DREAMS

FESTUS—The dead of night: earth seems but seeming; The soul seems but a something dreaming. The bird is dreaming in its nest, Of song, and sky, and loved one's breast; The lap-dog dreams, as round he lies, In moonshine, of his mistress's eyes; The steed is dreaming, in his stall, Of one long breathless leap and fall; The hawk hath dreamed him thrice of wings Wide as the skies he may not cleave; But waking, feels them clipped, and clings Mad to the perch 'twere mad to leave: The child is dreaming of its toys; The murderer, of calm home joys; The weak are dreaming endless fears; The proud of how their pride appears; The poor enthusiast who dies, Of his life-dreams the sacrifice, Sees, as enthusiast only can, The truth that made him more than man; And hears once more, in visioned trance, That voice commanding to advance, Where wealth is gained—love, wisdom won, Or deeds of danger dared and done. The mother dreameth of her child; The maid of him who hath beguiled; The youth of her he loves too well; The good of God; the ill of hell; Who live of death; of life who die; The dead of immortality. The earth is dreaming back her youth; Hell never dreams, for woe is truth; And heaven is dreaming o'er her prime, Long ere the morning stars of time; And dream of heaven alone can I, My lovely one, when thou art nigh.

CHORUS OF THE SAVED

From the Conclusion

Father of goodness, Son of love, Spirit of comfort, Be with us! God who hast made us, God who hast saved, God who hast judged us, Thee we praise. Heaven our spirits, Hallow our hearts; Let us have God-light Endlessly. Ours is the wide world, Heaven on heaven; What have we done, Lord, Worthy this? Oh! we have loved thee; That alone Maketh our glory, Duty, meed. Oh! we have loved thee! Love we will Ever, and every Soul of us. God of the saved, God of the tried, God of the lost ones, Be with all! Let us be near thee Ever and aye; Oh! let us love thee Infinite!



JOANNA BAILLIE

(1762-1851)

Joanna Baillie's early childhood was passed at Bothwell, Scotland, where she was born in 1762. Of this time she drew a picture in her well-known birthday lines to her sister:—

"Dear Agnes, gleamed with joy, and dashed with tears, O'er us have glided almost sixty years Since we on Bothwell's bonny braes were seen, By those whose eyes long closed in death have been: Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather The slender harebell, or the purple heather; No taller than the foxglove's spiky stem, That dew of morning studs with silvery gem. Then every butterfly that crossed our view With joyful shout was greeted as it flew, And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight. Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side, Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde, Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin, Swimming in mazy rings the pool within, A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent Seen in the power of early wonderment."



When Joanna was six her father was appointed to the charge of the kirk at Hamilton. Her early growth went on, not in books, but in the fearlessness with which she ran upon the top of walls and parapets of bridges and in all daring. "Look at Miss Jack," said a farmer, as she dashed by: "she sits her horse as if it were a bit of herself." At eleven she could not read well. "'Twas thou," she said in lines to her sister—

"'Twas thou who woo'dst me first to look Upon the page of printed book, That thing by me abhorred, and with address Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness, When all too old become with bootless haste In fitful sports the precious time to waste. Thy love of tale and story was the stroke At which my dormant fancy first awoke, And ghosts and witches in my busy brain Arose in sombre show, a motley train."

In 1776 Dr. James Baillie was made Professor of Divinity at Glasgow University. During the two years the family lived in the college atmosphere, Joanna first read 'Comus,' and, led by the delight it awakened, the great epic of Milton. It was here that her vigor and disputatious turn of mind "cast an awe" over her companions. After her father's death she settled, in 1784, with her mother and brother and sister in London.

She had made herself familiar with English literature, and above all she had studied Shakespeare with enthusiasm. Circumscribed now by the brick and mortar of London streets, in exchange for the fair views and liberties of her native fruitlands, Joanna found her first expression in a volume of 'Fugitive Verses,' published in 1790. The book caused so little comment that the words of but one friendly hand are preserved: that the poems were "truly unsophisticated representations of nature."

Joanna's walk was along calm and unhurried ways. She could have had a considerable place in society and the world of "lions" if she had cared. The wife of her uncle and name-father, the anatomist Dr. John Hunter, was no other than the famous Mrs. Anne Hunter, a songwright of genius; her poem 'The Son of Alknomook Shall Never Complain' is one of the classics of English song, and the best rendering of the Indian spirit ever condensed into so small a space. She was also a woman of grace and dignity, a power in London drawing-rooms, and Haydn set songs of hers to music. But the reserved Joanna was tempted to no light triumphs. Eight years later was published her first volume of 'Plays on the Passions.' It contained 'Basil,' a tragedy on love; 'The Trial,' a comedy on the same subject; and 'De Montfort,' a tragedy on hatred.

The thought of essaying dramatic composition had burst upon the author one summer afternoon as she sat sewing with her mother. She had a high moral purpose in her plan of composition, she said in her preface,—that purpose being the ultimate utterance of the drama. Plot and incident she set little value upon, and she rejected the presentation of the most splendid event if it did not appertain to the development of the passion. In other words, what is and was commonly of secondary consideration in the swift passage of dramatic action became in her hands the stated and paramount object. Feeling and passion are not precipitated by incident in her drama as in real life. The play 'De Montfort' was presented at Drury Lane Theatre in 1800; but in spite of every effort and the acting of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, it had a run of but eleven nights.

In 1802 Miss Baillie published her second volume of 'Plays on the Passions.' It contained a comedy on hatred; 'Ethwald,' a tragedy on ambition; and a comedy on ambition. Her adherence to her old plan brought upon her an attack from Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review. He claimed that the complexity of the moral nature of man made Joanna's theory false and absurd, that a play was too narrow to show the complete growth of a passion, and that the end of the drama is the entertainment of the audience. He asserted that she imitated and plagiarized Shakespeare; while he admitted her insight into human nature, her grasp of character, and her devotion to her work.

About the time of the appearance of this volume, Joanna fixed her residence with her mother and sister, among the lanes and fields of Hampstead, where they continued throughout their lives. The first volume of 'Miscellaneous Plays' came out in 1804. In the preface she stated that her opinions set forth in her first preface were unchanged. But the plays had a freer construction. "Miss Baillie," wrote Jeffrey in his review, "cannot possibly write a tragedy, or an act of a tragedy, without showing genius and exemplifying a more dramatic conception and expression than any of her modern competitor" 'Constantine Palaeologus,' which the volume contained, had the liveliest commendation and popularity, and was several times put upon the stage with spectacular effect.

In the year of the publication of Joanna's 'Miscellaneous Plays,' Sir Walter Scott came to London, and seeking an introduction through a common friend, made the way for a lifelong friendship between the two, He had just brought out 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel.' Miss Baillie was already a famous writer, with fast friends in Lucy Aikin, Mary Berry, Mrs. Siddons, and other workers in art and literature; but the hearty commendation of her countryman, which she is said to have come upon unexpectedly when reading 'Marmion' to a group of friends, she valued beyond other praise. The legend is that she read through the passage firmly to the close, and only lost self-control in her sympathy with the emotion of a friend:—

"—The wild harp that silent hung By silver Avon's holy shore Till twice one hundred years rolled o'er, When she the bold enchantress came, From the pale willow snatched the treasure, With fearless hand and heart in flame, And swept it with a kindred measure; Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove With Montfort's hate and Basil's love, Awakening at the inspired strain, Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again."

The year 1810 saw 'The Family Legend,' a play founded on a tragic history of the Campbell clan. Scott wrote a prologue and brought out the play in the Edinburgh Theatre. "You have only to imagine," he told the author, "all that you could wish to give success to a play, and your conceptions will still fall short of the complete and decided triumph of 'The Family Legend.'"

The attacks which Jeffrey had made upon her verse were continued when she published, in 1812, her third volume of 'Plays on the Passions.' His voice, however, did not diminish the admiration for the character-drawing with which the book was greeted, or for the lyric outbursts occurring now and then in the dramas.

Joanna's quiet Hampstead life was broken in 1813 by a genial meeting in London with the ambitious Madame de Stael, and again with the vivacious little Irishwoman, Maria Edgeworth. She was keeping her promise of not writing more; but during a visit to Sir Walter in 1820 her imagination was touched by Scotch tales, and she published 'Metrical Legends' the following year. In this vast Abbotsford she finally consented to meet Jeffrey. The plucky little writer and the unshrinking critic at once became friends, and thenceforward Jeffrey never went to London without visiting her in Hampstead.

Her moral courage throughout life recalls the physical courage which characterized her youth. She never concealed her religious convictions, and in 1831 she published her ideas in 'A View of the General Tenor of the New Testament Regarding the Nature and Dignity of Jesus Christ.' In 1836, having finally given up the long hope of seeing her plays become popular upon the stage, she prepared a complete edition of her dramas with the addition of three plays never before made public,—'Romiero,' a tragedy, 'The Alienated Manor,' a comedy on jealousy, and 'Henriquez,' a tragedy on remorse. The Edinburgh Review immediately put forth a eulogistic notice of the collected edition, and at last admitted that the reviewer had changed his judgment, and esteemed the author as a dramatist above Byron and Scott.

"May God support both you and me, and give us comfort and consolation when it is most wanted," wrote Miss Baillie to Mary Berry in 1837. "As for myself, I do not wish to be one year younger than I am; and have no desire, were it possible, to begin life again, even under the most honorable circumstances. I have great cause for humble thankfulness, and I am thankful."

In 1840 Jeffrey wrote:—"I have been twice out to Hampstead, and found Joanna Baillie as fresh, natural, and amiable as ever, and as little like a tragic muse." And again in 1842:—"She is marvelous in health and spirit; not a bit deaf, blind, or torpid." About this time she published her last book, a volume of 'Fugitive Verses.'

