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The child grows up, very earnest, impressionable, passionate, thorny ground. "Gibraltar is too much a town of business;" and a great inquirer. Now he longs to visit Jerusalem, and the Jews have no time to read the Old Testament, much less appear there as a preacher; now he wants to go to Rome and the New. However, they treat his attempts at proselytism be a pope. He talks to one Spiess, a barber, of the great with apathy rather than enmity. He passes on to Malta, glory of the Jews at the coming of their Messiah. "Read and so to Alexandria and Cairo, on his way to Jerusalem. the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah," says the barber sternly. He encounters a Polish Jew, "Ychiel, the son of Feibish, The boy complies with the command. "Of whom does the from the land of Russia, from the government of Mohileo, prophet speak?" he asks of his father. He obtains no answer. from the city of Skloo," who warns him to expect nothing The father turns to the weeping mother. "God have mercy from his journey. "We have been scattered now for more upon us, our son will not remain a Jew. He is continually than 1,700 years, among all nations, persecuted and despised, walking about and thinking, which is not natural." our holy city destroyed, and the 1,700 years have been passed So were the seeds of his conversion sown. At eleven years in constant and continual endeavour by the Gentiles to of age he quits his father's house. A little later he is declar- persuade us that Jesus was the Messiah, but at the end of ing, "I will become a Christian and a Jesuit. I will preach 1,700 years we disbelieve it still. Centuries and centuries the gospel in foreign lands, like Francis Xavier." Certain of have passed since Christians have tried to convert us by his relations close their doors against him. He travels pouring out our blood, persecuting us; and centuries and towards Würtzburg, with scarcely a farthing in his pocket. centuries have passed, and yet we stand a people separated At Frankfort he finds Jews and Christians alike tainted with from the nations, and exclaim every day, 'Hear, O Israel! the infidelity, but he remains there some months, earning a pre- Lord our God is one God.'" He meets an Englishman, carious living by teaching Hebrew. He visits Halle, Prague, a pervert to Mohammedanism, and after an uninterrupted Vienna, Presburg, Munich: sometimes fêted as a convert, discussion of fourteen hours' duration, brings him back to the sometimes scorned as an apostate. In 1811, he is at Saxe church. An attempt to convert an Albanian was less suc Weimar, scandalized at the prevailing faith of that day, a cessful, for the Albanian threatened to throw his Christian faith rather pantheistic than Christian, a compound of interrogator into the Nile if he said a word disrespectful to poetry, classicality, and philosophy, with almost as much of the faith of Islam. At Cairo, one Santini, "not a nice man,” the teachings of Buddha as of the doctrines of Christianity. as the book has it, but the chancellor to the British Consulate, Falk, the satirical poet, recommends to Wolff, as the best dupes Wolff by persuading him to purchase, for £10, a speculation, that he should remain a Jew, "there are so hundred bottles of castor oil, as the most acceptable present many Christians in the world," and introduces him to Goëthe. that could possibly be made to a Bedouin chief. "How could "Follow the bent of your own mind, young man," says you be such an ass," says blunt Mr. Drummond upon this, Goëthe. Wolff acted upon this advice, and was ultimately"; received into the Roman Catholic Church at Prague, in 1812. He was baptized by the names of "Stanislaus Wenceslaus," which, however, he never used.

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as to be taken in with castor oil? You ought to have told Santini you would give him £10 to drink it all."

