years ago, Sir Harry tells how in one attack on an armed Seikh village it was not might, but "swagger," that "did the trick." This was often the case; the force had its own clever methods, and it was one of Sir Harry's regrets in his retirement at Belhelvie that the separateness and distinction of the "Guides" has been largely lost, and its duties assimilated to those of the frontier force in general. Whatever may be said for or against this change, the Guides regiment remains Sir Harry Lumsden's living and palpitating monument; and the story of its raising and education is one of the most vital chapters in Indian military history.

"Joe" Lumsden persistently declined political advancement, and military advancement was strangely withheld from him. Lord Roberts has declared that he never understood why Lumsden was not given the command of the frontier force. As it was, the creator of the Guides settled on his Aberdeen estate, where he flew his hawks and cast his flies with great contentment, though with fits of wistfulness and longing when he heard the East "'a-callin'," and realised that a generation had arisen in India that "knew not Joseph." A well-rounded career, at least, was his; and this its record is both heartening and instructive.

In Favour of Toads and Frogs.

The Tailless Batrachians of Europe. By G. A. Boulenger. (The Ray Society.)

THE Ray Society, instituted to publish works too exclusively scientific to be undertaken by ordinary publishers, has issued since 1844 volumes by Darwin, Huxley, and Agassiz, by Dr. Carpenter, Prof. W. K. Parker, Prof. Allman, and many others. Second to none of these is The Tailless Batrachians of Europe, by G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., two parts of which have successively appeared in the fifty-third and fifty-fourth years of the Ray Society's existence. Frogs and toads, which constitute the order of "Tailless Batrachians," may not may not seem attractive animals to many persons, nevertheless they constitute a group of exceeding interest. Their organisation is very exceptional and their development from other antecedent forms of life is by no means clearly indicated. As yet their fossil remains have not been found below the lowest Miocene Tertiary strata. There they suddenly make their appearance as if they had leaped, fully formed, into life, which, of course, they never did. The intermediate forms have simply become extinct.

But the frog is not only zoologically interesting, it has been most useful to us men, and may be called the martyr of science, experiments made on its nervous system having been of great importance to physiology and so to medical

science.

The toad is commonly thought an ugly animal, but familiarity with it will breed not contempt, but appreciation. Mr. Boulenger tells us that

its intelligence is greater than that of any other Batrachian; in captivity it soon accommodates itself to its surroundings, understands that a glass partition is an obstacle, and, placed on a table, will not attempt to jump off, while a frog will not hesitate to take a leap from a fifth story balcony. It is therefore easily tamed, answering the call of its master to take food from the hand, or flattening itself down to let him stroke its back.

Mr. Boulenger's work is most complete, and the Introduction gives so full and careful an account of the anatomy, physiology, developments (with metamorphosis), habits, and geographical distribution of the species described, that it is quite well-fitted to serve a beginner as an introduction to the science of zoology. The species which inhabit Europe are represented in coloured plates, both the adult forms and their tadpoles. There are also six folding

plates, representing the geographical distribution of all the species, and a multitude of woodcuts depicting points of external and internal structure, and also the attitudes assumed in pairing, which are very characteristic and peculiar. In England only four species are found, and of these the edible frog (found only in the Eastern counties) has probably been introduced by man. Ireland is inhabited by the common frog alone.

The beautiful little tree-frog, though a stranger to us, is found as far North as Denmark and Southern Sweden, and ranges from Japan to Morocco and the Canaries. All male European Batrachians can produce more or less loud sounds, in which some species are aided by one or two external vocal sacs behind the mouth. The midwife toad will emit in the evening a clear, whistling note like a little bell, or a chime when produced by many. Most species croak, and the loudest croakers are the tree-frog and the edible frog, which has thus gained for itself in our Eastern counties the name of the "Cambridgeshire Nightingale." In Southern Europe the tree-frogs when they are numerous make a noise which is simply deafening, and audible miles away.

