildering,
Spilt blood enough to swim in :
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,

The spearmen and the bowmen.

We brought away from battle,

And much their land bemoaned them,

Two thousand head of cattle,

And the head of him who owned them :
Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,

His head was borne before us;

His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.

(From The Misfortunes of Elphin.)

Landscape-gardening.

Mr Milestone. This, you perceive, is the natural state of one part of the grounds. Here is a wood, never yet touched by the finger of taste; thick, intricate, and gloomy. Here is a little stream, dashing from stone to stone, and overshadowed with these untrimmed boughs. Miss Tenorina. The sweet romantic spot! How beautifully the birds must sing there on a summer evening! Miss Graziosa. Dear sister! how can you endure the horrid thicket?

Mr Milestone. You are right, Miss Graziosa: your taste is correct-perfectly en règle. Now, here is the same place corrected-trimmed-polished-decorated

adorned. Here sweeps a plantation, in that beautiful regular curve: there winds a gravel walk : here are parts of the old wood, left in these majestic circular clumps, disposed at equal distances with wonderful symmetry: there are some single shrubs scattered in elegant profusion: here a Portugal laurel, there a juniper; here a laurustinus, there a spruce fir; here a larch, there a lilac; here a rhododendron, there an arbutus. The stream, you see, is become a canal: the banks are perfectly smooth and green, sloping to the water's edge: and there is Lord Littlebrain, rowing in an elegant boat.

Squire Headlong. Magical, faith!

Mr Milestone. Here is another part of the grounds in its natural state. Here is a large rock, with the mountain-ash rooted in its fissures, overgrown, as you see,

with ivy and moss; and from this part of it bursts a little fountain, that runs bubbling down its rugged sides. Miss Tenorina. O how beautiful! How I should love the melody of that miniature cascade!

Mr Milestone. Beautiful, Miss Tenorina. Hideous. Base, common, and popular. Such a thing as you may see anywhere, in wild and mountainous districts. Now, observe the metamorphosis. Here is the same rock, cut into the shape of a giant. In one hand he holds a horn, through which that little fountain is thrown to a prodigious elevation. In the other is a ponderous stone, so exactly balanced as to be apparently ready to fall on the head of any person who may happen to be beneath and there is Lord Littlebrain walking under it.

Squire Headlong. Miraculous, by Mahomet!

Mr Milestone. This is the summit of a hill, covered, as you perceive, with wood, and with those mossy stones scattered at random under the trees.

Miss Tenorina. What a delightful spot to read in on a

summer's day! The air must be so pure, and the wind must sound so divinely in the tops of those old pines ! Mr Milestone. Bad taste, Miss Tenorina. Bad taste, I assure you. Here is the spot improved. The trees are cut down the stones are cleared away: this is an octagonal pavilion, exactly on the centre of the summit: and there you see Lord Littlebrain, on the top of the pavilion, enjoying the prospect with a telescope.

Squire Headlong. Glorious, egad!

Mr Milestone. Here is a rugged mountainous road, leading through impervious shades: the ass and the four goats characterise a wild uncultured scene. Here, as you perceive, it is totally changed into a beautiful gravelroad, gracefully curving through a belt of limes; and there is Lord Littlebrain driving four-in-hand.

Squire Headlong. Egregious, by Jupiter!

Mr Milestone. Here is Littlebrain Castle, a Gothic, moss-grown structure, half bosomed in trees. Near the casement of that turret is an owl peeping from the ivy. Squire Headlong. And devilish wise he looks.

ago.'

And recognise your young friend Gamwell,' said the second, in the outlaw Scarlet.'

'And Little John, the page,' said the third, 'in Little John the outlaw.'

'And Father Michael of Rubygill Abbey,' said the friar, in Friar Tuck of Sherwood Forest. Truly I have a chapel here hard by in the shape of a hollow tree, where I put up my prayers for travellers, and Little John holds the plate at the door, for good praying deserves good paying.'

'I am in fine company,' said the baron.

