less well the place it is meant to be. Following the example of Mr. Albert Moore, whose mural paintings at the Queen's are much better worth seeing than any play one remembers to have seen there, and of Mr. Marks who has likewise contributed to one's pleasure at the theatre, Mr. V. Prinsep has designed a drop-scene painted by himself and Mr. O'Connor. It is a Jacobean gallery, hung with arras, and one figure waits to draw aside the curtain. It is good as decorative work, and better still as possessing a motive, an idea. Most drop-scenes are complete in themselves, indicating nothing of what has gone before or of what is to come after, but this red-breeched figure of Mr. Prinsep's suggests what it is that he and we are waiting for. He seems to say : "For us and for our 'comedy,' Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently." And since we are diffuse to-day, and gossip about the accessories, let us mention that the little piece by Mr. Troughton, which is played before the comedy, has more point in it than most things of the kind, and that Mr. Cathcart and Mr. Kemble, Mrs. Gaston Murray and Miss Hollingshead, succeed in playing it better than most things of its kind are played. Mrs. Gaston Murray is experienced, and Miss Hollingshead's little part is entirely within her range, and so is always pleasantly played by her; but in Awaking, if she did some things worse, she did also some things better. And they were better worth doing which must count for much in any art. FREDERICK WEDMORE. WE hear that Mdlle. Delaporte will come to London in a few days, on a visit. The terms of her engagement at the French Theatre at St. Petersburg oblige her to return there for a few weeks almost immediately, but she will very likely act in London towards the end of May. As to her appearance at the Gymnase, nothing is yet arranged. Rose Michel-the remarkable melodrama which with the acting of Mdme. Fargueil has retrieved the fortunes of the Ambigu Comique-will be produced this day week at the Gaiety Theatre. The adaptation has been made by Mr. Campbell Clarke, who successfully adapted Le Sphinx and Marcel; and in it Mr. J. C. Cowper, Mr. Ryder, Mr. Maclean, Mr. Edgar, Miss Hollingshead, and Mrs. Mary Gladstane will appear. To Mrs. Gladstane is confided the great part played in Paris by Mdme. Fargueil. THE London Figaro hears that Miss Nelly Power is about to reappear upon the stage, and to act at the Philharmonic, in İslington. Giroflé-Girofla is to be heard, if rumour is right, in a place less distant than Islington. It is said that it will follow the Près Saint Gervais at the Criterion. Doubtless, if this be so, it will meet with more favour than has hitherto been given it on this side the Channel. SALVINI, the great Italian tragedian-of whom the strongest things are said by those most entitled to be listened to-will appear in London, we are glad to perceive, in the beginning of April. He brings with him his usual company. Othello is to be his first part. THE spectacular piece now to be known in England as Round the World in Eighty Days—a translation of the version of Jules Verne's travel book produced at the Porte Saint Martin-was brought out after several delays, at the Princess's Theatre, on Monday night, under the management of Mr. Mayer. Mr. Sinclair and Miss Helen Barry assume the chief parts. There are remarkable scenic effects, and there is a ballet of unusual ma nificence, but the piece does not invite detailed criticism in our columns. It has, neverthe ess, its own public, and will doubtless be popular. THE Hingston benefit was to take place at Drury Lane on Thursday afternoon: half the famous actors and actresses in London having promised to give selections from their favourite performances on that occasion. DURING the week, Mr. Hollingshead's manage ment has been continued at the Opera Comique, where farces, operettas, &c., have been played in quick succession. MR. JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD is understood to be the writer of the letters from a London Manager which have been appearing in the Daily Telegraph. Ar the Gaiety Theatre, John Bull has been played during the week, Mr. Phelps enacting his usual part of Job Thornbery, and being excellently supported by Messrs. Vezin, Balfour, and others. The last nights of his engagement are announced. It is now at best quite doubtful whether Mr. Albery's comedy will be produced at all this season at the Olympic, where Two Orphans takes a still stronger hold on popular favour. MR. ARTHUR SULLIVAN's one-act opera, with words by Mr. Gilbert, will be brought out immediately at the Royalty Theatre, and Miss Nelly Bromley will appear in it along with Mr. Fisher, who is so good with Mdme. Dolaro in La Périchole. The success of the latter piece puts the longer and much talked of work of Mr. Sullivan out of the question for the present; and thus the shorter piece, written for the occasion, is to be produced. MR. CHATTERTON's benefit took place last Saturday at Drury Lane, when the Vokes family lent their assistance, and there was a crowded house. THE Merchant of Venice is really, and very soon, to be played at the Prince of Wales's. Nothing short of a marked artistic success will reconcile us to the withdrawal of Sweethearts from the bill, for Mrs. Bancroft's performance in the second act of Sweethearts is, as it was described in this journal in November last, one of the