From the warty skin of the toad, and especially a prominent gland behind each eye, the animal can exude a viscid, milky fluid, which is so irritating that a dog will rarely seize the creature a second time. When on a collecting excursion with a dog the Hungarian naturalist Méhely found a large toad under a stone,

The dog seized it, but immediately let it go with signs of great repulsion; the toad had instantly become covered with a thick white secretion. The dog approached it once more, and then withdrew, sneezing, howling, and rubbing its foaming mouth on the grass. After a few minutes the dog was seized with convulsions, and had to be carried home. On the next day it had a swollen mouth and burning nose. It did not completely recover until the

following day. Mr. Boulenger gives a very interesting and full account of the geographical distribution of these animals, and at the end of the work is a most complete bibliographical index. Indeed, there is no department of knowledge about these animals wanting in this work, which is addressed not only to experts, but also to all persons with any real interest in zoology and in the natural history of their own country.

ST. GEORGE MIVART.

Other New Books.

GREATER WESTMINSTER.

By G. P. WARNER TERRY. It is a pity that this history of Greater Westminster has the outward look of a sea-side blotting-pad. For between these misleading covers we find much grave matter of value to students and municipal reformers. The timeliness of Mr. Terry's book, which has run serially through the London Argus, is obvious. It is more to the point to say that timeliness and haste have here no connexion. Mr. Terry is the Vestry Clerk of St. Margaret, Westminster, and to his task of tracing the rise and boundarymaking of the old city he has brought a conscientious industry. He has also had the advantage of access to original documents, some of which are reproduced in facsimile, while many good illustrations are transferred from the London Argus.

The royal city of Westminster was born in the tenth century, and it perished of fatty degeneration of the heart in 1855. By that time it included so many boards and beadles and commissioners and committee men that good administration was impossible. In the Strand no fewer than nine paving boards presided over the roadway between Northumberland House and Temple Bar. The crash came

when Sir Benjamin Hall's Metropolis Local Management Act divided Westminster up into five administrative

districts. Then it was that Westminster ceased to cast out its shoe over Covent Garden and St. George's, Hanoversquare, and the Savoy Precinct, and other goodly parts of London. But although the royal city was cut up, it remained whole; and though its Corporation ceased to live, it did not die. Asleep in his civic chair sits the High Steward of Westminster, and sleeping with him are the Deputy High Steward, and the Town Clerk, and the High Constable, and the Mace-bearer. "It is doubtful," sighs Mr. Terry, "whether there are still a Clerk of the Markets and a Searcher of the Sanctuary." Doubtful-and the fairy Prince at the door! The awakening is near; the Burgesses, no doubt, will swear "with many words, 'twas but an after-dinner's nap," and the new Lord Mayor "dally with his golden chain." And now we think of it, perhaps the giddy garb of Mr. Terry's treatise is donned for the fête. (London Argus Office. 1s.)

DANTE.

E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D. Sooner or later every work is finding its way into paper covers at sixpence, or leather covers at three sixpences. Messrs. Isbister have now added the Divina Commedia and Canzoniere of Dante to the portable classics in the translation of the late Dean Plumptre. The work is to be complete in five volumes, of which the first two are ready. They are issued in soft plum-coloured leather, and have on the back the tortured lettering which now passes for good taste. Except for this blemish the little books are charming. (Isbister. 2s. 6d. per vol.)

BIBLE CHARACTERS.

BY ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D.

This is Mr. Whyte's third series of "Bible Characters." The first extended from Adam to Achan, the second from Gideon to Absalom. The third begins with Ahithophel and ends with Nehemiah. The breezy, penetrating treatment which was so conspicuous in the first two series is here also. Mr. Whyte does the Old Testament no dishonour by his frank common-sense handling of characters which, just because they are in the Old Testament, many people fail to study in a direct and masculine way. His method is seen in the first paragraph of this book:

I am not going to whitewash and rehabilitate Ahithophel. I am neither to extenuate nor am I to denounce Ahithophel. I shall put myself back into Ahithophel's place, and I shall speak of Ahithophel as I see and feel Ahithophel to have been. I shall do my best to put myself first into Ahithophel's place, and then into David's place, and then I shall tell you exactly and honestly what I see and what I feel, first as to Ahithophel, and then as to David. But to begin with, who was Ahithophel, and what were the facts?

