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HE publication of a selection from the Verney Papers at Claydon, edited by the late Lady Verney,' introduces to the general reader, though scarcely to the historian, who has long been familiar with them, some members of a noble, gallant, and interesting family. Incidentally, too, it casts a strong light upon domestic institutions and social life in the period of Civil War. The extent to which families were divided by the struggle between King and Parliament is known fathers and children, brothers and sisters, espousing opposite sides, and even meeting in unavoidable hostility. Among those who were thus divided were the Verneys. A Commonwealth man at heart, Sir Edmund Verney, through his personal feeling and his official position, rallied to the King, and lost his life defending the royal standard at Edgehill. Offered his life by those who knew and respected him, on the condition of resigning its custody, he answered that his life was his own, but the standard was his King's. According to popular legend his hand, cut off at the wrist, stiffened with the rigour of death on the flag-pole. His son, Sir Edmund, known as "Mun," one of the bravest officers in Ireland, was slain in cold blood after the surrender at Drogheda. Another son, Sir Ralph, the oldest, the most interesting of the family, a member of the Long Parliament, espoused the other side, but, refusing to take the covenant, was the object of persecution by both parties, and found his estates, ultimately sequestrated by the Parliament from which he was dismissed, in equal danger whichever side triumphed, and had himself to take refuge abroad. To students of history these facts have no novelty. What is new to most is the account of the straits to which he and his family were reduced. A commentary more exact and more vivid than is here afforded upon the miseries of civil war does not often see the light.

IT

RECOVERED PAPERS OF VICTOR HUGO.

T is a little uncomfortable to think of the hands into which private papers and correspondence may come. Not many

"Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Civil War." London: Longmans.

years have elapsed since letters of my own, of no special import, but dealing with matters of private interest, were returned me by a secondhand bookseller, who had purchased as waste paper the entire correspondence of a man of some note who had died. Such a circumstance may, of course, happen to any one; nor is any lesson to be drawn from it except that private letters should, when of no literary importance, be destroyed by the recipient. Positively astounding, however, is it to find that what are practically the papers of Victor Hugo were treated in similar fashion. In the company of M. Octave Uzanne, and at the invitation of Mr. Samuel Davey, of Great Russell Street, I glanced over what M. Uzanne calls "Les Propos de Table de Victor Hugo à Guernesey." The three large octavo volumes in which these appear were, preposterous as such an idea may seem, sold after the death of the poet as waste paper. Their contents are in the handwriting of the son of the poet and the translator of Shakespeare. That a collection of this description should, in the case of a man whose connections and descendants are literary, and who is the object of a cult, have escaped observation and run most serious risk of destruction, is simply inconceivable.

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"LE JOURNAL DE L'EXIL."

LL'S well that ends well." And now that the "Journal de l'Exil," as the MSS. are headed, is recovered, the world will be satisfied, and the only persons entitled to complain are those who, having bought what purports to be the entire work of Hugo, know that another and more authoritative edition will in time supplant their own. For the value of the find I take the opinion of M. Uzanne, who, in his admirable publication "L'Art et l'Idée," has given an analysis or résumé of the journal. The conversations in which the poet and his surroundings participate are still "in the rough." Had they been polished, as M. François-Victor Hugo must have purposed, we might have had, M. Uzanne holds, a supplement to the "Banquet of Plato." On all sorts of subjects the poet expands upon literature, politics, philosophy, art, drama, and upon most of the principal Frenchmen of his time: Louis Bonaparte, Changarnier, Saint-Arnaud, Émile de Girardin, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Frédéric Lemâitre. What adds even higher value is the matter of personal and autobiographical interest constantly introduced, the announcement of schemes conceived and abandoned. Sometimes we find opinions upon the older drama, as that Molière would have done better to call his play "Le Convive de Pierre" instead of "Le Festin

de Pierre," a title the sense of which is not very easily comprehended. The journal thus saved from destruction covers the five years following the Coup d'État. That it will be printed in full may

safely be foretold. At present the treasure reposes in England.

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GEMS OF SPORTING LITERATURE.

FEW gems of the literature of "sport" have lately been gathered by Ouida, and I gladly quote her proofs how terrible is the demoralisation which so-called sport produces. I give the passages as they are supplied by Ouida, with her comments. The italics also are hers. "Resting my rifle on the ground, I took the easier shot. There was no excuse for missing, and as the bullet made the wellknown sound dear to the heart of the sportsman, I saw that it had broken the shoulder, and the animal, staggering a yard or two, fell over seaward and was lost."" The animal in question was an ovis nivicola. The same sportsman comes upon a fine old ram of the fifth or sixth year. "I fired almost before I was conscious of it, but not a moment too soon, for the beast was in the act of turning as I touched the trigger. It was his last voluntary movement, and the next instant he was rolling down the precipice. . . . The fun was not yet over, for perched upon a bare pinnacle stood another of our quarry. The animal had been driven into a corner by some of our party on the cliff above. The next instant, after a vain but desperate effort to save himself, he was whirling through four hundred feet of space. ... On going up to him I found one of the massive horns broken short off and the whole of the hind quarters shattered into a mass of bleeding pulp.. Our decks were like a butcher's shop on Boxing Day.'" I will not spoil the effect of this by comment.