'In the very best of company,' said the friar; 'in the high court of Nature, and in the midst of her own nobility. Is it not so? This goodly grove is our palace; the oak and the beech are its colonnade and its canopy; the sun, and the moon, and the stars are its everlasting lamps; the grass, and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet are its many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue; the Mayflower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry; the lark, and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army, to say nothing of the free choice of his people, which he has indeed; but I pass it by as an illegitimate basis of

power. He holds his dominion over the forest, and its horned multitude of citizen-deer, and its swinish multitude or peasantry of wild boars, by right of conquest and force of arms. He levies contributions among them by the free consent of his archers, their virtual represen tatives. If they should find a voice to complain that we are "tyrants and usurpers, to kill and cook them up in their assigned and native dwelling-place," we should most convincingly admonish them, with point of arrow, that they have nothing to do with our laws but to obey them. Is it not written that the fat ribs of the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land? And have not they, withal, my blessing?—my orthodox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing? Do I not give thanks when they are well roasted and smoking under my nose? What title had William of Normandy to England that Robin of Locksley has not to merry Sherwood? William fought for his claim. So does Robin. With whom both? With any that would or will dispute it. William raised contributions. So does Robin. From whom both? From all that they could or can make pay them. Why did any pay them to William? Why do any pay them to Robin? For the same reason to both --because they could not or cannot help it. They differ, indeed, in this, that William took from the poor and gave to the rich, and Robin takes from the rich and gives to the poor; and therein is Robin illegitimate, though in all else he is true prince. Scarlet and John, are they not peers of the forest?-lords temporal of Sherwood? And am not I lord spiritual? Am I not archbishop? Am I not Pope? Do I not consecrate their banner and absolve their sins? Are not they State, and am not I Church? Are not they State monarchical, and am not I Church militant? Do I not excommunicate our enemies from venison and brawn, and, by'r Lady! when need calls, beat them down under my feet? The State levies tax, and the Church levies tithe. so do we. Mass-we take all at once. What then? It is tax by redemption, and tithe by commutation. Your William and Richard can cut and come again, but our Robin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to his exchequer. What need we, then, to constitute a court, except a fool and a laureate? For the fool, his only use is to make false knaves merry by art, and we are true men, and are merry by nature. For the laureate, his only office is to find virtues in those who have none, and to drink sack for his pains. We have quite virtue enough to need him not, and can drink our sack for ourselves.'

Even

'Well preached, friar,' said Robin Hood; 'yet there is one thing wanting to constitute a court, and that is a queen. And now, lovely Matilda, look round upon these silvan shades, where we so often have roused the stag from its ferny covert. The rising sun smiles upon us through the stems of that beechen knoll. Shall I take your hand, Matilda, in the presence of this my court? Shall I crown you with our wildwood coronal, and hail you Queen of the Forest? Will you be the Queen Matilda of your own true King Robin?'

Matilda smiled assent.

'Not Matilda,' said the friar: 'the rules of our holy alliance require new birth. We have excepted in favour of Little John, because he is Great John, and his name is a misnomer. I sprinkle not thy forehead with water, but thy lips with wine, and baptise thee MARIAN.

(From Maid Marian.)

Winter Scenery: Waterfalls in Frost.

I wish I could find language sufficiently powerful to convey to you an idea of the sublime magnificence of the waterfalls in the frost, when the old, overhanging oaks are spangled with icicles; the rocks sheeted with frozen foam, formed by the flying spray; and the water that oozes from their sides congealed into innumerable pillars of crystal. Every season has its charms. The picturesque tourists-those birds of summer-see not half the beauties of nature. (From Letter written in Wales.)

Truth to Nature essential in Poetry. Miss Ilex. Few may perceive an inaccuracy, but to those who do, it causes a great diminution, if not a total destruction, of pleasure in perusal. Shakespeare never makes a flower blossom out of season! Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey are true to nature in this and in all other respects, even in their wildest imaginings.

The Rev. Dr Opimian. Yet here is a combination, by one of our greatest poets, of flowers that never blossom in the same season:

'Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

To deck the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.' [MILTON'S Lycidas.] And at the same time he plucks the berries of the myrtle and the ivy.