In this spirit each character is grappled with, and one has only to turn these pages to approve the results. Mephibosheth's moroseness and ingratitude, Barzillai's truly Highland courtesy " and "Highland hospitality," Jeremiah's "exquisite sensibility of soul," Daniel's "note of birth and breeding," Ezra's "commanding and contagious prayers"-these and a hundred other traits are distinguished and expanded. A book that should find its grateful readers. (Oliphant Anderson, & Ferrier. 3s. 6d.)

EDEN VERSUS WHISTLER: THE BARONET
BUTTERFLY.

AND THE

they are both hard hitters; they are abundantly convinced; and they are equally masters of an abrupt, virile style of appeal that is admirably adapted to compel assent from a public whose ignorance of the matter in hand is matched by the lukewarmness of its real interest. Mr. MacColl's book covers all the questions at issue. The extreme Ritualists will probably judge the Canon's version of the Anglican teaching on Purgatory and the Mass to fall short of the fulness of the faith; and Roman Catholics will be surprised to learn that the bishops of Elizabeth's creation were invited to assist at the Council of Trent, especially as the author-owing, perhaps, to the haste with which the book has been written-has omitted the circumstance that such an invitation was extended also to the heads of Continental Reformed communities, and with a like limitation, that they might take no part in framing the decrees. everyone must be interested in the author's deliberate opinion that the average clergyman, let him loose in the world of journalism, is good for £800 a year. (Longmans.)

But

THE BRITISH ANTHOLOGY. EDITED BY EDWARD ARBER.

This is the beginning of the great task which Prof. Arber has set himself to present in ten volumes the British Anthology. The whole series is designed to The contain about 2,500 poems and songs of all kinds. three volumes now before us are published out of their chronological order. Properly, the first should be The Dunbar Anthology (1401-1508), the second The Surrey and Wyatt Anthology (1509-1547), the third The Spenser Anthology (1548-1591). Mr. Frowde has chosen to begin with The Shakespeare Anthology (1592-1616), The Jonson Anthology (1617-1637), and The Milton Anthology (16381674). The volumes in each case open with selections from the works of the title poet, and pass on to his contemporaries. Thus Milton, in his own volume, is represented by three sonnets-"Lycidas," L'Allegro,' * Il Penseroso "-and then two more sonnets. And he is then found again in the centre of The Jonson Anthology, with "Song on May Morning," "On Shakespeare," Solemn Music," and The Nativity poem and hymn. This double appearance is confusing. The work seems to be intended to appeal rather to the general reader than the scholar. We may return to it when the ten volumes are complete and give it detailed criticism. (Frowde. 2s. 6d. each.)

Fiction.

Silver-Point Realism.

At a

The Awkward Age. By Henry James. (Heinemann. 6s.) MR. HENRY JAMES is the wonderful artistic outcome of our national habit of repression. He has learned how to make repression a factor of art instead of an impediment. To all real things, even those over whose discomforture Sir Francis Jeune presides, belongs an infinite variety of words and gestures whose presence in a publication "there's none to dispute." But they are legible, and, emanating from the things themselves, they witness uncompromisingly to their existence. For the art of Mr. James such words and gestures are enough. Nay, holding aloof as he does, yet without affectation of prudery, from the frank image of an act-in-itself, and dwelling with the thought behind it, he presents a more significant idea of both thinker and doer than were otherwise to be obtained. The Awkward Age is a complex illustration of his method. It is an urban drama of that fast life which, perhaps as a result of its "fastness," produces an atrophying cleverness that has learned to anticipate naif opinion of its depravity. The

