And she faced me full front, wheeling swiftly | Or a private, indeed, than a quack, should engage about on her. Her dear me!-her-thank God for Greek Oh, yes! you're a doctor? but, faith, if your pill

epiglouton.1

Ah! woman, that tongue of thine-young ones
and old-

Is worse than a scalpel, by Jove, when you scold,
And, Bellona-like, charge, in life's battle, across us
With your genio-cherito-chrondrio-glossus:2-
"As for Lucy, Lord knows it were better the Major,

Is all like what I got, you'll cure less than you kill;
For a fortnight I hadn't an hour to myself,
And they settled a cat that found one on the shelf.
Though you think you look wise in your specs,
since you got 'em,

Had you twenty glass eyes, you're a humbug at
bottom."

FRANCES POWER COBBE.

books, but no longer witnessed on the real stage of life. Of course we should expect to find it modified according to the conditions of modern civilized existence. Nobody desires to see a Hercules, a Theseus, or a Perseus going about in England slaying monsters, and robbers, and dragons for the public good; nor do we expect to hear of Sir Galahad riding through a forest (shall we say St. John's Wood?) in search of distressed maidens to defend with sword and lance.

[One of the favourite subjects of Miss | sundry other tragic passions, to be read of in Cobbe's pen is that which, by a somewhat misleading synedoche, is called "woman's rights." She has maintained in many an essay the claims of her sex to have a place in the professions and a share in the political activity of her time. In her own self she is, perhaps, one of the strongest arguments in favour of her view, for she has shown in literature an activity that is paralleled by few men, and a grace of style and freshness of thought for which more than one masculine writer might vainly sigh.

Frances Power Cobbe is the daughter of Mr. Charles Cobbe of Newbridge House, county Dublin, and was born on December 4, 1822. She received her education at Brighton. For many years she has been a frequent contributor to the periodical literature of the day, and her essays republished in volume form make up a goodly list. She has published amongst other things Essays on the Pursuits of Women, 1863; Broken Lives, 1864; Cities of the Past, reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, 1864; Italics: Brief Notes on Politics, People, and Places in Italy; Darwinism in Morals and other Essays, 1872; The Hopes of the Human Race Hereafter and Here, 1874. The work from which we quote, entitled Re-echoes, appeared in 1876. It is a republication of essays which she contributed to the Echo, and which formed for many years one of the most attractive features in that journal.]

CHIVALRY OF THE PERIOD.

We have been tempted sometimes to ask whether the sentiment of chivalry were not defunct, along with revenge and remorse, and

We smile, not only at classic and mediæval chivalry, but at the reflection of it in the Elizabethan age, when the gallant Lord Herbert of Cherbury solemnly debated whether his vow as a Knight of the Bath did not compel him to "succour" a small damsel of six, from whom a romping schoolboy had stolen a blue ribbon. Yet a stage further, and we find the chivalry of the eighteenth century represented by Lord Chesterfield, whose "ruling passion strong in death" manifested itself in his last expiring groan, "Give Mr. Dayrolles a chair!" That was an ebb of chivalry at all events. Has the tide turned in our day, or has it still further receded?

In more respects than one we fear the appearances are against us. The non-intervention policy, sound as it usually is, as regards nations, is certainly carried in these busy days rather too far into private life. We have time enough, alas! to spread scandalous stories; but to take the trouble to contradict and cram them down the scandal-monger's throat is a thing for which we profess to have no leisure. We give our money freely enough to men in distress; but to obey a summons for help in

1 Bustle.-epi, upon, and gloutos.
? A muscle of the tongue.

the case of a brawl or a robbery, or to run the | is talk of admitting women to new professions, risk of appearing in a court of justice or in that in such case they must be prepared to the columns of a newspaper-this is a chivalry forego the "chivalry" with which they have for which we have no taste. Still more largely hitherto been treated, and find it exchanged does the critical spirit which pervades all for some unprecedented mode of behaviour modern life detract from the generous enthu- which (it is grimly added) they "won't like"? siasm of loyalty and admiration with which But do men, then, really feel that it would be men used to look up to their leaders in the a luxury to treat women rudely?-an enjoyworld of thought and action. So clear is this, ment from which this same "chivalry" somethat it is now actually startling in common how cruelly debars them so long as women do discourse to hear a man speak in anything like nothing (at least, nothing remunerative) in the spirit of chivalry even of his friend and the way of work? Will it be a release to them ally. from the irksome bondage of good manners when they may brush past a feeble lady with a dig of their elbows in her side, and keep a poor old woman standing while they lounge in a rocking-chair, or puff tobacco in the face of another, and bid a pretty girl "go to Jericho?" We really do not quite believe it, at least not in the case of the pretty girl, however it may be with the old women.