Miss Ilex. Very beautiful, if not true to English seasons; but Milton might have thought himself justified in making this combination in Arcadia. Generally, he is strictly accurate, to a degree that is in itself a beauty. For instance, in his address to the nightingale:

Mr Mac-Borrowdale. No poetry is truer to nature than Burns, and no one less so than Moore. His imagery is almost always false. Here is a highly applauded stanza, and very taking at first sight:

'The night-dew of heaven, though in silence it weeps, Shall brighten with verdure the sod where he sleeps ; And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.' But it will not bear analysis. The dew is the cause of the verdure, but the tear is not the cause of the memory; the memory is the cause of the tear.

The Rev. Dr Opimian. There are inaccuracies more

offensive to me than even false imagery. Here is one in a song which I have often heard with displeasure. A young man goes up a mountain, and as he goes higher and higher he repeats Excelsior! but excelsior is only taller in the comparison of things on a common basis, not higher as a detached object in the air. Jack's bean-stalk was excelsior the higher it grew, but Jack himself was no more celsus at the top than he had been at the bottom.

Mr Mac-Borrowdale. I am afraid, doctor, if you look for profound knowledge in popular poetry, you will often be disappointed.

The Rev. Dr Opimian. I do not look for profound knowledge; but I do expect that poets should understand what they talk of. Burns was not a scholar, but he was always master of his subject. All the scholarship in the world would not have produced 'Tam o' Shanter,' but in the whole of that poem there is not a false image or a misused word. What do you suppose these lines represent ?—

'I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,

One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled

A queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,
Brow-bound with burning gold.'

[TENNYSON'S Dream of Fair Women.]

Mr Mac-Borrowdale. I should take it to be a description of the Queen of Bambo.

The Rev. Dr Opimian. Yet thus one of our most popular poets describes Cleopatra, and one of our most popular artists has illustrated the description by a portrait of a hideous grinning Ethiop! Moore led the way to this perversion by demonstrating that the Egyp tian women must have been beautitul because they were 'the countrywomen of Cleopatra.' Here we have a sort of counter-demonstration that Cleopatra must have been a fright because she was the countrywoman of the Egyp tians. But Cleopatra was a Greek, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes and a lady of Pontus. The Ptolemies were Greeks, and whoever will look at their genealogy, their coins, and their medals, will see how carefully they kept their pure blood uncontaminated by African intermixture. Think of this description and this picture applied to one who, Dio says—and all antiquity confirms him-was 'the most superlatively beautiful of women, splendid to see and delightful to hear.' For she was eminently accomplished; she spoke many languages with grace and facility. Her mind was as wonderful as her personal beauty. (From Gryll Grange.)

The Sleeping Venus.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. These little alabaster figures on the mantelpiece, Mr Crotchet, and those large figures in the niches-may I take the liberty to ask you what they are intended to represent?

Mr Crotchet. Venus, sir; nothing more, sir; just Venus.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. May I ask you, sir, why they are there?

Mr Crotchet. To be looked at, sir; just to be looked at the reason for most things in a gentleman's house being in it at all; from the paper on the walls, and the drapery of the curtains, even to the books in the library, of which the most essential part is the appearance of the back.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Very true, sir. As great

philosophers hold that the esse of things is percipi, so a gentleman's furniture exists to be looked at. Nevertheless, sir, there are some things more fit to be looked at than others; for instance, there is nothing more fit to be looked at than the outside of a book. It is, as I may say from repeated experience, a pure and unmixed pleasure to have a goodly volume lying before you, and to know that you may open it if you please, and need not open it unless you please. It is a resource against ennui, if ennui should come upon you. To have the resource and not to feel the ennui, to enjoy your bottle in the present, and your book in the indefinite future, is a delightful condition of human existence. There is no place, in which a man can move or sit, in which the outside of a book can be otherwise than an innocent and becoming spectacle. Touching this matter, there cannot, I think, be two opinions. But with respect to your Venuses there can be, and indeed there are, two very distinct opinions. Now, sir, that little figure in the centre of the mantelpiece--as a grave paterfamilias, Mr Crotchet, with a fair nubile daughter, whose eyes are like the fishpools of Heshbon-I would ask you if you hold that figure to be altogether delicate?