"A sweeter picture of old age was never seen," wrote Harriet Martineau. "Her figure was small, light, and active; her countenance, in its expression of serenity, harmonized wonderfully with her gay conversation and her cheerful voice. Her eyes were beautiful, dark, bright, and penetrating, with the full innocent gaze of childhood. Her face was altogether comely, and her dress did justice to it. She wore her own silvery hair and a mob cap, with its delicate lace border fitting close around her face. She was well dressed, in handsome dark silks, and her lace caps and collars looked always new. No Quaker was ever neater, while she kept up with the times in her dress as in her habit of mind, as far as became her years. In her whole appearance there was always something for even the passing stranger to admire, and never anything for the most familiar friend to wish otherwise." She died, "without suffering, in the full possession of her faculties," in her ninetieth year, 1851.

Her dramatic and poetical works are collected in one volume (1843). Her Life, with selections from her songs, may be found in 'The Songstress of Scotland,' by Sarah Tytler and J.L. Watson (1871).

WOO'D AND MARRIED AND A'

The bride she is winsome and bonny, Her hair it is snooded sae sleek, And faithfu' and kind is her Johnny, Yet fast fa' the tears on her cheek. New pearlins are cause of her sorrow, New pearlins and plenishing too: The bride that has a' to borrow. Has e'en right mickle ado. Woo'd and married and a'! Woo'd and married and a'! Isna she very weel aff To be woo'd and married at a'?

Her mither then hastily spak:— "The lassie is glaikit wi' pride; In my pouch I had never a plack On the day when I was a bride. E'en tak' to your wheel and be clever, And draw out your thread in the sun; The gear that is gifted, it never Will last like the gear that is won. Woo'd and married and a'! Wi' havins and tocher sae sma'! I think ye are very weel aff To be woo'd and married at a'!"

"Toot, toot!" quo' her gray-headed faither, "She's less o' a bride than a bairn; She's ta'en like a cout frae the heather, Wi' sense and discretion to learn. Half husband, I trow, and half daddy, As humor inconstantly leans, The chiel maun be patient and steady That yokes wi' a mate in her teens. A kerchief sae douce and sae neat, O'er her locks that the wind used to blaw! I'm baith like to laugh and to greet When I think o' her married at a'."

Then out spak' the wily bridegroom, Weel waled were his wordies I ween:— "I'm rich, though my coffer be toom, Wi' the blinks o' your bonny blue e'en. I'm prouder o' thee by my side, Though thy ruffles or ribbons be few, Than if Kate o' the Croft were my bride, Wi' purfles and pearlins enow. Dear and dearest of ony! Ye're woo'd and buiket and a'! And do ye think scorn o' your Johnny, And grieve to be married at a'?"

She turn'd, and she blush'd, and she smil'd, And she looket sae bashfully down; The pride o' her heart was beguil'd, And she played wi' the sleeves o' her gown; She twirlet the tag o' her lace, And she nippet her bodice sae blue, Syne blinket sae sweet in his face, And aff like a maukin she flew. Woo'd and married and a'! Wi' Johnny to roose her and a'! She thinks hersel' very weel aff To be woo'd and married at a'!

IT WAS ON A MORN WHEN WE WERE THRANG

It was on a morn when we were thrang, The kirn it croon'd, the cheese was making, And bannocks on the girdle baking, When ane at the door chapp't loud and lang. Yet the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight, Of a' this bauld din took sma' notice I ween; For a chap at the door in braid daylight Is no like a chap that's heard at e'en.

But the docksy auld laird of the Warlock glen, Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery, And langed for a sight o' his winsome deary, Raised up the latch and cam' crousely ben. His coat it was new, and his o'erlay was white, His mittens and hose were cozie and bien; But a wooer that comes in braid daylight Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.

He greeted the carline and lasses sae braw, And his bare lyart pow sae smoothly he straikit, And he looket about, like a body half glaikit, On bonny sweet Nanny, the youngest of a'. "Ha, laird!" quo' the carline, "and look ye that way? Fye, let na' sie fancies bewilder you clean: An elderlin man, in the noon o' the day, Should be wiser than youngsters that come at e'en.

"Na, na," quo' the pawky auld wife, "I trow You'll no fash your head wi' a youthfu' gilly, As wild and as skeig as a muirland filly: Black Madge is far better and fitter for you." He hem'd and he haw'd, and he drew in his mouth, And he squeezed the blue bannet his twa hands between; For a wooer that comes when the sun's i' the south Is mair landward than wooers that come at e'en.

"Black Madge is sae carefu'"—"What's that to me?" "She's sober and cydent, has sense in her noodle; She's douce and respeckit"—"I carena a bodle: Love winna be guided, and fancy's free." Madge toss'd back her head wi' a saucy slight, And Nanny, loud laughing, ran out to the green; For a wooer that comes when the sun shines bright Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.

Then away flung the laird, and loud mutter'd he, "A' the daughters of Eve, between Orkney and Tweed O! Black or fair, young or auld, dame or damsel or widow, May gang in their pride to the de'il for me!" But the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight, Cared little for a' his stour banning, I ween; For a wooer that comes in braid daylight Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.

FY, LET US A' TO THE WEDDING

(An Auld Sang, New Buskit)

Fy, let us a' to the wedding, For they will be lilting there; For Jock's to be married to Maggy, The lass wi' the gowden hair.

And there will be jibing and jeering, And glancing of bonny dark een, Loud laughing and smooth-gabbit speering O' questions baith pawky and keen.

And there will be Bessy the beauty, Wha raises her cockup sae hie, And giggles at preachings and duty,— Guid grant that she gang na' ajee!

And there will be auld Geordie Taunner, Wha coft a young wife wi' his gowd; She'll flaunt wi' a silk gown upon her, But wow! he looks dowie and cow'd.

And brown Tibbey Fouler the Heiress Will perk at the tap o' the ha', Encircled wi' suitors, wha's care is To catch up her gloves when they fa',—

Repeat a' her jokes as they're cleckit, And haver and glower in her face, When tocherless mays are negleckit,— A crying and scandalous case.

And Mysie, wha's clavering aunty Wud match her wi' Laurie the Laird, And learns the young fule to be vaunty, But neither to spin nor to caird.

And Andrew, wha's granny is yearning To see him a clerical blade, Was sent to the college for learning, And cam' back a coof as he gaed.

And there will be auld Widow Martin, That ca's hersel thritty and twa! And thraw-gabbit Madge, wha for certain Was jilted by Hab o' the Shaw.

And Elspy the sewster sae genty, A pattern of havens and sense. Will straik on her mittens sae dainty, And crack wi' Mess John i' the spence.

And Angus, the seer o' ferlies, That sits on the stane at his door, And tells about bogles, and mair lies Than tongue ever utter'd before.

And there will be Bauldy the boaster Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel wi' auld and wi' young:

And Hugh the town-writer, I'm thinking, That trades in his lawerly skill, Will egg on the fighting and drinking To bring after-grist to his mill;

And Maggy—na, na! we'll be civil, And let the wee bridie a-be; A vilipend tongue is the devil, And ne'er was encouraged by me.

Then fy, let us a' to the wedding, For they will be lilting there Frae mony a far-distant ha'ding, The fun and the feasting to share.

For they will get sheep's head, and haggis, And browst o' the barley-mow; E'en he that comes latest, and lag is, May feast upon dainties enow.

Veal florentines in the o'en baken, Weel plenish'd wi' raisins and fat; Beef, mutton, and chuckies, a' taken Het reeking frae spit and frae pat:

And glasses (I trow 'tis na' said ill), To drink the young couple good luck, Weel fill'd wi' a braw beechen ladle Frae punch-bowl as big as Dumbuck.

And then will come dancing and daffing, And reelin' and crossin' o' hans, Till even auld Lucky is laughing, As back by the aumry she stans.

Sic bobbing and flinging and whirling, While fiddlers are making their din; And pipers are droning and skirling As loud as the roar o' the lin.

Then fy, let us a' to the wedding, For they will be lilting there, For Jock's to be married to Maggy, The lass wi' the gowden hair.

THE WEARY PUND O' TOW

A young gudewife is in my house And thrifty means to be, But aye she's runnin' to the town Some ferlie there to see. The weary pund, the weary pund, the weary pund o' tow, I soothly think, ere it be spun, I'll wear a lyart pow.

And when she sets her to her wheel To draw her threads wi' care, In comes the chapman wi' his gear, And she can spin nae mair. The weary pund, etc.

And she, like ony merry may, At fairs maun still be seen, At kirkyard preachings near the tent, At dances on the green. The weary pund, etc.

Her dainty ear a fiddle charms, A bagpipe's her delight, But for the crooning o' her wheel She disna care a mite. The weary pund, etc.

You spake, my Kate, of snaw-white webs, Made o' your linkum twine, But, ah! I fear our bonny burn Will ne'er lave web o' thine. The weary pund, etc.

Nay, smile again, my winsome mate; Sic jeering means nae ill; Should I gae sarkless to my grave, I'll lo'e and bless thee still. The weary pund, etc.

FROM 'DE MONTFORT': A TRAGEDY

ACT V—SCENE III

Moonlight. A wild path in a wood, shaded with trees. Enter De Montfort, with a strong expression of disquiet, mixed with fear, upon his face, looking behind him, and bending his ear to the ground, as if he listened to something.

De Montfort—How hollow groans the earth beneath my tread: Is there an echo here? Methinks it sounds As though some heavy footsteps followed me. I will advance no farther. Deep settled shadows rest across the path, And thickly-tangled boughs o'erhang this spot. O that a tenfold gloom did cover it, That 'mid the murky darkness I might strike! As in the wild confusion of a dream, Things horrid, bloody, terrible do pass, As though they passed not; nor impress the mind With the fixed clearness of reality.

[An owl is heard screaming near him.]

[Starting.] What sound is that?

[Listens, and the owl cries again.]

It is the screech-owl's cry. Foul bird of night! What spirit guides thee here? Art thou instinctive drawn to scenes of horror? I've heard of this. [Pauses and listens.] How those fallen leaves so rustle on the path, With whispering noise, as though the earth around me Did utter secret things. The distant river, too, bears to mine ear A dismal wailing. O mysterious night! Thou art not silent; many tongues hast thou. A distant gathering blast sounds through the wood, And dark clouds fleetly hasten o'er the sky; Oh that a storm would rise, a raging storm; Amidst the roar of warring elements I'd lift my hand and strike! but this pale light, The calm distinctness of each stilly thing, Is terrible.—[Starting.] Footsteps, and near me, too! He comes! he comes! I'll watch him farther on— I cannot do it here. [Exit.]