With two English travellers, nephews of the famous Methodist, Dr. Adam Clarke, he sets out for Mounts Sinai Curiously enough, although still a professed Catholic, and Horeb, taking with him Testaments in Arabic, Greek, Wolff in 1815 became a student at the Protestant University and Hebrew. "Perhaps some day a Jew may come here, of Tübingen. Here he probably acquired his first doubts then he will find the word of God in his own language." as to the dogmas of the church he had entered. He soon Fifteen years later he learns that a Jew from Bulgaria had announced his disbelief in the infallibility of the Pope, and been there, had read one of his Testaments in the monastery gave vent to certain other free opinions. Proceeding to Rome of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, and been baptized by the shortly afterwards, he was cautioned by a friend. "Keep a superior of the Greek monks. He quits Egypt, denouncing good look out at Rome. With God there is pardon; a priest Mohammed Ali as the "cruel lord" predicted by the prophet never pardons!" But he was cordially greeted by Pius VII., Isaiah, and, "with twenty camels, loaded with Bibles," starts for whom he conceived great respect and affection. He entered for Jerusalem. On his road he makes such acquaintance as the college of the Propaganda. Soon, his heretical notions he can with the religion of the Druses, and concludes them to came out. "The church has no right to burn heretics. It is be a remnant of the Druids of old. At Lebanon he argues written, Thou shalt not kill,"--so he addressed his rector. with a French Roman Catholic missionary, who has no May a shepherd kill a wolf when he enters the flock?" he objection to the conversion of the Jews, but insists that was asked. "A man is not a beast," was Wolff's reply."they shall be converted to the Catholic Church, not to "Seventeen Popes have done it." "Then seventeen Popes the Protestant." He hears too of Lady Hester Stanhope, have done wrong." who was then settled at Mar-Elias, in the neighbourhood Of course, the end came, before long. "Come out of of Mount Lebanon, with her guest and protégé M. LusBabylon," wrote the late Henry Drummond to him; go taneau, called by herself and her servants "Le Prophete." with me to England." He was taken to the Inquisition. On Lustaneau had been a general under Tippoo Saib in his his road he met his friend the Chevalier Bunsen, who at once conflict with the English, and had afterwards retired to set off to inform Niebuhr of what had occurred. He was not Mount Carmel to lead a hermit life. There he met with treated with severity, but was conveyed from Rome to Bologna her eccentric ladyship in 1815, announced to her that at in a carriage surrounded with soldiers. From thence, the same moment at which he was speaking Bonaparte through Germany and France, he came to London. His was escaping from Elba. Lady Hester, finding the prefriend Henry Drummond received him kindly. He soon ac-diction absolutely verified, received the prophet into her quired the English language. He was taken to Baptist, house, but subsequently expelled him on his attempting to Methodist, and Quaker places of worship, but he preferred the services of the Church of England, and ever afterwards accounted himself a liberal member of that church. He was sent to Cambridge, at the expense of the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, to be trained as a missionary. There he studied Arabic, Persian, Chaldean, and Syriac. He worked zealously, rising at two o'clock in the morning, and allowing himself little time for eating. He was two years at Cambridge. At their expiration, in April, 1821, he embarked for Cibraltar, on his mission of conversion and preaching the gospel.

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convert her to Christianity, for she had become a Druse. Wolff had letters of introduction to a Miss Williams, who was residing with Lady Hester, but he received a reply in her ladyship's own hand, expressing her astonishment that an apostate should dare to thrust himself into observation in leer family. “Had you been a learned Jew you never would have abandoned a religion rich in itself though defective," etc. "Light travels faster than sound, therefore the Supremo Being could not have allowed his creatures to live in darkness for nearly two thousand years, until paid speculating wanderers deem it proper to raise their venal voices to enlighten them." Wolff replies quietly and sensibly, sending his letter by a servant. Lady Hester, on receiving it, peruses it, and desires the man to wait that she may give him a present. She came out with a whip, kicked the poor fellow behind, and cut him away. He came back to Wolff, and

told him that the daughter of the King of England had with regard to witchcraft, he has seen it with his own eyes, and beaten him. here he tells the story.