Mr Crotchet. The Sleeping Venus, sir? Nothing can be more delicate than the entire contour of the figure, the flow of the hair on the shoulders and neck, the form of the feet and fingers. It is altogether a most delicate morsel.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Why, in that sense, perhaps, it is as delicate as whitebait in July. But the attitude, sir, the attitude?

Mr Crotchet. Nothing can be more natural, sir.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. That is, the very thing, sir. It is too natural: too natural, sir: it lies for all the world like I make no doubt the pious cheesemonger, who recently broke its plaster fac-simile over the head of the itinerant vendor, was struck by a certain similitude to the position of his own sleeping beauty, and felt his noble wrath thereby justly aroused.

Mr Crotchet. Very likely, sir. In my opinion, the cheesemonger was a fool, and the justice who sided with him was a greater.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Fool, sir, is a harsh term: call not thy brother a fool!

Mr Crotchet. Sir, neither the cheesemonger nor the justice is a brother of mine.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Sir, we are all brethren.

Mr Crotchet. Yes, sir, as the hangman is of the thief; the squire of the poacher; the judge of the libeller; the lawyer of his client; the statesman of his colleague; the bubble-blower of the bubble-buyer; the slave-driver of the negro; as these are brethren, so am I and the worthies in question.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. To be sure, sir, in these instances, and in many others, the term brother must be taken in its utmost latitude of interpretation: we are all brothers, nevertheless. But to return to the point. Now, these two large figures: one with drapery on the lower half of the body, and the other with no drapery at all upon my word, sir, it matters not what godfathers and godmothers may have promised and vowed for the children of this world, touching the devil and other things to be renounced, if such figures as those are to be put before their eyes.

Mr Crotchet. Sir, the naked figure is the Pandemian Venus, and the half-draped figure is the Uranian Venus;

and I say, sir, that figure realises the finest imaginings of Plato, and is the personification of the most refined and exalted feeling of which the human mind is susceptible: the love of pure, ideal, intellectual beauty.

The Rer. Dr Folliott. I am aware, sir, that Plato, in his Symposium, discourseth very eloquently touching the Uranian and Pandemian Venus; but you must remember that, in our Universities, Plato is held to be little better than a misleader of youth; and they have shown their contempt for him, not only by never reading him (a mode of contempt in which they deal very largely), but even by never printing a complete edition of him; although they have printed many ancient books which nobody suspects to have been ever read on the spot, except by a person attached to the press, who is therefore emphatically called 'the reader.'

Mr Crotchet. Well, sir?

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Why, sir, to 'the reader' aforesaid (supposing either of our Universities to have printed an edition of Plato), or to any one else who can be supposed to have read Plato, or indeed to be ever likely to do so, I would very willingly show these figures; because to such they would, I grant you, be the outward and visible signs of poetical and philosophical ideas; but to the multitude, the gross carnal multitude, they are but two beautiful women-one half-undressed, and the other quite so.

Mr Crotchet. Then, sir, let the multitude look upon them and learn modesty.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. I must say that, if I wished my footman to learn modesty, I should not dream of sending him to school to a naked Venus.

Mr Crotchet. Sir, ancient sculpture is the true school of modesty. But where the Greeks had modesty, we have cant; where they had poetry, we have cant; where they had patriotism, we have cant; where they had any thing that exalts, delights, or adorns humanity, we have nothing but cant, cant, cant. And, sir, to show my contempt for cant in all its shapes, I have adorned my house with the Greek Venus in all her shapes, and am ready to fight her battle against all the societies that were ever instituted for the suppression of truth and beauty.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. My dear sir, I am afraid you are growing warm. Pray be cool. Nothing contributes so much to good digestion as to be perfectly cool after dinner.

Mr Crotchet. Sir, the Lacedæmonian virgins wrestled naked with young men and they grew up, as the wise Lycurgus had foreseen, into the most modest of women, and the most exemplary of wives and mothers.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Very likely, sir; but the Athenian virgins did no such thing, and they grew up into wives who stayed at home-stayed at home, sir; and looked after the husband's dinner-his dinner, sir, you will please to observe.