But it is especially in the treatment of women by men that chivalry is always supposed to show itself. How may this be with us now? We fear it is a very enigmatical thing, this same masculine chivalry of the nineteenth century. In the humbler ranks it never induces men to prevent women from doing the coarsest and hardest labour. They may sweep crossings, and fill coal trucks, and dance on tight ropes, and no chivalry says "Leave it for me!" But when women work so long that their small strength competes with men after the fashion of the tortoise and the hare, then chivalry limits the hours of female labour; and when women by chance discover that they can earn a good deal of money in some new way-say by painting on china-then the chivalry of their male companions induces them to seize their maul-sticks and forbid them to do any work but that for which the smallest pay is to be obtained. Chivalry is not in the least shocked at the sight of a woman dressed in male attire dancing on a public stage, but chivalry is disgusted beyond measure at the spectacle of a modest lady attending the sick as a physician in a hospital. Chivalry has not lightened any single tax, succession duty, or other burden in favour of women. There is nothing for which a woman pays less, and gets the same thing as But there are a great many things for which women pay as much (or, from their ignorance, more) than a man, and obtain less in the way of accompanying rights and privileges, without chivalry being in the remotest degree concerned with the matter. All this, to our thinking, is rather unchivalrous chivalry. But, then, there is to balance it that masculine "politeness" of which we always hear so much. A woman has, indeed, generally to pick her steps with some difficulty through the mire of life, but then she is sure to be offered an arm to go down a broad carpeted staircase to dinDo we not always hear, whenever there

a man.

ner.

The truth seems to be, that though the outward forms of chivalrous courtesy are not lost, the self-sacrificing part of it, which constitutes its true beauty and value, is in some danger of being forgotten amid our modern press of business and general struggle for existence. In the leisure of the drawing-room every one is courteous; in the hurry of quitting a steamboat not one in a dozen is moderately goodmannered. The young, the well-dressed, and (of course, as nature will have it) the beautiful, are treated with a care often quite superfluous; the aged, the feeble, and the solitary are rudely pushed aside. When a train draws up at a terminus, and there is ample time for descent, many a well-bred man will offer his hand to the lady passengers to aid them to alight. When a train is going to start, and an "unprotected" seeks to take her ticket and climb into her carriage, it too often happens that one man will push before her to the ticket-window, and a second give her a poke with his umbrella; while a third, with agility quite remarkable, jumps before her into the carriage and takes the corner seat. The true spirit of chivalry was never better exemplified, though somewhat awkwardly expressed, than by a poor dull school-boy home for the holidays, amid a party where there were many pretty young girls, and one deaf, decrepid old lady. The other boys in company bore off the girls to dinner, each with many juvenile compliments. "And I," said the dull lad, offering his arm to the astonished old lady-"I'll take you, Miss D., because you are little, and because you are old!"

JOHN FRANCIS WALLER.

[Dr. Waller is an instance of the poets who preserve in age the ardour of their youth. He is still an active contributor to periodical literature; but his career began at a period which is now almost antique. He was born in Limerick in 1810; entered Trinity College when he was but sixteen, and graduated a year before the great Reform Act. He was called to the bar in 1833; in 1852 received from his university the honorary degrees of LL.B. and LL.D., and some time later was appointed one of the permanent officials of the Courts of Chancery.

Such, briefly, are some of the facts connected with the professional and less important side of Dr. Waller's career. To many

THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.'

Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Is croaning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting—
Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother, sitting,

"Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping."
"'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flap-
ping."

66

Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing." "'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying."

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing, Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

"What's that noise that I hear at the window, 1 wonder?"

66

Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under."

"What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on,

Coolun?""

There's a form at the casement-the form of her true love

it may be more interesting to know that he began to write in those early years when he was in London studying for the bar. The foundation of the Dublin University Magazine opened to him, as to so many other Irish littérateurs, a field of literary activity. For many years he was one of the most frequent of its poetic contributors, his poems appearing usually under the nom de plume of "Jonathan And singing all wrong that old song of 'The Freke Slingsby." A collection of those poems under the title of The Slingsby Papers was published in 1852. In 1854 Dr. Waller brought out a second volume of poems, which were highly spoken of both in the English and Irish press. In 1856 appeared the Dead Bridal. In addition to his poetic labours Dr. Waller has done his share of the wear-and-tear work of literature. He edited the University Magazine for some years after the retirement of Charles Lever from the post; wrote many of the articles in The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, and generally supervised the production of that book; and he also published an edition of Goldsmith's works.

Dr. Waller's chief strength as a poet lies in his power of melodious versification. The rhythm and rhyme in his pieces, the shorter ones especially, are perfect. Many of his songs have accordingly become extremely popular, and have been eagerly grasped at by the musical composer in search of the fit accompaniments of words to music. The majority of Dr. Waller's poems are tender, or tranquilly

fanciful; but he has a rich vein of humour as well, and some of his verses are very mirthprovoking.]

And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love;

Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining
brightly."

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the
foot's stirring;

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden
singing.

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,

Steals up from the seat-longs to go, and yet lingers, A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,

Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with

the other.

Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps-then leaps to the arms of her lover.

1 This and the following pieces are quoted by permission of the author.

Paints with orange the white clouds that float on Grasped a sun-lighted wave in his musing,