members of the little West-end circle, on whose affinity with US Mr. James seems with astonishing affability to calculate, vie with one another in their appreciation of the oldworld chivalrous gentleman who sits like a bewildered stranger at their feasts. They have arrived at the point when everything exists as it is conceived to exist. It is not with the eyes of backbiters, but of psychologists, for instance, that they read elopement in Lady Fanny's eyes. In the anticipatory relish of what, for convenience, we will call "sins" they are such epicures that the sin itself, the act-in-being, would be anti-climax. So we ourselves thought as we read through what the plain but polite Briton will consider a masterpiece of ambiguity. We did not want to know if Lady Fanny eloped with her Captain, or if Vanderbank committed adultery with Mrs. Brookenham. The malaria of their atmosphere was accounted for by that delay in accomplishment which means the incessant re-creation of the same fact on the mental plane. The author gains his effect with the minimum of the kind of information which furnishes a newspaper. He knows it is not necessary for things to happen in the sense of making a noise or a rustle.

The story is a sad one, for it traces the gradual development of a tragic sense of the atrophy of which we spoke in two of the only three generous natures with whom it deals. Mr. Longdon, seeing in Nanda the outward counterpart of the woman he had loved in his youth, would have done anything to unite her with the man she loved. But the latter, Vanderbank-he is a portrait worthy to stand by Sir Claude in What Maisie Knewis incapable of the sacrifice which a combination of futures demands. He has lights and stirrings, he knows what it is to be dissatisfied, but he is too clever to be mastered by impulse. Moreover, he owes allegiance to the girl's motherthat allegiance which may or may not be prejudicial to Mr. Brookenham. With one of those splendid feats of audacity by which Mr. James turns a sudden glare on the lurking badness which he plays the showman to so debonnairely, he makes Nanda beseech Vanderbank not to desert her mother.

"Do stick to her. I don't believe you thoroughly know how awfully she likes you. I suppose it would be immodest if I were to say that I verily believe she's in love with you. Not, for that matter, that father would mind. . . . That's the only thing I want. When I think of her downstairs there so often nowadays, practically alone, I feel as if I could scarcely bear it. She's so fearfully young."

There are few who dare write such a passage, or venture a pathos so supreme bordering on a vulgarity so abject. In achieving Nanda Mr. James has given us a veritable child of the age. But the "awkward age"? It is not very easy to see where that comes in, except that it was awkward for Mrs. Brookenham to own in public a child of nineteen. As for Mrs. Brookenham she is marvellous ; her talk radiates the subtlest shafts of femininity. Not less, however, does she emanate a deadliness to which even the lightest of us may accord a shudder, and incline to accept the last irony which leaves no shelter for Nanda from the miasm of polite corruption, save with one who had loved her grandmother and would fain have married her to another man. Let it be added that the style of this study of life is delicate and incisive as of old. The words are picked, but not with gloves: they hold the distinctive nuances which the refusal to use slang confers on words of ancestry on the lips of ladies and gentlemen. Here and there a wonderful bluntness is allowed. One feels it was heard in the soul-is authentic. Charming bits of landscape, alluring glimpses of a sweeter life, occur occasion arises. Yes, the book is another "Henry James." Let us thank the proprieties, the conventions of this land, the genius of repression, which have created that need for a new realism, delicate as a silver-point, to which his works make so satisfying a response.

as

Cruel To Be Kind.

Anne Mauleverer. By Mrs. Mannington Caffyn (" Iota "). (Methuen & Co. 6s.)