most exquisite and complete things done on the English stage. It is full of true and keen observation and delicate invention. In it Mrs. Bancroft has appeared in quite a new character, and no one should miss the opportunity of seeing it while it yet remains. It is, honestly, not too much to say of Mrs. Bancroft's performance, that it is worthy of the Théâtre Français, more than of the stage of London. BRESSANT, the favourite comedian whose reappearance at the Théâtre Français we chronicled very lately, has not, it is said, at all regained during the rest that followed on his illness that charm that belonged to him a good many years ago. When he retires there will be no one to quite adequately supply his place. His line of parts that of grand premier, as distinguished from jeune premier-is most difficult to fill. The Verre d'Eau, of Scribe, was the piece in which he made his reappearance. Mdlle. Croizette, as Queen Anne, had need indeed to subdue her mutinous grace. She is said to have succeeded partially, but Queen Anne's part would never have been given to her by the author. Mdlle. Madeleine Brohan-whose appearances are now rare played the Duchess of Marlborough. In her time she was a good Queen Anne, but she is not deemed altogether satisfactory in the role of the domineering duchess. M. SARCEY, who is never afraid to avow either his dislikes or his partialities, is doing justice to M. Pierre Berton, as M. Pierre Berton is about to leave the Français for the Vaudeville. "Chose bizarre!" says he; "il semble que Berton, depuis qu'il doit quitter la Comédie Française, s'y sente plus à l'aise . . . Il est rentré dans son naturel. Il est redevenu ce que nous l'avions vu à l'Odéon. Ce qu'on me disait de lui est peut-être vrai, que le sentiment de la responsabilité l'accablait et lui enlevait tous ses moyens.” WE have received Cardinal Wolsey, an historical drama in five acts, by Mr. Walter S. Raleigh. It is smooth and facile, and in one or two of its lyrics fairly musical, but more suggestive of the study of Elizabethan poetry than of direct inspiration. Charles Lamb was once asked his opinion attentively, and observed, gleefully and enof a manuscript tragedy. He listened to it couragingly, at the end, "There are worse things than that in Shakspere- and many better!" We commend the story to Mr. Raleigh, though his work has advanced beyond the stage of manuscript. MISS WALLIS has been acting Juliet in Dundee, probably in that version of Romeo and Juliet which was arranged for representation, if we mistake not, by David Garrick. ON February 27, Nils Vilhelm Almlöf, the greatest of contemporary Swedish actors, died at Stockholm. He was born on March 24, 1799. He continued to appear on the stage till a fortnight before his death, when he played Worsley in The Lady of Worsley Hall. MUSIC. RECENT CONCERTS. THE first concert for the present season of the British Orchestral Society took place on Wednesday week, the 10th inst. The programme was exclusively selected from the works of the late Sterndale Bennett, and included his symphony in G minor, the piano concerto in F minor, the overtures to the Naiads and Paradise and the Peri, and vocal music by Miss Edith Wynne, Miss Augusta Roche, and Messrs. Henry, Guy, and Wadmore. As I wrote in detail on the subject of Bennett's music in last week's ACADEMY, a lengthy notice of the present concert will be needless, especially as its general features closely resembled those of last year's concerts. There was the same splendid quality of tone from the strings; there was also unfortunately (though a certain amount of improvement was perceptible) the same general want of finish in the orchestral performance, and the same fatal tendency to drag the time on the part of the conductor, who, though having under his direction a very fine band, seems altogether unable to secure an adequate, to say nothing of a perfect, rendering of the works produced. The solo pianist was Miss Florence May, who in her performance gave evidence of genuine musical taste. A certain want of mechanical finish which was at times apparent especially as it was more noticeable in the first may be very fairly attributed to nervousness, than in the following movements of the work. The vocalists, whose names have been already given, did full justice to the music that fell to their share. Last Saturday's concert at the Crystal Palace was opened by Mr. W. G. Cusins's overture to Les Travailleurs de la Mer. This very able and interesting work had been produced at the Philharmonic Society during the season of 1869, but had not previously obtained a hearing at Sydenham. musical illustration of Victor Hugo's novel; it The work, as will be inferred from its title, is a belongs, however, in style rather to the department of "characteristic" than to that of more strictly programme" music. Indeed, excepting the somewhat elaborate and wild episode intended, according to the programme, to depict the great storm which Hugo has so vividly described, there is no imitative music in the work. It is excellently written, structed on interesting and melodious subjects, and, being under Mr. Manns's direction given to perfec tion, it fully deserved the warm reception bestowed upon it by the audience. A second novelty on this occasion was a new concerto-new, at least, at these concerts-composed and played by Herr Joachim. Though less elaborate than his "Hungarian