Enter Rezenvelt, and continues his way slowly from the bottom of the stage; as he advances to the front, the owl screams, he stops and listens, and the owl screams again.

Rezenvelt—Ha! does the night-bird greet me on my way? How much his hooting is in harmony With such a scene as this! I like it well. Oft when a boy, at the still twilight hour, I've leant my back against some knotted oak, And loudly mimicked him, till to my call He answer would return, and through the gloom We friendly converse held. Between me and the star-bespangled sky, Those aged oaks their crossing branches wave, And through them looks the pale and placid moon. How like a crocodile, or winged snake, Yon sailing cloud bears on its dusky length! And now transformed by the passing wind, Methinks it seems a flying Pegasus. Ay, but a shapeless band of blacker hue Comes swiftly after.— A hollow murm'ring wind sounds through the trees; I hear it from afar; this bodes a storm. I must not linger here—

[A bell heard at some distance.] The convent bell. 'Tis distant still: it tells their hour of prayer. It sends a solemn sound upon the breeze, That, to a fearful, superstitious mind, In such a scene, would like a death-knell come. [Exit.]

TO MRS. SIDDONS

Gifted of heaven! who hast, in days gone by, Moved every heart, delighted every eye; While age and youth, of high and low degree, In sympathy were joined, beholding thee, As in the Drama's ever-changing scene Thou heldst thy splendid state, our tragic queen! No barriers there thy fair domains confined, Thy sovereign sway was o'er the human mind; And in the triumph of that witching hour, Thy lofty bearing well became thy power.

The impassioned changes of thy beauteous face, Thy stately form, and high imperial grace; Thine arms impetuous tossed, thy robe's wide flow, And the dark tempest gathered on thy brow; What time thy flashing eye and lip of scorn Down to the dust thy mimic foes have borne; Remorseful musings, sunk to deep dejection, The fixed and yearning looks of strong affection; The active turmoil a wrought bosom rending, When pity, love, and honor, are contending;— They who beheld all this, right well, I ween, A lovely, grand, and wondrous sight have seen.

Thy varied accents, rapid, fitful, slow, Loud rage, and fear's snatched whisper, quick and low; The burst of stifled love, the wail of grief, And tones of high command, full, solemn, brief; The change of voice, and emphasis that threw Light on obscurity, and brought to view Distinctions nice, when grave or comic mood, Or mingled humors, terse and new, elude Common perception, as earth's smallest things To size and form the vesting hoar-frost brings, That seemed as if some secret voice, to clear The raveled meaning, whispered in thine ear, And thou hadst e'en with him communion kept, Who hath so long in Stratford's chancel slept; Whose lines, where nature's brightest traces shine, Alone were worthy deemed of powers like thine;— They who have heard all this, have proved full well Of soul-exciting sound the mightiest spell. But though time's lengthened shadows o'er thee glide, And pomp of regal state is cast aside, Think not the glory of thy course is spent, There's moonlight radiance to thy evening lent, That to the mental world can never fade, Till all who saw thee, in the grave are laid. Thy graceful form still moves in nightly dreams, And what thou wast, to the lulled sleeper seems; While feverish fancy oft doth fondly trace Within her curtained couch thy wondrous face. Yea; and to many a wight, bereft and lone, In musing hours, though all to thee unknown, Soothing his earthly course of good and ill, With all thy potent charm, thou actest still. And now in crowded room or rich saloon, Thy stately presence recognized, how soon On thee the glance of many an eye is cast, In grateful memory of pleasures past! Pleased to behold thee, with becoming grace, Take, as befits thee well, an honored place; Where blest by many a heart, long mayst thou stand, Among the virtuous matrons of our land!

A SCOTCH SONG

The gowan glitters on the sward, The lavrock's in the sky, And collie on my plaid keeps ward, And time is passing by. Oh no! sad and slow And lengthened on the ground, The shadow of our trysting bush It wears so slowly round!

My sheep-bell tinkles frae the west, My lambs are bleating near, But still the sound that I lo'e best, Alack! I canna' hear. Oh no! sad and slow, The shadow lingers still, And like a lanely ghaist I stand And croon upon the hill.

I hear below the water roar, The mill wi' clacking din, And Lucky scolding frae her door, To ca' the bairnies in. Oh no! sad and slow, These are na' sounds for me, The shadow of our trysting bush, It creeps so drearily!

I coft yestreen, frae Chapman Tarn, A snood of bonny blue, And promised when our trysting cam', To tie it round her brow. Oh no! sad and slow, The mark it winna' pass; The shadow of that weary thorn Is tethered on the grass.

Oh, now I see her on the way, She's past the witch's knowe, She's climbing up the Browny's brae, My heart is in a lowe! Oh no! 'tis no' so, 'Tis glam'rie I have seen; The shadow of that hawthorn bush Will move na' mair till e'en.

My book o' grace I'll try to read, Though conn'd wi' little skill, When collie barks I'll raise my head, And find her on the hill. Oh no! sad and slow, The time will ne'er be gane, The shadow of the trysting bush Is fixed like ony stane.

SONG, 'POVERTY PARTS GOOD COMPANY'

For an old Scotch Air

When my o'erlay was white as the foam o' the lin, And siller was chinkin my pouches within, When my lambkins were bleatin on meadow and brae, As I went to my love in new cleeding sae gay, Kind was she, and my friends were free, But poverty parts good company.

How swift passed the minutes and hours of delight, When piper played cheerly, and crusie burned bright, And linked in my hand was the maiden sae dear, As she footed the floor in her holyday gear! Woe is me; and can it then be, That poverty parts sic company?

We met at the fair, and we met at the kirk, We met i' the sunshine, we met i' the mirk; And the sound o' her voice, and the blinks o' her een, The cheerin and life of my bosom hae been. Leaves frae the tree at Martinmass flee, And poverty parts sweet company.

At bridal and infare I braced me wi' pride, The broose I hae won, and a kiss o' the bride; And loud was the laughter good fellows among, As I uttered my banter or chorused my song; Dowie and dree are jestin and glee, When poverty spoils good company.

Wherever I gaed, kindly lasses looked sweet, And mithers and aunties were unco discreet; While kebbuck and bicker were set on the board: But now they pass by me, and never a word! Sae let it be, for the worldly and slee Wi' poverty keep nae company.

But the hope of my love is a cure for its smart, And the spae-wife has tauld me to keep up my heart; For, wi' my last saxpence, her loof I hae crost, And the bliss that is fated can never be lost, Though cruelly we may ilka day see How poverty parts dear company.

THE KITTEN

Wanton droll, whose harmless play Beguiles the rustic's closing day, When, drawn the evening fire about, Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout, And child upon his three-foot stool, Waiting until his supper cool, And maid whose cheek outblooms the rose, As bright the blazing fagot glows, Who, bending to the friendly light, Plies her task with busy sleight, Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces, Thus circled round with merry faces: Backward coiled and crouching low, With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe, The housewife's spindle whirling round, Or thread or straw that on the ground Its shadow throws, by urchin sly Held out to lure thy roving eye; Then stealing onward, fiercely spring Upon the tempting, faithless thing. Now, wheeling round with bootless skill, Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still, As still beyond thy curving side Its jetty tip is seen to glide; Till from thy centre starting far, Thou sidelong veer'st with rump in air Erected stiff, and gait awry, Like madam in her tantrums high; Though ne'er a madam of them all, Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall, More varied trick and whim displays To catch the admiring stranger's gaze. Doth power in measured verses dwell, All thy vagaries wild to tell? Ah, no! the start, the jet, the bound, The giddy scamper round and round, With leap and toss and high curvet, And many a whirling somerset, (Permitted by the modern muse Expression technical to use)—These mock the deftest rhymester's skill, But poor in art, though rich in will.

The featest tumbler, stage bedight, To thee is but a clumsy wight, Who every limb and sinew strains To do what costs thee little pains; For which, I trow, the gaping crowd Requite him oft with plaudits loud.

But, stopped the while thy wanton play, Applauses too thy pains repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand With modest pride thou takest thy stand, While many a stroke of kindness glides Along thy back and tabby sides. Dilated swells thy glossy fur, And loudly croons thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose Like prickles of an early rose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Thy half-closed eyes peer, mild and meek.

But not alone by cottage fire Do rustics rude thy feats admire. The learned sage, whose thoughts explore The widest range of human lore, Or with unfettered fancy fly Through airy heights of poesy, Pausing smiles with altered air To see thee climb his elbow-chair, Or, struggling on the mat below, Hold warfare with his slippered toe. The widowed dame or lonely maid, Who, in the still but cheerless shade Of home unsocial, spends her age, And rarely turns a lettered page, Upon her hearth for thee lets fall The rounded cork or paper ball, Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch, The ends of raveled skein to catch, But lets thee have thy wayward will, Perplexing oft her better skill.

E'en he whose mind, of gloomy bent, In lonely tower or prison pent, Reviews the coil of former days, And loathes the world and all its ways, What time the lamp's unsteady gleam Hath roused him from his moody dream, Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat, His heart of pride less fiercely beat, And smiles, a link in thee to find That joins it still to living kind.

Whence hast thou then, thou witless puss! The magic power to charm us thus? Is it that in thy glaring eye And rapid movements we descry— Whilst we at ease, secure from ill, The chimney corner snugly fill— A lion darting on his prey, A tiger at his ruthless play? Or is it that in thee we trace, With all thy varied wanton grace, An emblem, viewed with kindred eye Of tricky, restless infancy? Ah! many a lightly sportive child, Who hath like thee our wits beguiled, To dull and sober manhood grown, With strange recoil our hearts disown.