FROM the point of view of mere craftsmanship the defects of this novel are many-very many. No reader who has ever studied the nature and beauty of the English language can read a single page of it without wincing. Most English readers, however, know little and care less about the use of their own tongue. If a writer has anything to say, that something will be accepted just as readily in its first form of rough ore as if it had been shaped and polished into a jewel of art; but even in England it is the jewels that endure and are preserved. It is impossible to suppose that Anne Mauleverer will endure. Mrs. Caffyn has always appeared to write with culpable carelessness: this time she sets us wondering whether even the most laborious care could make her a good literary workman. Again and again there are sentences and constructions that would be surely impossible to any person possessing even the rudiments of literary tasteblots which are to her work what aniline mauves and magentas would be to the colouring of a portrait. She uses words without apparent regard to their values, their associations, their social status, or even their precise significance; she strings clause after clause upon an unhappy sentence until the meaning and the grammar are alike lost in a sheer tangle of knots; her narrative is loose, awkward, and at times confusing. All these things, bad as they are, are curable, though in Mrs. Caffyn's case it is no rash prophecy to say that they never will be cured; but when an author, after years of industrious work, shows no sign of an ear for the melodies that make English prose no less than English verse, then it seems sadly improbable that she can ever teach herself, or be taught, to become even a second-rate literary artist. Such a sentence as this (taken almost at random), from p. 249 of her sixth book, is, to say the least, unhopeful:

In her own way, an elusive, non-insistent way, which, however, many men remembered, and often to their cost, Anne was steadily and consecutively breaking the road to this goal, although, so far, John hadn't a notion whitherward he was being bent, or, indeed, that he was being bent at all, least of all by Anne, whose want of balance, more especially in the matter of the Jesuit priest, was just now affording him matter for grave uneasiness.

Yet if we were to conclude that a book written in such a style must be worthless we should be wrong. In the substance, the matter, the informing idea of Anne Mauleverer, there is nothing poor, careless, or second-rate. Mrs. Caffyn possesses the best kind of penetration-the penetration which sees the depths beneath the commonplace, and her powers of characterisation are remarkable. Not even the faultiness of the execution has been able to spoil the masterly conception of Anne herself. If Mrs. Caffyn had been a French instead of an English writerif, that is to say, she had lived under a high and stern standard of workmanship-Anne Mauleverer might have been, as it ought to be, not merely a fine, but a great novel; as it stands, it is not even fine. It needs rewriting by some journeyman who knows the trade of literature. No imagination would be required of him, and no creative originality-these are here already-but he must have an ear, and some little feeling for the shape, the character, and the historical continuity of his language. When he had done with it, Anne Mauleverer would be a noble work of art. As it is, it is a lump of rough ore.

"IF I, in my own person and daily walk, quietly resist heaviness of custom, coldness of hope, timidity of faith, then without wishing, contriving, or even knowing it, I am a light silently drawing as many as have vision and are fit to walk in the same path.'

John Morley, in " Essay on Emerson."

Mr. Pease's Northumbrian stories have taken their own honourable place in the fiction of localities. In an interesting preface to these fourteen new ones Mr. Pease notes many changes in Northumbria, but he is bold to write : "Still, in the northern blood, the heritage of the 'raid' and the foray' abides, and still, as of old, are the children of the Borderland nursed by the keen wind of the moorland and the sea. 'Hard and heather-bred' ran the ancient North Tyne slogan; Hard and heather-bredyet-yet-yet.'" (Methuen. 6s.)

เ

THE VIBART AFFAIR.

BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

Another of this agile author's brisk melodramas. In the first chapter a young barrister defends a husband who had murderously attacked a drunken wife. The young barrister himself has a drunken wife, and is in love with another woman. On returning home he finds his wife in one of her worst stupors. "Dead! He would be free!' something seemed to whisper to him. And the drama has begun. (Pearson. 6s.) MR. PASSINGHAM.

BY THOMAS COBB.

BY RAMSAY GUTHRIE

ON GOD'S LINES, &c. These stories deal with mining life in Durham, and they bear the motto:

"And souls flash out like stars of God

From the midnight of the mine."

Blackerton, the immediate scene of the various actions, is appalling at first sight. "My wife stood aghast when she looked at the long, evenly-built rows of colliers' cottages, at the great engine-rooms, the gigantic wheels, and the countless chimneys." (Christian Commonwealth Publishing Co. 3s. 6d.)