Arrived at Damascus, Wolff applies for a guide to the monastery of the Capuchin friars. The agent of the English consul sends a donkey driver with him. "The fellow coolly sat on the donkey himself, and let Wolff run after him all the way." Strange to say, at Damascus, "at that time (1823), as it is now, the most fanatical town of the east," he is received with much respect. A great moollah of Mohammedans invites him to come to him in the night time to discuss Christianity. "The next night a Maronite Christian, who had become a Mohammedan, made his escape and became a Christian again." After much journeying in the east, Wolff embarks at Smyrna, in a ship bound for Dublin, and arrives there in May, 1826. He spends some days with Lord Roden and the Archbishop of Tuam. He is virulently attacked by the Roman Catholics for his public addresses. Sheil designates him "Baron Von Munchausen,"" 'Katerfelto," "Mendez," ""Wolff, the old clothesman of Monmouth-street," etc. Wolff retorts upon the orator, and calls him a liar. He writes to Bishop Doyle, proposing to stop some days with him and argue upon the errors of his church. The bishop answers that he shall be glad to see him as a guest, "when, weary of his present pursuits, he wishes to return to the sobriety of true religion." A few weeks, and he is in London, the guest of Edward Irving, of whom he expresses considerable admiration. Although he does not accept Irving's doctrine of the unknown tongues, "he has never liked to speak against it. Of one thing, however, he is perfectly certain, namely, that Irving had what may be called the organ of being humbugged; no deceiver himself, he was yet liable to be deceived by others." In 1827, Wolff married Lady Georgiana Walpole, the daughter of the Earl of Oxford, having voluntarily given to the earl an undertaking in writing by which he renounced all claim to a life interest in her property in case of her death. He was afterwards naturalized as an Englishman "before both Houses of Lords and Commons." A curious story is told of his residence with Irving, whom he describes as a tall majestic man, with long, dark, flowing hair, with a slight cast in his eye, an expression of deep thought, "and his whole bearing as of one who could soar aloft into higher regions."

"Before going to bed, Wolff said to Irving, 'I cannot shave myself; can you get me a barber for to-morrow morning?' The barber was promised, and at the appointed hour in walked the mighty Irving himself, with a suitable apron, and shaving apparatus, and shaved Wolf with his own hand, and continued so to do during Wolff's residence with him. The fact got abroad. Ten days after there was a caricature in Oxford-street, representing Irving shaving a wolf. Irving did not even smile, but turning to his friend said, 'Never mind, Wolff, I shall shave you again. Come along.

"He was sitting one day at the table of Mr. Salt, dining with Swedish Consul-General, a nasty atheist and infidel; Major Ross, him. The guests who were invited were as follows: Bokhti, the of Rosstrevor, in Ireland, a gentleman in every respect, and highly principled; Spurrier, a nice English gentleman; Wolff himself; and Caviglia, who was the only believer in magic there. Salt began to say (his face leaning on his hand), 'I wish to know who has stolen a dozen of my silver spoons, a dozen forks, and a dozen the magician.' Salt laughed, and so did they all, when Salt sudknives.' Caviglia said, 'If you want to know, you must send for denly said, 'Well, we must gratify Caviglia. He then called out for Osman, a renegade Scotchman, who was employed in the British Consulate as janissary and cicerone for travellers. Osman came into the room, and Salt ordered him to go and fetch the magician. The magician came, with fiery sparkling eyes and long hair, and Salt stated to him the case, on which he said, 'I either have procured a woman with child, or a boy seven years of shall come again to-morrow at noon, before which time you must ago; either of whom will tell who has been the thief.' Bokhti the scoffing infidel, whom Salt never introduced to Wolff, for fear he should make a quarrel betwixt them, said, 'I am determined to unmask imposture, and, therefore, I shall bring to-morrow a boy who is not quite seven years of age, and who came a week ago know anybody, nor is he known to anybody, and he does not speak from Leghorn. He has not stirred out of my house, nor does he Arabic; him I will bring with me for the magician.'

"The boy came at the time appointed, and all the party were again present, when the magician entered with a large pan in his hand, into which he poured some black colour, and mumbled some unintelligible words; and then he said to the boy, Stretch out stand. But Wolff interpreted what the magician had said, and your hands.' He said this in Arabic, which the boy did not underthen the boy stretched out his hand flat, when the magician put some of the black colour upon his palm, and said to him, 'Do you see something?' which was interpreted to the lad. The boy coolly, in his Italian manner, shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'Vedo niente' (I see nothing). Again the magician poured the coloured liquid into his hand, and mumbled some words, and asked the boy again, 'Do you see something?' and the boy said the second time, 'I see nothing.' Then the magician poured the colour into his hand the third time, and inquired, 'Do you see something?' on which the boy suddenly exclaimed, and it made every one of us turn pale and tremble in both knees, as if we were paralyzed, 'Io vedo un uomo!' (I see a man.) The fourth time the stuff was poured into his hand, when the boy loudly screamed out, 'Io vedo un uomo con un capello,' (I see a man with a hat,) and, in short, after a dozen times of inquiry, he described the man so minutely, that all present exclaimed, 'Santini is the thief!' And when Santini's room was searched, the silver spoons, etc., were found.