And so, poor kit! must thou endure, When thou becom'st a cat demure, Full many a cuff and angry word, Chased roughly from the tempting board. But yet, for that thou hast, I ween, So oft our favored playmate been, Soft be the change which thou shalt prove! When time hath spoiled thee of our love, Still be thou deemed by housewife fat A comely, careful, mousing cat, Whose dish is, for the public good, Replenished oft with savory food, Nor, when thy span of life is past, Be thou to pond or dung-hill cast, But, gently borne on goodman's spade, Beneath the decent sod be laid; And children show with glistening eyes The place where poor old pussy lies.



HENRY MARTYN BAIRD

(1832-)

That stirring period of the history of France which in certain of its features has been made so familiar by Dumas through the 'Three Musketeers' series and others of his fascinating novels, is that which has been the theme of Dr. Baird in the substantial work to which so many years of his life have been devoted. It is to the elucidation of one portion only of the history of this period that he has given himself; but although in this, the story of the Huguenots, nominally only a matter of religious belief was involved, it in fact embraced almost the entire internal politics of the nation, and the struggles for supremacy of its ambitious families, as well as the effort to achieve religious freedom.



In these separate but related works the incidents of the whole Protestant movement have been treated. The first of these, 'The History of the Rise of the Huguenots in France' (1879), carries the story to the time of Henry of Valois (1574), covering the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the second, 'The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre' (1886), covers the Protestant ascendancy and the Edict of Nantes, and ends with the assassination of Henry in 1610; and the third, 'The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes' (1895), completes the main story, and indeed brings the narrative down to a date much later than the title seems to imply.

It may be said, perhaps, that Dr. Baird holds a brief for the plaintiff in the case; but his work does not produce the impression of being that of a violently prejudiced, although an interested, writer. He is cool and careful, writing with precision, and avoiding even the effects which the historian may reasonably feel himself entitled to produce, and of which the period naturally offers so many.

Henry Martyn Baird was born in Philadelphia, January 17th, 1832, and was educated at the University of the City of New York and the University of Athens, and at Union and Princeton Theological Seminaries. In 1855 he became a tutor at Princeton; and in the following year he published an interesting volume on 'Modern Greece, a Narrative of Residence and Travel.' In 1859 he was appointed to the chair of Greek Language and Literature in the University of the City of New York.

In addition to the works heretofore named, he is the author of a biography of his father, Robert Baird, D.D.

THE BATTLE OF IVRY

From 'The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre': Charles Scribner's Sons.

The battle began with a furious cannonade from the King's artillery, so prompt that nine rounds of shot had been fired before the enemy were ready to reply, so well directed that great havoc was made in the opposing lines. Next, the light horse of M. de Rosne, upon the extreme right of the Leaguers, made a dash upon Marshal d'Aumont, but were valiantly received. Their example was followed by the German reiters, who threw themselves upon the defenders of the King's artillery and upon the light horse of Aumont, who came to their relief; then, after their customary fashion, wheeled around, expecting to pass easily through the gaps between the friendly corps of Mayenne and Egmont, and to reload their firearms at their leisure in the rear, by way of preparation for a second charge.

Owing to the blunder of Tavannes, however, they met a serried line of horse where they looked for an open field; and the Walloon cavalry found themselves compelled to set their lances in threatening position to ward off the dangerous onset of their retreating allies. Another charge, made by a squadron of the Walloon lancers themselves, was bravely met by Baron Biron. His example was imitated by the Duke of Montpensier farther down the field. Although the one leader was twice wounded, and the other had his horse killed under him, both ultimately succeeded in repulsing the enemy.

It was about this time that the main body of Henry's horse became engaged with the gallant array of cavalry in their front. Mayenne had placed upon the left of his squadron a body of four hundred mounted carabineers. These, advancing first, rode rapidly toward the King's line, took aim, and discharged their weapons with deadly effect within twenty-five paces. Immediately afterward the main force of eighteen hundred lancers presented themselves. The King had fastened a great white plume to his helmet, and had adorned his horse's head with another, equally conspicuous. "Comrades!" he now exclaimed to those about him, "Comrades! God is for us! There are his enemies and ours! If you lose sight of your standards, rally to my white plume; you will find it on the road to victory and to honor." The Huguenots had knelt after their fashion; again Gabriel d'Amours had offered for them a prayer to the God of battles: but no Joyeuse dreamed of suspecting that they were meditating surrender or flight. The King, with the brave Huguenot minister's prediction of victory still ringing in his ears, plunged into the thickest of the fight, two horses' length ahead of his companions. That moment he forgot that he was King of France and general-in-chief, both in one, and fought as if he were a private soldier. It was indeed a bold venture. True, the enemy, partly because of the confusion induced by the reiters, partly from the rapidity of the King's movements, had lost in some measure the advantage they should have derived from their lances, and were compelled to rely mainly upon their swords, as against the firearms of their opponents. Still, they outnumbered the knights of the King's squadron more than as two to one. No wonder that some of the latter flinched and actually turned back; especially when the standard-bearer of the King, receiving a deadly wound in the face, lost control of his horse, and went riding aimlessly about the field, still grasping the banner in grim desperation. But the greater number emulated the courage of their leader. The white plume kept them in the road to victory and to honor. Yet even this beacon seemed at one moment to fail them. Another cavalier, who had ostentatiously decorated his helmet much after the same fashion as the King, was slain in the hand-to-hand conflict, and some, both of the Huguenots and of their enemies, for a time supposed the great Protestant champion himself to have fallen.

But although fiercely contested, the conflict was not long. The troopers of Mayenne wavered, and finally fled. Henry of Navarre emerged from the confusion, to the great relief of his anxious followers, safe and sound, covered with dust and blood not his own. More than once he had been in great personal peril. On his return from the melee, he halted, with a handful of companions, under the pear-trees indicated beforehand as a rallying-point, when he was descried and attacked by three bands of Walloon horse that had not yet engaged in the fight. Only his own valor and the timely arrival of some of his troops saved the imprudent monarch from death or captivity.

The rout of Mayenne's principal corps was quickly followed by the disintegration of his entire army. The Swiss auxiliaries of the League, though compelled to surrender their flags, were, as ancient allies of the crown, admitted to honorable terms of capitulation. To the French, who fell into the King's hands, he was equally clement. Indeed, he spared no efforts to save their lives. But it was otherwise with the German lansquenets. Their treachery at Arques, where they had pretended to come over to the royal side only to turn upon those who had believed their protestations and welcomed them to their ranks, was yet fresh in the memory of all. They received no mercy at the King's hands.

Gathering his available forces together, and strengthened by the accession of old Marshal Biron, who had been compelled, much against his will, to remain a passive spectator while others fought, Henry pursued the remnants of the army of the League many a mile to Mantes and the banks of the Seine. If their defeat by a greatly inferior force had been little to the credit of either the generals or the troops of the League, their precipitate flight was still less decorous. The much-vaunted Flemish lancers distinguished themselves, it was said, by not pausing until they found safety beyond the borders of France; and Mayenne, never renowned for courage, emulated or surpassed them in the eagerness he displayed, on reaching the little town from which the battle took its name, to put as many leagues as possible between himself and his pursuers. "The enemy thus ran away," says the Englishman William Lyly, who was an eye-witness of the battle; "Mayenne to Ivry, where the Walloons and reiters followed so fast that there standing, hasting to draw breath, and not able to speak, he was constrained to draw his sword to strike the flyers to make place for his own flight."

The battle had been a short one. Between ten and eleven o'clock the first attack was made; in less than an hour the army of the League was routed. It had been a glorious action for the King and his old Huguenots, and not less for the loyal Roman Catholics who clung to him. None seemed discontented but old Marshal Biron, who, when he met the King coming out of the fray with battered armor and blunted sword, could not help contrasting the opportunity his Majesty had enjoyed to distinguish himself with his own enforced inactivity, and exclaimed, "Sire, this is not right! You have to-day done what Biron ought to have done, and he has done what the King should have done." But even Biron was unable to deny that the success of the royal arms surpassed all expectation, and deserved to rank among the wonders of history. The preponderance of the enemy in numbers had been great. There was no question that the impetuous attacks of their cavalry upon the left wing of the King were for a time almost successful. The official accounts might conveniently be silent upon the point, but the truth could not be disguised that at the moment Henry plunged into battle a part of his line was grievously shaken, a part was in full retreat, and the prospect was dark enough. Some of his immediate followers, indeed, at this time turned countenance and were disposed to flee, whereupon he recalled them to their duty with the words, "Look this way, in order that if you will not fight, at least you may see me die." But the steady and determined courage of the King, well seconded by soldiers not less brave, turned the tide of battle. "The enemy took flight," says the devout Duplessis Mornay, "terrified rather by God than by men; for it is certain that the one side was not less shaken than the other." And with the flight of the cavalry, Mayenne's infantry, constituting, as has been seen, three-fourths of his entire army, gave up the day as lost, without striking a blow for the cause they had come to support. How many men the army of the League lost in killed and wounded it is difficult to say. The Prince of Parma reported to his master the loss of two hundred and seventy of the Flemish lancers, together with their commander, the Count of Egmont. The historian De Thou estimates the entire number of deaths on the side of the League, including the combatants that fell in the battle and the fugitives drowned at the crossing of the river Eure, by Ivry, at eight hundred. The official account, on the other hand, agrees with Marshal Biron, in stating that of the cavalry alone more than fifteen hundred died, and adds that four hundred were taken prisoners; while Davila swells the total of the slain to the incredible sum of upward of six thousand men.



SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER

(1821-1893)

The Northwest Passage, the Pole itself, and the sources of the Nile—how many have struggled through ice and snow, or burned themselves with tropic heat, in the effort to penetrate these secrets of the earth! And how many have left their bones to whiten on the desert or lie hidden beneath icebergs at the end of the search!

Of the fortunate ones who escaped after many perils, Baker was one of the most fortunate. He explored the Blue and the White Nile, discovered at least one of the reservoirs from which flows the great river of Egypt, and lived to tell the tale and to receive due honor, being knighted by the Queen therefor, feted by learned societies, and sent subsequently by the Khedive at the head of a large force with commission to destroy the slave trade. In this he appears to have been successful for a time, but for a time only.