A collection of stories of Australian life, real and ideal, by colonials and pseudo-colonials, &c., among them Mr. Louis Becke, Mr. E. W. Hornung, Mr. Patchett Martin, Mr. Hume Nisbet, Mr. Douglas Sladen, Mr. Marriott Watson, Mrs. Campbell Praed, and "Iota." (Unwin. 6s.) THAT DUEL AT CHÂTEAU MARRINAC. BY W. PULITZER.

Mr. Pulitzer once wrote a book called Chess Harmonies, and the duel in this story is fought out on a chess-boardthe prize being a fair German beauty who had looked with equal favour on the two antagonists. A pleasant little effort. (Funk & Wagnalls.)

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARQUISE. BY MRS. LOWNDES. "And what is the use of a book without conversations?" said Alice. This book is all conversations. It is bright and modern. It opens with three widows, and ends with two engagements and a marriage. (Richards. 3s. 6d.) A LONG ROAD. BY E. CONSTANCE.

One of the principal characters in this book is called Mortomroyd-which surely is the first appearance of the name in fiction. The heroine is Ella Wolriche, and in every page of the story we draw nearer to the time when she will become Ella Mortomroyd. Among the other personages is Mrs. Prue, an amusing Grundyan, who sincerely considered that not to be married stamps a girl as a social failure. A light, amusing novel. (Hutchinson. 6s.) LALLY OF THE BRIGADE. BY L. M'MANUS.

A story of the war of Spanish Succession and the part played therein by the Irish Brigade under Dillon and Bourke, and their valour against Prince Eugene at Cremona. Captain Lally himself tells the story with spirit and humour. It is not all fighting: love and astrology play their part too. (Unwin. 2s. 6d.)

THE GREAT PIRATE SYNDICATE. BY GEORGE GRIFFITH, Another story of future warfare, a variant of Mr. Shiel's Yellow Terror. In the present case a wonderful explosive is used, against which all ironclads are powerless. It is the secret of the hero, who by its aid conquers the world for the Anglo-Saxon alliance. This is, of course, not all there is the customary female and diplomatic element. New explosives can be very wearisome. (White. 3s. 6d.)

IN facing, not the problems of life, but the world-hieroglyphics of beauty, I am constantly driven to ask myself: What would Chaucer, or Shakespeare, or Wordsworth say?" I would know, not what is the right action, but what is the right word? A sunset, a seascape, a flower, an interior, will sometimes set the mind on the very verge of some escaping perfection of description. Thus, on entering my room one foggy evening, I met such an elusive challenge in its fire-lit density. The rich glow shone without illuminating; my shelves and books were dim with vague suggestion in an atmosphere thick with light. I fumbled for the word, the word that should match the impression; Mrs. Browning's "luminous round" lacked colour; Mr. Francis Thompson's "purpurate shine" was ugly; Mr. John Davidson's "ruddy varnish "-that was better-that gave the exact consistency of hue that flickered on my books.

But the fog which began to pour into my room-must I be compelled to define its colour by its most inappropriate resemblance to pea-soup? The comparison between citystained mist and " soup of the evening, so rich and green, was, to say the least of it, ludicrous; and yet it was in fact this very green that prevented its inclusion in George Meredith's fine fog-parallel "the colour of old bruised fruits." I searched in vain among our extremely awkward colour-circumlocutions. Myrtle-green, olive-green, sagegreen, peacock-green, apple-green, cabbage-green; none of these approached the special hue I wanted to define. And what remoteness of allusion they involved-what observation they pre-supposed! Bottle-green-how hideous! Sea-green-how vague! To hunt down the right colour-term would seem to require a unique gift of scent, and I began to wonder how our masters of language had, with such inadequate means, met the colour-problem. Poetry, of course, was full of exquisite colour. I glanced idly round my shelves, and felt, growing in my inner consciousness, a chord of green ranging from the palest to the richest tones. Shelley vanished where the green was almost indistinguishable from light, Chaucer shone from the freshest and middle belt, the shade was rich over Keats, and grew sombre with Wordsworth. By what methods had our poets evolved the green of literature? Into what radiant paint-pots had they dipped their brushes? What dainty devices of balance and contrast had they employed? I remembered J. A. Symonds's Excursion in the Key of Blue: what would poetry yield in the Key of Green-green, the colour of Life, in a far more extended sense than flesh-colour.