"Wolff must remark that no one, except the boy, could see any. thing; all the other witnesses only saw the colour which the magician poured."

Reluctantly we close this deeply interesting volume, looking forward with many anticipations of pleasure to the second portion of Dr. Wolff's story. We can recommend to all readers this narrative of the Bayard of missionaries.

In July, 1827, Wolff sets out on his second mission to the east, accompanied by his wife. Wrecked off Cephalonia, he meets with Sir Charles James Napier, of whom characteristic A WORD FOR MRS. BROWNING.* stories are told. The general brings to him a crowd of Jews and Greeks to convert. "Tell them," says Napier, "that IT is rather late in the day to notice Mrs. Browning's Poems there is no difference between Jew and Greek, for they are before Congress; but we are impelled to speak of them by the both rogues alike. Here I am coming to stand by you. If feeling of indignation with which we have been compelled to you cannot convert them, they shall get a d-d good lick-witness an attack, from a most unexpected quarter, upon the ing." Wolff reproves him for swearing. "I deserve the reproof," says Napier, "for I swear like a trooper."

Further of Wolff's second mission cannot here be told. With a single specimen of the style of the autobiography we must conclude. It will be observed that in this extract, as throughout the volume, Wolff speaks of himself in the third

person:

"Now for something about magic; for, although the event about to be recorded happened after Wolff's second journey into Egypt, he will give it in this place. Wolff was asked whether he believed in magic; to which he replied that he believed everything that is found in the Bible; and even, though all the philosophers should ridicule him, he boldly repeats that he believes everything in the Bible; and the existence of witches and wizards is to be found there, of whom, doubtless, the Devil is the originator; and Wolff believes that there are spirits in the air, for the Apostle tells us so; and Wolff believes also that the Devil has access, even

womanly character of her muse, and even upon her own steadfastness of faith and love. Sorry are we that the assault is from a hand we respect; but we also tenderly respect Mrs. Browning, and the truth itself more than her. We could have wished that some obscure Grub-street reviewer (for Grub-street is by no means quite deserted by the literati of the present day) had been the assailant, rather than Mr. WILLIAM HOWITT; but since the fates have not ruled it so, we submit to the momentary sacrifice of our own feeling of warmest friendship for the man, and proceed to deal with him as the unjust accuser of a woman whose name has long been dear to us, and whose fame will be but justly crowned when she is honoured by future generations as the best beloved in English literature.

In the Spiritual Magazine for July Mr. Howitt thus speaks

now, into Heaven, to calumniate man, for so we read in the Book • Poems before Congress. By ELIZABETH BARBEIT BROWNING, Svo. Lonot Job, and in the 12th chapter of the Apocalypse. However, [don. Chapman and Hall.

of "the woman who has won the highest present popularity
in verse,"
"-Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"Who does not recollect the love and admiration with which they read her carlier poems; how they glowed over the noble Lady Geraldine's Courtship,' and the healthy intellectual musical strains that accompanied it? But from the moment that the critic began to trumpet and exalt her as a marvel of strength and philosophical thought, the poetess seemed seized by a passion for a very Sampsonian vigour. Her manner lost the quiet and real vigour which it had from nature; it became forced, stilted, strained, and theatric. The action was no longer free and flowing, but galvanic; there came a fierce and pretentious style, with strange spasmodic starts, and affected phrases. There arose a fire that was of fever, rather than from the life blood of a genuiue inspiration. This character, to my feeling, runs through all her succeeding compositions. Though containing bold theorisms of reform, especially as regards woman, they yet belong entirely to the earth plane, if they have not lately, according to Harris's theory, been strongly biologized from below. In the 'Casa Guidi Windows,' she suddenly veered round to a great admiration for war. Since then she has become fascinated with the second modern Moloch, Louis Napoleon; her admiration of this man, whose life is a lie, amounts to little, if anything, short of possession [viz. demoniacal possession]. From this Bonaparte element, the great element of modern unrest, which keeps all Europe one great barracks, and will never let it be quiet till it has trodden it out, she hopes the regeneration of nations! Suddenly, after he has lied to France, juggling it out of its republican freedom by the falsified dice of universal suffrage; and lied to Italy, promising to free it from the Alps to the Adriatic; and lied to all Europe, promising to submit the question of the annexa

tion of Savoy to it, before moving in it, her wild enchantment culminates in hymns of worship to him, and dire curses on her country!"