Baker was born in London, June 8th, 1821, and died December 30th, 1893. With his brother he established, in 1847, a settlement in the mountains of Ceylon, where he spent several years. His experiences in the far East appear in books entitled 'The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon' and 'Eight Years Wandering in Ceylon.' In 1861, accompanied by his young wife and an escort, he started up the Nile, and three years later, on the 14th of March, 1864, at length reached the cliffs overlooking the Albert Nyanza, being the first European to behold its waters. Like most Englishmen, he was an enthusiastic sportsman, and his manner of life afforded him a great variety of unusual experiences. He visited Cyprus in 1879, after the execution of the convention between England and Turkey, and subsequently he traveled to Syria, India, Japan, and America. He kept voluminous notes of his various journeys, which he utilized in the preparation of numerous volumes:—'The Albert Nyanza'; 'The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia'; 'Ismaeilia,' a narrative of the expedition under the auspices of the Khedive; 'Cyprus as I Saw It in 1879'; together with 'Wild Beasts and Their Ways,' 'True Tales for My Grandsons,' and a story entitled 'Cast Up by the Sea,' which was for many years a great favorite with the boys of England and America. They are all full of life and incident. One of the most delightful memories of them which readers retain is the figure of his lovely wife, so full of courage, loyalty, buoyancy, and charm. He had that rarest of possibilities, spirit-stirring adventure and home companionship at once.

HUNTING IN ABYSSINIA

From 'The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia'

On arrival at the camp, I resolved to fire the entire country on the following day, and to push still farther up the course of the Settite to the foot of the mountains, and to return to this camp in about a fortnight, by which time the animals that had been scared away by the fire would have returned. Accordingly, on the following morning, accompanied by a few of the aggageers, I started upon the south bank of the river, and rode for some distance into the interior, to the ground that was entirely covered with high withered grass. We were passing through a mass of kittar thorn bush, almost hidden by the immensely high grass, when, as I was ahead of the party, I came suddenly upon the tracks of rhinoceros; these were so unmistakably recent that I felt sure we were not far from the animals themselves. As I had wished to fire the grass, I was accompanied by my Tokrooris, and my horse-keeper, Mahomet No. 2. It was difficult ground for the men, and still more unfavorable for the horses, as large disjointed masses of stone were concealed in the high grass.

We were just speculating as to the position of the rhinoceros, and thinking how uncommonly unpleasant it would be should he obtain our wind, when whiff! whiff! whiff! We heard the sharp whistling snort, with a tremendous rush through the high grass and thorns close to us; and at the same moment two of these determined brutes were upon us in full charge. I never saw such a scrimmage; sauve qui peut! There was no time for more than one look behind. I dug the spurs into Aggahr's flanks, and clasping him round the neck, I ducked my head down to his shoulder, well protected with my strong hunting cap, and I kept the spurs going as hard as I could ply them, blindly trusting to Providence and my good horse, over big rocks, fallen trees, thick kittar thorns, and grass ten feet high, with the two infernal animals in full chase only a few feet behind me. I heard their abominable whiffing close to me, but so did my horse also, and the good old hunter flew over obstacles that I should have thought impossible, and he dashed straight under the hooked thorn bushes and doubled like a hare. The aggageers were all scattered; Mahomet No. 2 was knocked over by a rhinoceros; all the men were sprawling upon the rocks with their guns, and the party was entirely discomfited. Having passed the kittar thorn, I turned, and seeing that the beasts had gone straight on, I brought Aggahr's head round, and tried to give chase, but it was perfectly impossible; it was only a wonder that the horse had escaped in ground so difficult for riding. Although my clothes were of the strongest and coarsest Arab cotton cloth, which seldom tore, but simply lost a thread when caught in a thorn, I was nearly naked. My blouse was reduced to shreds; as I wore sleeves only half way from the shoulder to the elbow, my naked arms were streaming with blood; fortunately my hunting cap was secured with a chin strap, and still more fortunately I had grasped the horse's neck, otherwise I must have been dragged out of the saddle by the hooked thorns. All the men were cut and bruised, some having fallen upon their heads among the rocks, and others had hurt their legs in falling in their endeavors to escape. Mahomet. No. 2, the horse-keeper, was more frightened than hurt, as he had been knocked down by the shoulder, and not by the horn of the rhinoceros, as the animal had not noticed him: its attention was absorbed by the horse.

I determined to set fire to the whole country immediately, and descending the hill toward the river to obtain a favorable wind, I put my men in a line, extending over about a mile along the river's bed, and they fired the grass in different places. With a loud roar, the flame leaped high in air and rushed forward with astonishing velocity; the grass was as inflammable as tinder, and the strong north wind drove the long line of fire spreading in every direction through the country.

We now crossed to the other side of the river to avoid the flames, and we returned toward the camp. On the way I made a long shot and badly wounded a tetel, but lost it in thick thorns; shortly after, I stalked a nellut (A. Strepsiceros), and bagged it with the Fletcher rifle.

We arrived early in camp, and on the following day we moved sixteen miles farther up stream, and camped under a tamarind-tree by the side of the river. No European had ever been farther than our last camp, Delladilla, and that spot had only been visited by Johann Schmidt and Florian. In the previous year, my aggageers had sabred some of the Base at this very camping-place; they accordingly requested me to keep a vigilant watch during the night, as they would be very likely to attack us in revenge, unless they had been scared by the rifles and by the size of our party. They advised me not to remain long in this spot, as it would be very dangerous for my wife to be left almost alone during the day, when we were hunting, and that the Base would be certain to espy us from the mountains, and would most probably attack and carry her off when they were assured of our departure. She was not very nervous about this, but she immediately called the dragoman, Mahomet, who knew the use of a gun, and she asked him if he would stand by her in case they were attacked in my absence; the faithful servant replied, "Mahomet fight the Base? No, Missus; Mahomet not fight; if the Base come, Missus fight; Mahomet run away; Mahomet not come all the way from Cairo to get him killed by black fellers; Mahomet will run—Inshallah!" (Please God.)

This frank avowal of his military tactics was very reassuring. There was a high hill of basalt, something resembling a pyramid, within a quarter of a mile of us; I accordingly ordered some of my men every day to ascend this look-out station, and I resolved to burn the high grass at once, so as to destroy all cover for the concealment of an enemy. That evening I very nearly burned our camp; I had several times ordered the men to clear away the dry grass for about thirty yards from our resting-place; this they had neglected to obey. We had been joined a few days before by a party of about a dozen Hamran Arabs, who were hippopotami hunters; thus we mustered very strong, and it would have been the work of about half an hour to have cleared away the grass as I had desired.

The wind was brisk, and blew directly toward our camp, which was backed by the river. I accordingly took a fire-stick, and I told my people to look sharp, as they would not clear away the grass. I walked to the foot of the basalt hill, and fired the grass in several places. In an instant the wind swept the flame and smoke toward the camp. All was confusion; the Arabs had piled the camel-saddles and all their corn and effects in the high grass about twenty yards from the tent; there was no time to remove all these things; therefore, unless they could clear away the grass so as to stop the fire before it should reach the spot, they would be punished for their laziness by losing their property. The fire traveled quicker than I had expected, and, by the time I had hastened to the tent, I found the entire party working frantically; the Arabs were slashing down the grass with their swords, and sweeping it away with their shields, while my Tokrooris were beating it down with long sticks and tearing it from its withered and fortunately tinder-rotten roots, in desperate haste. The flames rushed on, and we already felt the heat, as volumes of smoke enveloped us; I thought it advisable to carry the gunpowder (about 20 lbs.) down to the river, together with the rifles; while my wife and Mahomet dragged the various articles of luggage to the same place of safety. The fire now approached within about sixty yards, and dragging out the iron pins, I let the tent fall to the ground. The Arabs had swept a line like a high-road perfectly clean, and they were still tearing away the grass, when they were suddenly obliged to rush back as the flames arrived.

Almost instantaneously the smoke blew over us, but the fire had expired upon meeting the cleared ground. I now gave them a little lecture upon obedience to orders; and from that day, their first act upon halting for the night was to clear away the grass, lest I should repeat the entertainment. In countries that are covered with dry grass, it should be an invariable rule to clear the ground around the camp before night; hostile natives will frequently fire the grass to windward of a party, or careless servants may leave their pipes upon the ground, which fanned by the wind would quickly create a blaze. That night the mountain afforded a beautiful appearance as the flames ascended the steep sides, and ran flickering up the deep gullies with a brilliant light.

We were standing outside the tent admiring the scene, which perfectly illuminated the neighborhood, when suddenly an apparition of a lion and lioness stood for an instant before us at about fifteen yards distance, and then disappeared over the blackened ground before I had time to snatch a rifle from the tent. No doubt they had been disturbed from the mountain by the fire, and had mistaken their way in the country so recently changed from high grass to black ashes. In this locality I considered it advisable to keep a vigilant watch during the night, and the Arabs were told off for that purpose.

A little before sunrise I accompanied the howartis, or hippopotamus hunters, for a day's sport. There were numbers of hippos in this part of the river, and we were not long before we found a herd. The hunters failed in several attempts to harpoon them, but they succeeded in stalking a crocodile after a most peculiar fashion. This large beast was lying upon a sandbank on the opposite margin of the river, close to a bed of rushes.

The howartis, having studied the wind, ascended for about a quarter of a mile, and then swam across the river, harpoon in hand. The two men reached the opposite bank, beneath which they alternately waded or swam down the stream toward the spot upon which the crocodile was lying. Thus advancing under cover of the steep bank, or floating with the stream in deep places, and crawling like crocodiles across the shallows, the two hunters at length arrived at the bank or rushes, on the other side of which the monster was basking asleep upon the sand. They were now about waist-deep, and they kept close to the rushes with their harpoons raised, ready to cast the moment they should pass the rush bed and come in view of the crocodile. Thus steadily advancing, they had just arrived at the corner within about eight yards of the crocodile, when the creature either saw them, or obtained their wind; in an instant it rushed to the water; at the same moment, the two harpoons were launched with great rapidity by the hunters. One glanced obliquely from the scales; the other stuck fairly in the tough hide, and the iron, detached from the bamboo, held fast, while the ambatch float, running on the surface of the water, marked the course of the reptile beneath.