The crudest method of indicating shades of colour is to qualify one colour-term by another colour-term. Green being artificially manufactured by the mixture of blue and yellow, we find its shades roughly classified as blue-green and yellow-green. Such composite expressions are linked by the loosest of mechanical combinations: it requires a huge effort of will to fuse them into a single idea. At best they suggest a vague transition-stage of a most uncertain quantity. Yet poets have not scrupled to make use of such. Keats speaks of the sea as blue-green; J. A. Symonds, as grey-green; Mr. Gerald Massey gives sea-colour as rich purple-green-a severe tax on mental co-ordination. Since Browning has an olive-pale sea, one wonders what exact shade Mr. Swinburne's "sea-coloured marsh

mosses

may be. Then Herrick's primrose is yellowgreen- -an adjective of constant employment in literature. Where gold and silver are used to qualify green colour, the fusion is easier, owing to the more permeating radiance of these metal hues. We get not only appositeness but illumination in Mr. John Davidson's "green-gold of the oak," and in Tennyson's poplar "all silver-green with gnarled bark."

Again, in common speech, shades of colour are often specialised by the use of such adjectives as light, dark; rich, dim; bright, pale. A long period of currency has worn the images of these somewhat thin, and it is rarely in poetry that much reliance is placed on their stress of emphasis. Walt Whitman, it is true, speaks of the lilac's "heart-shaped leaves of dark green "--but it is the shape rather than the colour that impresses our memory. In another passage he speaks of an oak's leaves of dark green but notice the copiousnes of imagination that links. these leaves to Shakespeare's "tongues in trees" :

I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing;

Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green.

This oak finds kinship, too-kinship of joy-with the sunsteeped oaks of medieval romance. We read of oak leaves in the Flower and the Leaf:

as

That sprongen out agen the sunne shene Some very red, and some a glad light grene.

O cheerfullest of colours! The dark leaves are joyous and the light leaves are glad. The author of "The Seasons apostrophises green as "gay green!" saluting it curiously "united light and shade." We read of "dim green depths," of "green, palid and sweet," of "bright green," of "deep green," and many another change that is rung on the degree of light and shade that enters into the colour-composition. But it is evident that no great weight is placed by masters of language on this sole method of description.

To produce a lively impression of colour it is not unusual to lay importance on purity of tone-on freedom from shadow of stain. Fresh and new are the adjectives which best fit this intention. Freshness is the idea which O. W. Holmes hunts after where he speaks of the poplar's "pillar of glossy green." The exquisiteness of the adjective fresh was discovered and exploited in medieval times: new is our more modern and less adequate equivalent. In Chaucer his Emilie is "fresh": his daisies are "fresh": in "The Romaunt of the Rose we read of the grass freshe of hewe." To-day the daisies are new-' "The daisy's frill a wondrous newness wore." Green is new:

Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath,
Their broad curved branches fledged with clearest green
New from its silken sheath.-Tennyson.

SO

The different spirit in which colour is approached in different literary periods may be illustrated from three parallel passages, dealing with the grass. Chaucer writes of "the smalë, softë, swetë gras." In "The Seasons" we read: "the vivid verdure runs And swells and deepens." Mr. Meredith gives us :

. . . . The pine-forest dark Overbrowing an emerald chine

Of the grass billows.

In the first, colour is taken for granted; we have absolute happiness of simplicity-a closeness to Nature that almost stirs tears. In the second, "a very supreme viridity or glory of greenness " is achieved by effort of language. In the third, what complexity of contrast, what flashing revelation! How mysterious and intense, how gorgeous and ornate, is the Nature of the nineteenth century! Some of our poets are not far short of the sublime intimacies of Chaucer; others find no stone too glorious for the building of Nature's temple-no fire for her altar too remote.