Oh, shame, Mr. Howitt, that yours should be the lips to bear unblushing false witness against one whose heart has been wrung with agony in the cause of human freedom and human sorrow, and who, in her "poet passion," has hailed with rapture the strong arm that came to rive the chains of Italy! We need not pause to denounce the juggling of a Bonaparte; we feel as strongly as Mr. Howitt all that is false or doubtful in the element which a greater than Bonaparte has permitted to mingle for a season (and we doubt not for good as well as for evil) with the strife of contending elements in Europe. We point to the simple fact recorded on the title-page of Mrs. Browning's volume, that the poems in question were written "before Congress,"—before Louis Napoleon had lied to Italy, if he really has lied; before he had lied to Europe. Mr. Howitt, in the heat of his mistaken zeal, affirms the contrary, and speaks of the poet's "wild enchantment" culminating in hymns of worship to this man when he stood condemned in the face of Europe as a liar and a wrong-doer, thrice proved. We point to the mute, yet eloquent testimony of Mrs. Browning's title-page,-" Poems before Congress." We point again to her preface, dated from Rome, February, 1860. Our readers may now do, what Mr. Howitt should have done, look to the dates of recent events for their own perfect satisfaction.

But Mr. Howitt is equally unjust when he affirms that anything like worship of Bonaparte is exhibited in Mrs. Browning's 's poems. In her preface we read, "If patriotism means the flattery of one's nation in every case, then the patriot, take it as you please, is merely a courtier; which I am not, though I have written "Napoleon III. in Italy;" and the poem itself fully bears out this statement. This poem, "Napoleon III. in Italy," can only be regarded as the incandescent, living emanation of Mrs. Browning's love for that down-trodden land. To understand this, in its full extent, one must have watched the changing fortunes of Italy, lived its own life, and been the eye-witness of such horrors as we find recorded in the Athenæum of this day (July 26th). Mrs. Browning has for years past made Italy her home, and has felt the national life throb in her veins. She has seen the women of Italy lashed,-and worse used than that, by a brutal soldiery; the youth of Italy shot like dogs in a ditch; the manhood of Italy tortured and starved in loathsome dungeons;

By the way, we object to the phrase "present popularity" as applied to Mrs. Browning. Popularity can hardly be predicated of her. She is appre. ciated by the few, unknown or neglected by the many, and only honoured with a

sort of nodding or speaking acquaintance by the self-appointed censors of general literature. So much the more gently should Mr. Howitt have dealt

with her.

and, as Lord Palmerston recently expressed it, the very government of its most powerful state degenerate into a system of police and espionage. Mrs. Browning has not languidly heard or read of such things in her London drawing-room, but she has watched these horrors, on the spot, through the accumulated anguish and suspense of years, and has been doomed to feel and see that they were perpetuated by the respect of statesmen for the parchment bonds of Vienna;-that her own land, with a quenchless love for freedom and progress, was nevertheless tied down by red tape, and was as helpless as Italy herself, when the time came to cease talking, and to act. Before these poems can be fairly judged, the feeling of sorrow and anguish by which the woman's heart was torn, seeing these things, must be realized; and Italy must be viewed as she was, little more than a year ago. In a word, the slow fever that was consuming the youth of Italy, and burning in the veins of the poet-priestess who dwelt in their midst, must be felt in its intensity. We give our readers credit for at least some share of this feeling, and we ask them, what exultation must have swelled in the hearts of Italy's daughters, when the legions of France suddenly arose in their wrath and came to aid them to strike the long meditated blow for freedom! Down to that moment, Mrs. Browning had contained her soul in patience, and her "wild enchantment" had woven no spell with the name of Napoleon. She preludes, in the poem under consideration, her want of respect for him as the mere sovereign of France. She says:

"I was not used at least,

Nor can be, now nor then,
To stroke the ermine beast
On any kind of throne

(Though builded by a nation for its own),

And swell the surging choir for kings of men."— No, but when the cause she loved seemed to be adopted by this "king of men," and he rode forth like Roland or Charlemagne at the head of the chivalry of France, then, forgetful of the sovereign, and utterly oblivious of the indirect ways by which he obtained his crown, she saw only the deliverer of Italy:

:

"But now, Napoleon, now

That, leaving far behind the purple throng
Of vulgar monarchs, thou
Tread'st higher in thy deed
Than stair of throne can lead,
To help in the hour of wrong

The broken hearts of nations to be strong,-
Now, lifted as thou art

To the level of pure song,

We stand to meet thee on these Alpine snows!
And while the palpitating peaks break out
Ecstatic from somnambular repose
With answers to the presence and the shout,
We, poets of the people, who take part
With elemental justice, natural right,

Join in our echoes also, nor refrain.
We meet thee, O Napoleon, at this height
At last, and find thee great enough to praise.
Receive the poet's chrism, which smells beyond
The priest's, and pass thy ways;-

An English poet warns thee to maintain
God's word, not England's :-let His truth be true
And all men liars! with His truth respond
To all men's lie. Exalt the sword and smite
On that long anvil of the Apennine
Where Austria forged the Italian chain in view
Of seven consenting nations, sparks of fine
Admonitory light,

Till men's eyes wink before convictions new.
Flash in God's justice to the world's amaze.
Sublime Deliverer!--after many days

Found worthy of the deed thou art come to do."
We must remind our readers, that the disappointment of
victory and liberty at Villafranca (for a short season only
perhaps) had not occurred when the noble stanza that we
have here cited was penned. These are poems before Con-
gress," not after Napoleon had proved false, as Mr. Howitt
avers. Is there any justification in this fact? Nay, is the
heart of the poet justified when it feels most deeply, and
utters most truly what it feels ? Reader, the very dust of
Italy in that hour of supreme fate was aglow with fire,—a fire
which still burns fiercely, and with a pure flame, thank God!

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Cannon to front, or foe to pursue,

Still ready to do, and sworn to be true,
As a man and a patriot can.
Piedmontese, Neapolitan,
Lombard, Tuscan, Romagnole,
Each man's body having a soul,-
Count how many they stand,
All of them sons of the land,
Every live man there

Allied to a dead man below,

And the deadest with blood to spare To quicken a living hand

In case it should ever be slow.

Count how many they come

To the beat of Piedmont's drum,

With faces keener and grayer

Than swords of the Austrian slayer,

All set against the foe."

The reader who is unmoved by these thrilling lines will hardly be affected by those which follow. We cite them without hope of such. If any can believe they were penned without intense agony, we can only say that we cannot understand their mode of perception. We seem to hear the exulting question, "Whence come these warriors with the swiftness of destroying angels to the beat of Piedmont's drum ?" And this is the stirring answer :"Out of the dust, where they ground them, Out of the holes, where they dogged them, Out of the hulks, where they wound them In iron, tortured and flogged them; Out of the streets, where they chased them, Taxed them and then bayoneted them,→→ Out of the homes, where they spied on them, (Using their daughters and wives), Out of the church, where they fretted them, Rotted their souls and debased them,

Trained them to answer with knives,

Then cursed them all at their prayers!—

Out of cold lands, not theirs,

Where they exiled them, starved them, lied on them; Back they come like a wind, in vain

Cramped up in the hills, that roars its road

The stronger into the open plain;

Or like a fire that burns the hotter

And longer for the crust of cinder,
Serving better the ends of the potter;

Or like a restrained word of God, Fulfilling itself by what seems to hinder."

We cannot cite more of this poem, or dwell longer on its extraordinary character. Enough is said to prove that it has been misrepresented, not only in the spirit of its conception, but in the outward facts.

We now come to a second grievous injustice, the obloquy of which Mr. Howitt must share with the common herd of review writers, who have one and all not scrupled to treat the poem which bears for its title " 'A Curse for a Nation," as 3 curse breathed against England. Mr. Howitt, indeed, remarks in a foot note,-" Since writing this article, I have heard, but not seen, that Mrs. Browning has disclaimed the application of the Curse for a Nation' to England, and transferred it to America. On referring to her volume again, I observe phrases which might bear out that application, but unfortunately, these are so vague, that none but a specially prompted reader could so apply them." Indeed, indeed, Mr. Howitt? Let us begin at the beginning, and read the "Prologue" to the "Curse." Mrs. Browning solemnly says:—

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Are these vague expressions? Mrs. Browning, pleading to be excused, urges that her "own land's sins" are so grievous, and cry so loud to heaven, that she cannot take upon herself to reprove those of another; and the angel goes on to reply that, for that very reason, she is the chosen instrument. "Because thou hast strength to see, and hate

A foul thing done within thy gate."