The hunters chose a convenient place, and recrossed the stream to our side, apparently not heeding the crocodiles more than we should pike when bathing in England. They would not waste their time by securing the crocodile at present, as they wished to kill a hippopotamus; the float would mark the position, and they would be certain to find it later. We accordingly continued our search for hippopotami; these animals appeared to be on the qui vive, and, as the hunters once more failed in an attempt, I made a clean shot behind the ear of one, and killed it dead. At length we arrived at a large pool, in which were several sandbanks covered with rushes, and many rocky islands. Among these rocks were a herd of hippopotami, consisting of an old bull and several cows; a young hippo was standing, like an ugly little statue, on a protruding rock, while another infant stood upon its mother's back that listlessly floated on the water.

This was an admirable place for the hunters. They desired me to lie down, and they crept into the jungle out of view of the river; I presently observed them stealthily descending the dry bed about two hundred paces above the spot where the hippos were basking behind the rocks. They entered the river, and swam down the centre of the stream toward the rock. This was highly exciting:—the hippos were quite unconscious of the approaching danger, as, steadily and rapidly, the hunters floated down the strong current; they neared the rock, and both heads disappeared as they purposely sank out of view; in a few seconds later they reappeared at the edge of the rock upon which the young hippo stood. It would be difficult to say which started first, the astonished young hippo into the water, or the harpoons from the hands of the howartis! It was the affair of a moment; the hunters dived directly they had hurled their harpoons, and, swimming for some distance under water, they came to the surface, and hastened to the shore lest an infuriated hippopotamus should follow them. One harpoon had missed; the other had fixed the bull of the herd, at which it had been surely aimed. This was grand sport! The bull was in the greatest fury, and rose to the surface, snorting and blowing in his impotent rage; but as the ambatch float was exceedingly large, and this naturally accompanied his movements, he tried to escape from his imaginary persecutor, and dived constantly, only to find his pertinacious attendant close to him upon regaining the surface. This was not to last long; the howartis were in earnest, and they at once called their party, who, with two of the aggageers, Abou Do and Suleiman, were near at hand; these men arrived with the long ropes that form a portion of the outfit for hippo hunting.

The whole party now halted on the edge of the river, while two men swam across with one end of the long rope. Upon gaining the opposite bank, I observed that a second rope was made fast to the middle of the main line; thus upon our side we held the ends of two ropes, while on the opposite side they had only one; accordingly, the point of junction of the two ropes in the centre formed an acute angle. The object of this was soon practically explained. Two men upon our side now each held a rope, and one of these walked about ten yards before the other. Upon both sides of the river the people now advanced, dragging the rope on the surface of the water until they reached the ambatch float that was swimming to and fro, according to the movements of the hippopotamus below. By a dexterous jerk of the main line, the float was now placed between the two ropes, and it was immediately secured in the acute angle by bringing together the ends of these ropes on our side.

The men on the opposite bank now dropped their line, and our men hauled in upon the ambatch float that was held fast between the ropes. Thus cleverly made sure, we quickly brought a strain upon the hippo, and, although I have had some experience in handling big fish, I never knew one pull so lustily as the amphibious animal that we now alternately coaxed and bullied. He sprang out of the water, gnashed his huge jaws, snorted with tremendous rage, and lashed the river into foam; he then dived, and foolishly approached us beneath the water. We quickly gathered in the slack line, and took a round turn upon a large rock, within a few feet of the river. The hippo now rose to the surface, about ten yards from the hunters, and, jumping half out of the water, he snapped his great jaws together, endeavoring to catch the rope, but at the same instant two harpoons were launched into his side. Disdaining retreat and maddened with rage, the furious animal charged from the depths of the river, and, gaining a footing, he reared his bulky form from the surface, came boldly upon the sandbank, and attacked the hunters open-mouthed. He little knew his enemy; they were not the men to fear a pair of gaping jaws, armed with a deadly array of tusks, but half a dozen lances were hurled at him, some entering his mouth from a distance of five or six paces, at the same time several men threw handfuls of sand into his enormous eyes. This baffled him more than the lances; he crunched the shafts between his powerful jaws like straws, but he was beaten by the sand, and, shaking his huge head, he retreated to the river. During his sally upon the shore, two of the hunters had secured the ropes of the harpoons that had been fastened in his body just before his charge; he was now fixed by three of these deadly instruments, but suddenly one rope gave way, having been bitten through by the enraged beast, who was still beneath the water. Immediately after this he appeared on the surface, and, without a moment's hesitation, he once more charged furiously from the water straight at the hunters, with his huge mouth open to such an extent that he could have accommodated two inside passengers. Suleiman was wild with delight, and springing forward lance in hand, he drove it against the head of the formidable animal, but without effect. At the same time, Abou Do met the hippo sword in hand, reminding me of Perseus slaying the sea-monster that would devour Andromeda, but the sword made a harmless gash, and the lance, already blunted against the rocks, refused to penetrate the tough hide; once more handfuls of sand were pelted upon his face, and again repulsed by this blinding attack, he was forced to retire to his deep hole and wash it from his eyes. Six times during the fight the valiant bull hippo quitted his watery fortress, and charged resolutely at his pursuers; he had broken several of their lances in his jaws, other lances had been hurled, and, falling upon the rocks, they were blunted, and would not penetrate. The fight had continued for three hours, and the sun was about to set, accordingly the hunters begged me to give him the coup de grace, as they had hauled him close to the shore, and they feared he would sever the rope with his teeth. I waited for a good opportunity, when he boldly raised his head from water about three yards from the rifle, and a bullet from the little Fletcher between the eyes closed the last act.

THE SOURCES OF THE NILE

From 'The Albert Nyanza'

The name of this village was Parkani. For several days past our guides had told us that we were very near to the lake, and we were now assured that we should reach it on the morrow. I had noticed a lofty range of mountains at an immense distance west, and I had imagined that the lake lay on the other side of this chain; but I was now informed that those mountains formed the western frontier of the M'wootan N'zige, and that the lake was actually within a march of Parkani. I could not believe it possible that we were so near the object of our search. The guide Rabonga now appeared, and declared that if we started early on the following morning we should be able to wash in the lake by noon!

That night I hardly slept. For years I had striven to reach the "sources of the Nile." In my nightly dreams during that arduous voyage I had always failed, but after so much hard work and perseverance the cup was at my very lips, and I was to drink at the mysterious fountain before another sun should set—at that great reservoir of Nature that ever since creation had baffled all discovery.

I had hoped, and prayed, and striven through all kinds of difficulties, in sickness, starvation, and fatigue, to reach that hidden source; and when it had appeared impossible, we had both determined to die upon the road rather than return defeated. Was it possible that it was so near, and that to-morrow we could say, "the work is accomplished"?

The 14th March. The sun had not risen when I was spurring my ox after the guide, who, having been promised a double handful of beads on arrival at the lake, had caught the enthusiasm of the moment. The day broke beautifully clear, and having crossed a deep valley between the hills, we toiled up the opposite slope. I hurried to the summit. The glory of our prize burst suddenly upon me! There, like a sea of quicksilver, lay far beneath the grand expanse of water,—a boundless sea horizon on the south and southwest, glittering in the noonday sun; and on the west at fifty or sixty miles distance blue mountains rose from the bosom of the lake to a height of about 7,000 feet above its level.

It is impossible to describe the triumph of that moment;—here was the reward for all our labor—for the years of tenacity with which we had toiled through Africa. England had won the sources of the Nile! Long before I reached this spot I had arranged to give three cheers with all our men in English style in honor of the discovery, but now that I looked down upon the great inland sea lying nestled in the very heart of Africa, and thought how vainly mankind had sought these sources throughout so many ages, and reflected that I had been the humble instrument permitted to unravel this portion of the great mystery when so many greater than I had failed, I felt too serious to vent my feelings in vain cheers for victory, and I sincerely thanked God for having guided and supported us through all dangers to the good end. I was about 1,500 feet above the lake, and I looked down from the steep granite cliff upon those welcome waters—upon that vast reservoir which nourished Egypt and brought fertility where all was wilderness—upon that great source so long hidden from mankind; that source of bounty and of blessings to millions of human beings; and as one of the greatest objects in nature, I determined to honor it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious Queen and deplored by every Englishman, I called this great lake "the Albert Nyanza." The Victoria and the Albert lakes are the two sources of the Nile.



ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR

(1848-)

Although the prominence of Arthur James Balfour in English contemporary life is in the main that of a statesman, he has a high place as a critic of philosophy, especially in its relation to religion. During the early part of his life his interests were entirely those of a student. He was born in 1848, a member of the Cecil family, and a nephew of the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. His tastes were those of a retired thinker. He cared for literature, music, and philosophy, but very little for the political world; so little that he never read the newspapers. This tendency was increased by his delicate health. When, therefore, as a young man in the neighborhood of thirty, he was made Secretary for Scotland, people laughed. His uncle's choice proved to be a wise one, however; and he later, in 1886, gave his nephew the very important position of Irish Secretary, at a time when some of the ablest and most experienced statesmen had failed. Mr. Balfour won an unexpected success and a wide reputation, and from that time on he developed rapidly into one of the most skillful statesmen of the Conservative party. By tradition and by temperament he is an extreme Tory; and it is in the opposition, as a skillful fencer in debate and a sharp critic of pretentious schemes, that he has been most admired and most feared. However, he is kept from being narrowly confined to the traditional point of view by the philosophic interests and training of his mind, which he has turned into practical fairness. Some of his speeches are most original in suggestion, and all show a literary quality of a high order. His writings on other subjects are also broad, scholarly, and practical. 'A Defense of Philosophic Doubt' is thought by some philosophers to be the ablest work of destructive criticism since Hume. 'The Foundations of Belief' covers somewhat the same ground and in more popular fashion. 'Essays and Addresses' is a collection of papers on literature and sociology.