Mr Crotchet. And what was the consequence of that, sir? that they were such very insipid persons that the husband would not go home to eat his dinner, but preferred the company of some Aspasia or Lais.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Two very different persons, sir, give me leave to remark.

Mr Crotchet. Very likely, sir; but both too good to be married in Athens.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Sir, Lais was a Corinthian.
Mr Crotchet. 'Od's vengeance, sir, some Aspasia and

any other Athenian name of the same sort of person you

like

The Rev. Dr Folliott. I do not like the sort of person at all: the sort of person I like, as I have already implied, is a modest woman, who stays at home and looks after her husband's dinner.

Mr Crotchet. Well, sir, that was not the taste of the Athenians. They preferred the society of women who would not have made any scruple about sitting as models to Praxiteles; as you know, sir, very modest women in Italy did to Canova: one of whom, an Italian countess, being asked by an English lady, 'How she could bear it?' answered, Very well; there was a good fire in the

room.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Sir, the English lady should have asked how the Italian lady's husband could bear it. The phials of my wrath would overflow if poor dear Mrs Folliott Sir, in return for your story, I will tell you a story of my ancestor, Gilbert Folliott. The devil haunted him, as he did Saint Francis, in the likeness of a beautiful damsel; but all he could get from the exemplary Gilbert was an admonition to wear a stomacher and long petticoats.

Mr Crotchet. Sir, your story makes for my side of the question. It proves that the devil, in the likeness of a fair damsel, with short petticoats and no stomacher, was almost too much for Gilbert Folliott. The force of the spell was in the drapery.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Bless my soul, sir!

Mr Crotchet. Give me leave, sir. Diderot-

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Who was he, sir?

Mr Crotchet. Who was he, sir? The sublime philosopher, the father of the encyclopædia, of all the encyclopædias that have ever been printed.

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Bless me, sir, a terrible progeny they belong to the tribe of Incubi.

Mr Crotchet. The great philosopher, Diderot

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Sir, Diderot is not a man after my heart. Keep to the Greeks, if you please; albeit this Sleeping Venus is not an antique.

Mr Crotchet. Well, sir, the Greeks: why do we call the Elgin marbles inestimable? Simply because they are true to nature. And why are they so superior in that point to all modern works, with all our greater knowledge of anatomy? Why, sir, but because the Greeks, having no cant, had better opportunities of studying models?

The Rev. Dr Folliott. Sir, I deny our greater knowledge of anatomy. But I shall take the liberty to employ, on this occasion, the argumentum ad hominem. Would you have allowed Miss Crotchet to sit for a model to Canova?

Sydney Smith (1771-1845), one of the most witty, popular, and influential writers of his age, was born at Woodford in Essex, 3rd June. He was one of the three sons of an eccentric and improvident gentleman, who out of the wreck of his fortune was able to give his family a good education. The opinion that men of genius more generally inherit their intellectual eminence from the mother than the father is illustrated by this remarkable family, for the mother, Maria Olier, the daughter of a French emigrant, was a woman of strong sense, energy of character, and constitutional vivacity or gaiety. The eldest son, Robert-best known by his Eton nickname of Bobus-was distinguished as a classical scholar, and adopted the profession of the law; Courtenay, the youngest, went to India,

and acquired great wealth and reputation as a judge and an Oriental scholar. After five years at Southampton, in 1782 Sydney was sent to Winchester, where he rose to be captain of the school, and whence, having first spent six months at Mont Villiers in Normandy, in 1789 he proceeded to New College, Oxford. There he gained a fellowship, but of only £100 per annum, and was cast upon his own resources. He obtained in 1794 a curacy in a small village in the midst of Salisbury Plain. The squire of the parish, Mr Beach, four years afterwards engaged him as tutor to his eldest son, and it was arranged that tutor and pupil should proceed to Weimar. They set out; but before we could get there,' says Sydney Smith, Germany became the seat of war, and in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh, where I remained five years.' He preached occasionally at an Episcopal chapel there. After two years' residence in Edinburgh, he returned to England