Then it is twice repeated in the "prologue," that the curse is to be sent "Over the Western Sea;' and in the third stanza of the curse (after an allusion to writhing bond slaves trodden under foot, in the second stanza), America is plainly pointed to as the New World :

"Because ye prosper in God's name,

With a claim

To honour in the Old World's sight, Yet do the fiend's work perfectly, In strangling martyrs,-for this lie, This is the curse. Write."

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We have hardly patience to answer Mr. Howitt's charge of "vagueness." But he asks, as if doubtful of Mrs. Browning's positive statement, "Why, indeed, should Americans, lying so far out of the scene, be dragged in and cursed for not coming and fighting for the Italians?" Something might be said on this point, especially as the chief article of accusation urged against them by Mrs. Browning is that of keeping their feet on writhing bond slaves," and the " curse " is only a mode of accounting for their apathy, by referring to that gigantic sin as a thing that must ever prevent them from acting nobly, as their hearts would dictate. All this Mr. Howitt should have perceived, at least when he referred to the poem a second time in the light of Mrs. Browning's explanations, and, secing it, he should have generously acknowledged his error, or put his MS. in the fire.

Mr. Howitt says, "It is very singular that this poem is given as a spirit communication, thus confirming the idea of biologizing ab infra." We are rather inclined to agree with Mrs. Browning in one of the stanzas we have cited,—that this curse, at least,

-from the summits of love is driven,

As lightning is from the tops of heaven."

The same word in Hebrew means both blesssing and cursing, and in Cannan there was a mountain appointed for each of these priestly acts. However, the poem speaks for itself. Every expression it contains is an indication of deeplyfelt grief, and of a woman's tender love for down-trodden humanity.

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"Lead us and teach us, until earth and heaven
Grow larger around us and higher above.
Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven;
We bait eur traps with the name of love,
Till hate itself has a kinder meaning.
"Oh, this world: this cheating and screening
Of cheats! this conscience for candlewicks,
Not beacon-fires! this over-weening

Of under-hand diplomatical tricks,

Dared for the country while scorned for the counter!

"Oh, this envy of those who mount here,

And oh, this malice to make them trip!

Rather quenching the fire there, drying the fount here
To frozen body and thirsty lip,

Than leave to a neighbour their ministration."

Here follows a verse which has been purposely mis

"I cry aloud in my poet passion,

"Unfortunately," says Mr. Howitt, were this particular poem plucked out of the book, all the rest of it is so steeped in the same violent spirit against England, that it would possess little less of that cursing which, the poetess says, in the mouth of a woman is so 'very salt, and bitter, and good.' Now, we are not going to deny that there is in this book the evidence of a bitter feeling against England for not coming to the help of Italy, but for indulging, on the contrary, in sus-quoted :picions of the French, which she (before Congress, be it remembered) was of opinion were perfectly groundless. In this bitter spirit, yet not bitter enough to disguise the immense depth of love in that woman's heart,-she penned 'Italy and the World," one of the finest poems,-if not the very finest,-in this collection. The conception of the day of judgment for Italy, with which it opens, is magnificent. Cockcrow is the cry of preparation from France, then suddenly the trumpet sounds, and the graves are opened.

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"Life and life and life! agrope in

The dusk of death, warm hands, stretched out
For swords, proved more life still to hope in,
Beyond and behind. Arise with a shout,
Nation of Italy, slain and buried!

"Hill to hill and turret to turret

Flashing the tricolour,-newly created
Beautiful Italy, calm, unhurried,

Rise heroic and renovated,
Rise to the final restitution."