THE PLEASURES OF READING

From his Rectorial Address before the University of Glasgow

I confess to have been much perplexed in my search for a topic on which I could say something to which you would have patience to listen, or on which I might find it profitable to speak. One theme however there is, not inappropriate to the place in which I stand, nor I hope unwelcome to the audience which I address. The youngest of you have left behind that period of youth during which it seems inconceivable that any book should afford recreation except a story-book. Many of you are just reaching the period when, at the end of your prescribed curriculum, the whole field and compass of literature lies outspread before you; when, with faculties trained and disciplined, and the edge of curiosity not dulled or worn with use, you may enter at your leisure into the intellectual heritage of the centuries.

Now the question of how to read and what to read has of late filled much space in the daily papers, if it cannot strictly speaking be said to have profoundly occupied the public mind. But you need be under no alarm. I am not going to supply you with a new list of the hundred books most worth reading, nor am I about to take the world into my confidence in respect of my "favorite passages from the best authors." Nor again do I address myself to the professed student, to the fortunate individual with whom literature or science is the business as well as the pleasure of life. I have not the qualifications which would enable me to undertake such a task with the smallest hope of success. My theme is humble, though the audience to whom I desire to speak is large: for I speak to the ordinary reader with ordinary capacities and ordinary leisure, to whom reading is, or ought to be, not a business but a pleasure; and my theme is the enjoyment—not, mark you, the improvement, nor the glory, nor the profit, but the enjoyment—which may be derived by such an one from books.

It is perhaps due to the controversial habits engendered by my unfortunate profession, that I find no easier method of making my own view clear than that of contrasting with it what I regard as an erroneous view held by somebody else; and in the present case the doctrine which I shall choose as a foil to my own, is one which has been stated with the utmost force and directness by that brilliant and distinguished writer, Mr. Frederic Harrison. He has, as many of you know, recently given us, in a series of excellent essays, his opinion on the principles which should guide us in the choice of books. Against that part of his treatise which is occupied with specific recommendations of certain authors I have not a word to say. He has resisted all the temptations to eccentricity which so easily beset the modern critic. Every book which he praises deserves his praise, and has long been praised by the world at large. I do not, indeed, hold that the verdict of the world is necessarily binding on the individual conscience. I admit to the full that there is an enormous quantity of hollow devotion, of withered orthodoxy divorced from living faith, in the eternal chorus of praise which goes up from every literary altar to the memory of the immortal dead. Nevertheless every critic is bound to recognize, as Mr. Harrison recognizes, that he must put down to individual peculiarity any difference he may have with the general verdict of the ages; he must feel that mankind are not likely to be in a conspiracy of error as to the kind of literary work which conveys to them the highest literary enjoyment, and that in such cases at least securus judicat orbis terrarum.

But it is quite possible to hold that any work recommended by Mr. Harrison is worth repeated reading, and yet to reject utterly the theory of study by which these recommendations are prefaced. For Mr. Harrison is a ruthless censor. His index expurgatorius includes, so far as I can discover, the whole catalogue of the British Museum, with the exception of a small remnant which might easily be contained in about thirty or forty volumes. The vast remainder he contemplates with feelings apparently not merely of indifference, but of active aversion. He surveys the boundless and ever-increasing waste of books with emotions compounded of disgust and dismay. He is almost tempted to say in his haste that the invention of printing has been an evil one for humanity. In the habits of miscellaneous reading, born of a too easy access to libraries, circulating and other, he sees many soul-destroying tendencies; and his ideal reader would appear to be a gentleman who rejects with a lofty scorn all in history that does not pass for being first-rate in importance, and all in literature that is not admitted to be first-rate in quality.

Now, I am far from denying that this theory is plausible. Of all that has been written, it is certain that the professed student can master but an infinitesimal fraction. Of that fraction the ordinary reader can master but a very small part. What advice, then, can be better than to select for study the few masterpieces that have come down to us, and to treat as non-existent the huge but undistinguished remainder? We are like travelers passing hastily through some ancient city; filled with memorials of many generations and more than one great civilization. Our time is short. Of what may be seen we can only see at best but a trifling fragment. Let us then take care that we waste none of our precious moments upon that which is less than the most excellent. So preaches Mr. Frederic Harrison; and when a doctrine which put thus may seem not only wise but obvious, is further supported by such assertions that habits of miscellaneous reading "close the mind to what is spiritually sustaining" by "stuffing it with what is simply curious," or that such methods of study are worse than no habits of study at all because they "gorge and enfeeble" the mind by "excess in that which cannot nourish," I almost feel that in venturing to dissent from it, I may be attacking not merely the teaching of common sense but the inspirations of a high morality.

Yet I am convinced that for most persons the views thus laid down by Mr. Harrison are wrong; and that what he describes, with characteristic vigor, as "an impotent voracity for desultory information," is in reality a most desirable and a not too common form of mental appetite. I have no sympathy whatever with the horror he expresses at the "incessant accumulation of fresh books." I am never tempted to regret that Gutenberg was born into the world. I care not at all though the "cataract of printed stuff," as Mr. Harrison calls it, should flow and still flow on until the catalogues of our libraries should make libraries themselves. I am prepared, indeed, to express sympathy almost amounting to approbation for any one who would check all writing which was not intended for the printer. I pay no tribute of grateful admiration to those who have oppressed mankind with the dubious blessing of the penny post. But the ground of the distinction is plain. We are always obliged to read our letters, and are sometimes obliged to answer them. But who obliges us to wade through the piled-up lumber of an ancient library, or to skim more than we like off the frothy foolishness poured forth in ceaseless streams by our circulating libraries? Dead dunces do not importune us; Grub Street does not ask for a reply by return of post. Even their living successors need hurt no one who possesses the very moderate degree of social courage required to make the admission that he has not read the last new novel or the current number of a fashionable magazine.

But this is not the view of Mr. Harrison. To him the position of any one having free access to a large library is fraught with issues so tremendous that, in order adequately to describe it, he has to seek for parallels in two of the most highly-wrought episodes in fiction: the Ancient Mariner, becalmed and thirsting on the tropic ocean; Bunyan's Christian in the crisis of spiritual conflict. But there is here, surely, some error and some exaggeration. Has miscellaneous reading all the dreadful consequences which Mr. Harrison depicts? Has it any of them? His declaration about the intellect being "gorged and enfeebled" by the absorption of too much information, expresses no doubt with great vigor an analogy, for which there is high authority, between the human mind and the human stomach; but surely it is an analogy which may be pressed too far. I have often heard of the individual whose excellent natural gifts have been so overloaded with huge masses of undigested and indigestible learning that they have had no chance of healthy development. But though I have often heard of this personage, I have never met him, and I believe him to be mythical. It is true, no doubt, that many learned people are dull; but there is no indication whatever that they are dull because they are learned. True dullness is seldom acquired; it is a natural grace, the manifestations of which, however modified by education, remain in substance the same. Fill a dull man to the brim with knowledge, and he will not become less dull, as the enthusiasts for education vainly imagine; but neither will he become duller, as Mr. Harrison appears to suppose. He will remain in essence what he always has been and always must have been. But whereas his dullness would, if left to itself, have been merely vacuous, it may have become, under cureful cultivation, pretentious and pedantic.

I would further point out to you that while there is no ground in experience for supposing that a keen interest in those facts which Mr. Harrison describes as "merely curious" has any stupefying effect upon the mind, or has any tendency to render it insensible to the higher things of literature and art, there is positive evidence that many of those who have most deeply felt the charm of these higher things have been consumed by that omnivorous appetite for knowledge which excites Mr. Harrison's especial indignation. Dr. Johnson, for instance, though deaf to some of the most delicate harmonies of verse, was without question a very great critic. Yet in Dr. Johnson's opinion, literary history, which is for the most part composed of facts which Mr. Harrison would regard as insignificant, about authors whom he would regard as pernicious, was the most delightful of studies. Again, consider the case of Lord Macaulay. Lord Macaulay did everything Mr. Harrison says he ought not to have done. From youth to age he was continuously occupied in "gorging and enfeebling" his intellect, by the unlimited consumption of every species of literature, from the masterpieces of the age of Pericles to the latest rubbish from the circulating library. It is not told of him that his intellect suffered by the process; and though it will hardly be claimed for him that he was a great critic, none will deny that he possessed the keenest susceptibilities for literary excellence in many languages and in every form. If Englishmen and Scotchmen do not satisfy you, I will take a Frenchman. The most accomplished critic whom France has produced is, by general admission, Ste.-Beuve. His capacity for appreciating supreme perfection in literature will be disputed by none; yet the great bulk of his vast literary industry was expended upon the lives and writings of authors whose lives Mr. Harrison would desire us to forget, and whose writings almost wring from him the wish that the art of printing had never been discovered.

I am even bold enough to hazard the conjecture (I trust he will forgive me) that Mr. Harrison's life may be quoted against Mr. Harrison's theory. I entirely decline to believe, without further evidence, that the writings whose vigor of style and of thought have been the delight of us all are the product of his own system. I hope I do him no wrong, but I cannot help thinking that if we knew the truth, we should find that he followed the practice of those worthy physicians who, after prescribing the most abstemious diet to their patients, may be seen partaking freely, and to all appearances safely, of the most succulent and the most unwholesome of the forbidden dishes.

It has to be noted that Mr. Harrison's list of the books which deserve perusal would seem to indicate that in his opinion, the pleasures to be derived from literature are chiefly pleasures of the imagination. Poets, dramatists, and novelists form the chief portion of the somewhat meagre fare which is specifically permitted to his disciples. Now, though I have already stated that the list is not one of which any person is likely to assert that it contains books which ought to be excluded, yet, even from the point of view of what may be termed aesthetic enjoyment, the field in which we are allowed to take our pleasures seems to me unduly restricted.