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HE hand of Bret Harte has lost none of its cunning. Vol. VII.

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of the Pacific Slope," and is accompanied by a reproduction of Mr. John Pettie's fine portrait. Not a whit inferior to the preceding tales in the same series are those now edited, and the humour of "A Sappho of Green Springs" and the tenderness of "A Ward of the Golden Gate" command equally my admiration. To praise the local colour with which all the tales abound, or the vigorous drawing of character, is mere banalité. Before all things Bret Harte is original; I cannot help thinking, however, that in his "A Ward of the Golden Gate" he has been influenced by a laudable design to enter into competition with Thackeray. In his "Colonel Pendleton"

he seems to me to have attempted to depict a Californian Colonel Newcome. Unlike enough in many respects are the two characters. This was to be expected from the difference of education and surroundings. But the points of resemblance are stronger, and they are in essentials, and not in accidents. Both are types of gentleness, manliness, and chivalry, now sadly out of date. Thackeray drew some little of " Newcome" from Cooper's "Leather Stocking," and it is pleasing to find traits coming from America to England to be restored to the land of their birth. Those who have read Bret Harte's brilliant romance will, I think, recognise the resemblance of which I speak; to those who have not, there is but one piece of advice-"Read it forthwith."

MOURNING CUSTOMS.

ILL the custom survive of wearing mourning for deceased

WILL relatives and friends? To some the question may appear

needless and perhaps profane. Some abnegation of enjoyment and some outward indication of the presence of grief seem necessary to our own sense of loss as well as an indispensable tribute to the departed. None the less, mourning practices become gradually lighter and less burdensome, and the period of social sequestration is slowly abridged. Widows' weeds are no longer so deep and repulsive as before, and are, indeed, sometimes smart and coquettish. While deriving in part from the Jews our mourning customs, we have never adopted all the formalities still observed by that persecuted and conservative race. Mourning, however, was once a sufficiently serious matter. Black garb and a hat-band of cloth, no longer of crape, constitute the tribute now customary, though hatchments and mourning liveries are employed by the wealthy classes. Black-edged paper and other matters of the kind scarcely call for mention. In the seventeenth century mourning was a costly process. It was customary to give mourning to intimate friends as well as relatives and dependents; a fact which is still, or was until recently, recalled by the gift of black gloves. It was then usual, moreover, to drape a bed entirely with black-a sufficiently lugubrious manner of meeting calamity. Black coverlets were indispensable; saddles and accoutrements were covered with black, and black mourning coaches were employed, not only for progress to the churchyard, but for ordinary transit. As black coaches, beds, &c., were not universal possessions, they passed sometimes from hand to hand as loans as occasion demanded. We have so far declined from this funeral pomp that the question arises, may not the practice in time be wholly discontinued?

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

AUGUST 1892.

BESSIE OF THE WOLF'S RANCHE.

BY MARY S. HANCOCK.

CHAPTER I.

НЕ pulled up her horse until she nearly threw him on his SHE haunches. They had been pelting along at a good rate, and the sudden stoppage brought him up with a fearful check.

"Hang it!" she cried aloud. "I will go back and see into this thing. I cannot leave him dead, or dying, alone like this." She was not a lady. She was not even well-educated, as you and I understand the term. Only a bush-girl, with a hand like iron, and a voice that rang over the whole country-side; a girl who could ride, and shoot, and whistle; who could throw a lasso, and equal a cowboy at coralling. Strong, straight-limbed, well-featured, if you like; but ignorant as any Hottentot of music, or painting, or dressing, as the present-day girls understand the art. Sing? could she not !opening her mouth and throwing back her head until the sound rang far and near in a wild tumult of rich volume. Cook? I bet you no she in all the fair land of Texas could go her length at that! From fish to fowl, from game to plain roast-she was the one. A regular "Soyer" of the plain; and we knew it! And she could ride. Vinegar, Jumper, Black Dan-they all knew the touch of her hand on the reins, the feel of her foot in the stirrup.

Take her all in all, there was not a girl up or down the ranches who could hold a candle to Bessie-our Bessie-Blandford.

I call her "our Bessie," and so she was; although I may as well state on setting out that I was only a humble dependant, a sort of hanger-on and man of all work-and odd work, too-upon Wolf's Ranche.

VOL. CCLXXIII. NO. 1940.

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