But we must give more of this-
"Rise; prefigure the grand solution

Of earth's municipal, insular schisms,--
Statesmen draping self-love's conclusions
In cheap, vernaenlar patriotisms,
Unable to give up Judæa for Jesus.
"Bring us the higher example; release us
Into the larger coming time:

And into Christ's broad garment piece us
Rags of virtue as poor as crime,
National selfishness, civic vaunting.
"No more Jew nor Greek then,-taunting

Nor taunted;-no more England nor France!
But one confederate brotherhood, planting
One flag only, to mark the advance,
Onward and upward, of all humanity.
"For civilization perfected

Is fully developed Christianity.
'Measure the frontier,' shall it be said,
'Count the ships,' in national vanity?-
Count the nation's heart-beats sooner.

"For, though behind by a cannon or schooner,
That nation is still predominant,

Whose pulse beats quickest in zeal to oppugn or
Succour another, in wrong or want,

Passing the frontier in love and abhorrence.

"Modena, Parma, Bologna, Florence,

Open us out the wider way!

Dwarf in that chapel of old St. Lawrence
Your Michel-Angelo's giant Day,

With the grandeur of this day breaking o'er us!
"Ye who, restrained as an ancient chorus,
Mute while the coryphæus spake.
Hush your separate voices before us,
Sink your separate lives for the sake
Of one sole Italy's living for ever!

"Givers of coat and cloak too,--never

Grudging that purple of yours at the best,-
By your heroic will and endeavour
Each sublimely dispossessed,

That all may inherit what each surrenders!
"Earth shall bless you, O noble emenders

On egotist nations! Ye shall lead

The plough of the world, and sow new splendours
Into the furrow of things, for seed,--
Ever the richer for what ye have given.

Viewing my England o'er Alp and sea,

I loved her more in her ancient fashion, She carries her rifles too thick for me, Who spares them so in the cause of a brother.” What does the reader think of the line here printed in italics being omitted in order to make out a case against Mrs. Browning? Yet even this has been done,-by Grubstreet! Not by Mr. Howitt, we are sincerely happy to say.

We trust we have said enough to correct an injustice, but for which we should scarcely have had occasion to notice Poems before Congress. Mrs. Browning, perhaps, may now feel that her trust in Napoleon has been misplaced; but there is nothing in these pages that she will ever need to look back upon with shame, or that we would deal with in any other spirit than that of tenderness and reverence. There is, indeed, a wild, lawless vigour in these poems, and there is a depth of enthusiasm in them which scorns the ordinary bonds of verse, as it withers with tenfold scorn the conventionalities of society. But they must be judged from the circumstances which inspired them; and, so judged, they will not be found unworthy of the hand that wrote both Lady Geraldine's Courtship and Aurora Leigh.

VICISSITUDES OF FAMILIES.*

THE slave stood in the car of the conqueror of old, to whisper now and then a reminder in his ear, that after all, and in spite of all, "he was but mortal." So "Ulster," from the genealogies of Great Britain, draws tales and points morals. No romancer, though he may compete with any circulating library in the strange interest and startling incidents of his revelations, he simply turns back historic pages, and shows what has been, suggesting what may be again.

The aristocratic baby, with its little soft, pink, fat form swaddled in ermine and velvet, curling up its tiny round limbs, with all the picturesqueness of infantine abandon, in its crestcarved and gilded cradle, is just as liable to change and misfortune as to the hooping cough or the measles. There is no guaranteed smooth pathway through life for any human being. All is as a game of handy-dandy. Now a duke,-now a beggar,-now a millionaire,-now a pauper. You may start from the palace and end in the hospital, or you may begin in the kennel and finish on the woolsack. A shuffling of the cards, and, as we hold good or bad hands, so we play out the great game of life, and stop at last, winners or losers, as Fortune may have favoured or frowned. The " ups and downs of life" have been too much associated with the fates of the middle and poorer classes of society. Sir Bernard is here to tell us that the upper circles have also their ups and downs, that no one is too high or too low to escape vicissitude and adventure,--that insolvency and beggary, and degradation, and death on the dung-heap, are not only for the humble and lowly-born,-that misfortune can strike down a great house as quickly as a storm can rend a giant oak,-that misery makes no distinction, just as the rain coming down suddenly wets the lord and the turnspit both to the skin. Full of noteworthy information and interesting reading is Sir Bernard's volume, with some tinge of melancholy in its grouped records of the decadence of noble families, for he

• The Vicissitudes of Families. (Second Series.) By Sir BERNARD BURKE, Ulster King of Arms. London: Longmans.

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