Contemporary poetry, for instance, on which Mr. Harrison bestows a good deal of hard language, has and must have, for the generation which produces it, certain qualities not likely to be possessed by any other. Charles Lamb has somewhere declared that a pun loses all its virtues as soon as the momentary quality of the intellectual and social atmosphere in which it was born has changed its character. What is true of this, the humblest effort of verbal art, is true in a different measure and degree of all, even of the highest, forms of literature. To some extent every work requires interpretation to generations who are separated by differences of thought or education from the age in which it was originally produced. That this is so with every book which depends for its interest upon feelings and fashions which have utterly vanished, no one will be disposed, I imagine, to deny. Butler's 'Hudibras,' for instance, which was the delight of a gay and witty society, is to me at least not unfrequently dull. Of some works, no doubt, which made a noise in their day it seems impossible to detect the slightest race of charm. But this is not the case with 'Hudibras.' Its merits are obvious. That they should have appealed to a generation sick of the reign of the "Saints" is precisely what we should have expected. But to us, who are not sick of the reign of the Saints, they appeal but imperfectly. The attempt to reproduce artificially the frame of mind of those who first read the poem is not only an effort, but is to most people, at all events, an unsuccessful effort. What is true of 'Hudibras' is true also, though in an inconceivably smaller degree, of those great works of imagination which deal with the elemental facts of human character and human passion. Yet even on these, time does, though lightly, lay his hand. Wherever what may be called "historic sympathy" is required, there will be some diminution of the enjoyment which those must have felt who were the poet's contemporaries. We look, so to speak, at the same splendid landscape as they, but distance has made it necessary for us to aid our natural vision with glasses, and some loss of light will thus inevitably be produced, and some inconvenience from the difficulty of truly adjusting the focus. Of all authors, Homer would, I suppose, be thought to suffer least from such drawbacks. But yet in order to listen to Homer's accents with the ears of an ancient Greek, we must be able, among other things, to enter into a view about the gods which is as far removed from what we should describe as religious sentiment, as it is from the frigid ingenuity of those later poets who regarded the deities of Greek mythology as so many wheels in the supernatural machinery with which it pleased them to carry on the action of their pieces. If we are to accept Mr. Herbert Spencer's views as to the progress of our species, changes of sentiment are likely to occur which will even more seriously interfere with the world's delight in the Homeric poems. When human beings become so nicely "adjusted to their environment" that courage and dexterity in battle will have become as useless among civic virtues as an old helmet is among the weapons of war; when fighting gets to be looked upon with the sort of disgust excited in us by cannibalism; and when public opinion shall regard a warrior much in the same light that we regard a hangman,—I do not see how any fragment of that vast and splendid literature which depends for its interest upon deeds of heroism and the joy of battle is to retain its ancient charm.

About these remote contingencies, however, I am glad to think that neither you nor I need trouble our heads; and if I parenthetically allude to them now, it is merely as an illustration of a truth not always sufficiently remembered, and as an excuse for those who find in the genuine, though possibly second-rate, productions of their own age, a charm for which they search in vain among the mighty monuments of the past.

But I leave this train of thought, which has perhaps already taken me too far, in order to point out a more fundamental error, as I think it, which arises from regarding literature solely from this high aesthetic standpoint. The pleasures of imagination, derived from the best literary models, form without doubt the most exquisite portion of the enjoyment which we may extract from books; but they do not, in my opinion, form the largest portion if we take into account mass as well as quality in our calculation. There is the literature which appeals to the imagination or the fancy, some stray specimens of which Mr. Harrison will permit us to peruse; but is there not also the literature which satisfies the curiosity? Is this vast storehouse of pleasure to be thrown hastily aside because many of the facts which it contains are alleged to be insignificant, because the appetite to which they minister is said to be morbid? Consider a little. We are here dealing with one of the strongest intellectual impulses of rational beings. Animals, as a rule, trouble themselves but little about anything unless they want either to eat it or to run away from it. Interest in and wonder at the works of nature and the doings of man are products of civilization, and excite emotions which do not diminish but increase with increasing knowledge and cultivation. Feed them and they grow; minister to them and they will greatly multiply. We hear much indeed of what is called "idle curiosity"; but I am loth to brand any form of curiosity as necessarily idle. Take, for example, one of the most singular, but in this age one of the most universal, forms in which it is accustomed to manifest itself: I mean that of an exhaustive study of the contents of the morning and evening papers. It is certainly remarkable that any person who has nothing to get by it should destroy his eyesight and confuse his brain by a conscientious attempt to master the dull and doubtful details of the European diary daily transmitted to us by "Our Special Correspondent." But it must be remembered that this is only a somewhat unprofitable exercise of that disinterested love of knowledge which moves men to penetrate the Polar snows, to build up systems of philosophy, or to explore the secrets of the remotest heavens. It has in it the rudiments of infinite and varied delights. It can be turned, and it should be turned into a curiosity for which nothing that has been done, or thought, or suffered, or believed, no law which governs the world of matter or the world of mind, can be wholly alien or uninteresting.

Truly it is a subject for astonishment that, instead of expanding to the utmost the employment of this pleasure-giving faculty, so many persons should set themselves to work to limit its exercise by all kinds of arbitrary regulations. Some there are, for example, who tell us that the acquisition of knowledge is all very well, but that it must be useful knowledge; meaning usually thereby that it must enable a man to get on in a profession, pass an examination, shine in conversation, or obtain a reputation for learning. But even if they mean something higher than this, even if they mean that knowledge to be worth anything must subserve ultimately if not immediately the material or spiritual interests of mankind, the doctrine is one which should be energetically repudiated. I admit, of course, at once, that discoveries the most apparently remote from human concerns have often proved themselves of the utmost commercial or manufacturing value. But they require no such justification for their existence, nor were they striven for with any such object. Navigation is not the final cause of astronomy, nor telegraphy of electro-dynamics, nor dye-works of chemistry. And if it be true that the desire of knowledge for the sake of knowledge was the animating motive of the great men who first wrested her secrets from nature, why should it not also be enough for us, to whom it is not given to discover, but only to learn as best we may what has been discovered by others?

Another maxim, more plausible but equally pernicious, is that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. That "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is a saying which has now got currency as a proverb stamped in the mint of Pope's versification; of Pope, who with the most imperfect knowledge of Greek translated Homer, with the most imperfect knowledge of the Elizabethan drama edited Shakespeare, and with the most imperfect knowledge of philosophy wrote the 'Essay on Man.' But what is this "little knowledge" which is supposed to be so dangerous? What is it "little" in relation to? If in relation to what there is to know, then all human knowledge is little. If in relation to what actually is known by somebody, then we must condemn as "dangerous" the knowledge which Archimedes possessed of mechanics, or Copernicus of astronomy; for a shilling primer and a few weeks' study will enable any student to outstrip in mere information some of the greatest teachers of the past. No doubt, that little knowledge which thinks itself to be great may possibly be a dangerous, as it certainly is a most ridiculous thing. We have all suffered under that eminently absurd individual who on the strength of one or two volumes, imperfectly apprehended by himself, and long discredited in the estimation of everyone else, is prepared to supply you on the shortest notice with a dogmatic solution of every problem suggested by this "unintelligible world" or the political variety of the same pernicious genus, whose statecraft consists in the ready application to the most complex question of national interest of some high-sounding commonplace which has done weary duty on a thousand platforms, and which even in its palmiest days was never fit for anything better than a peroration. But in our dislike of the individual, do not let us mistake the diagnosis of his disease. He suffers not from ignorance but from stupidity. Give him learning and you make him not wise, but only more pretentious in his folly.

I say then that so far from a little knowledge being undesirable, a little knowledge is all that on most subjects any of us can hope to attain; and that, as a source not of worldly profit but of personal pleasure, it may be of incalculable value to its possessor. But it will naturally be asked, "How are we to select from among the infinite number of things which may be known, those which it is best worth while for us to know?" We are constantly being told to concern ourselves with learning what is important, and not to waste our energies upon what is insignificant. But what are the marks by which we shall recognize the important, and how is it to be distinguished from the insignificant. A precise and complete answer to this question which shall be true for all men cannot be given. I am considering knowledge, recollect, as it ministers to enjoyment; and from this point of view each unit of information is obviously of importance in proportion as it increases the general sum of enjoyment which we obtain, or expect to obtain, from knowledge. This, of course, makes it impossible to lay down precise rules which shall be an equally sure guide to all sorts and conditions of men; for in this, as in other matters, tastes must differ, and against real difference of taste there is no appeal.

There is, however, one caution which it may be worth your while to keep in view:—Do not be persuaded into applying any general proposition on this subject with a foolish impartiality to every kind of knowledge. There are those who tell you that it is the broad generalities and the far-reaching principles which govern the world, which are alone worthy of your attention. A fact which is not an illustration of a law, in the opinion of these persons appears to lose all its value. Incidents which do not fit into some great generalization, events which are merely picturesque, details which are merely curious, they dismiss as unworthy the interest of a reasoning being. Now, even in science this doctrine in its extreme form does not hold good. The most scientific of men have taken profound interest in the investigation of facts from the determination of which they do not anticipate any material addition to our knowledge of the laws which regulate the Universe. In these matters, I need hardly say that I speak wholly without authority. But I have always been under the impression that an investigation which has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds; which has stirred on three occasions the whole scientific community throughout the civilized world; on which has been expended the utmost skill in the construction of instruments and their application to purposes of research (I refer to the attempts made to determine the distance of the sun by observation of the transit of Venus),—would, even if they had been brought to a successful issue, have furnished mankind with the knowledge of no new astronomical principle. The laws which govern the motions of the solar system, the proportions which the various elements in that system bear to one another, have long been known. The distance of the sun itself is known within limits of error relatively speaking not very considerable. Were the measuring rod we apply to the heavens based on an estimate of the sun's distance from the earth which was wrong by (say) three per cent., it would not to the lay mind seem to affect very materially our view either of the distribution of the heavenly bodies or of their motions. And yet this information, this piece of celestial gossip, would seem to have been the chief astronomical result expected from the successful prosecution of an investigation in which whole nations have interested themselves.