Concerto," which he has played con more than once at the Crystal Palace, it is a work of full dimensions, written in orthodox form, and very effectively scored. It would be flattery to say that Joachim the composer equals Joachim the player-were it so, indeed, he would be a second Beethoven; still this concerto, if it cannot be pronounced a great, is a more than respectable work. The solo part is excessively brilliant, and of enormous difficulty, especially the "doublestops" in semiquavers which form an important feature in the finale; it was played by the composer with his own wonderful perfection of mechanism and depth of feeling. The symphony was Mendelssohn's "Reformation," a work which seems an especial favourite here (perhaps because it is so rarely given elsewhere), the present being its seventh performance at the Saturday concerts. The preference, however, appears only natural when it is remembered that to the directors of these concerts is due the credit of the first performance of the work in this country, which took place on November 30, 1867. It is known that the composer would not allow the work to be published during his lifetime; and "G." in the programme of Saturday's concert urges, and not without reason, that after Mendelssohn's death no valid grounds can be found for the longer suppression of his earlier and immature works, as his reputation is too firmly established to be injured by their comparative inferiority to his greatest masterpieces. This is perfectly true; and the "Reformation" symphony certainly furnishes an additional example of the clearheadedness and soundness of judgment by which Mendelssohn was so distinguished. With the exception of the really charming scherzo and trio, it is the treatment rather than the ideas which excites the most interest in this work. This is quite exceptional with Mendelssohn, whose fastidiousness in his selection of subjects was only equalled by the care which he expended on their treatment. May it not have been the feeling that the ideas were not in his happiest vein which induced him to withdraw the work? The performance of the symphony under Mr. Manns was one of the most perfect that has ever been given-such a one, indeed, as can be heard nowhere in London except under his bâton. It was, however, altogether an error of judgment to accede to the desire expressed by the audience for the repetition of the scherzo. A movement of a symphony should never, under any conceivable circumstances, be repeated, because the continuity which ought to form so important a feature of the work, as well as the balance of the various parts, is thereby destroyed. The remaining instrumental pieces of the concert were violin solos by Bach, played by Herr Joachim as no one else can play them, and Schumann's passionate overture to his only opera Genoveva, which has been often heard previously at the Palace. The vocalists were Mdlle. Hélène Arnim, a young lady with a very good mezzo-soprano voice, who sang "Awake, Sat rnia," from Handel's Semele, very well, but (owing to the character of the music) without producing much impression. She was much more successful in songs by Brahms and Schumann. The other vocalist announced was Miss Edith Wynne; but, as she was indisposed, her place was taken at a few hours' notice by a débutante, a Miss Morland, who, though not unnaturally suffering from extreme nervousness, created a very favourable impression by her pleasing voice and excellent style. To-day Mdme. Norman-Néruda is announced to perform a concerto by Viotti, and the programme will also include Schumann's symphony in D minor. As the season advances the difficulty of keeping pace with the musical events continually increases. Only a very brief notice can here be given of several, in themselves important concerts, given during the past week. At the last Monday Popular Concert Beethoven's great quartett in C sharp minor was once more brought forward under the leadership of Herr Joachim, his coadjutors being, as usual, Messrs. L. Ries, Straus, and Piatti. The same gentlemen (excepting Herr Ries) also gave Beethoven's charming trio in G, Op. 9, No. 1, for strings. Mdlle. Krebs was again the pianist, and brought forward Chopin's Ballade in G minor, which she played with such effect as to obtain an encore, substituting the same composer's Impromptu in A flat. She also joined Herr Joachim in Mozart's Sonata in E flat for piano and violin. The vocalist was Miss Sophie Löwe, and the conductor Sir Julius Benedict. Next Monday, being the last concert of the season, Mr. Chappell, as usual, provides an unusually rich bill of fare. A special attraction will be the opportunity of hearing together three such pianists as Mdlle. Krebs, Dr. Bülow, and Mr. Charles Hallé, who are announced to play Bach's Concerto in D minor for three pianos. I regret that want of space prevents my speaking of Mr. Willem Coenen's concerts at the length they deserve. No artist has done more in this country toward acquainting our musical public with the works of modern composers than Mr. Coenen; and the series of three concerts which he brought to a close at St. George's Hall on Thursday last were neither as regards interest of programme nor excellence of performance in any way inferior to those of previous years. Among the most remarkable of the works produced have been Brahms's most interesting sonata in E minor for piano and violoncello, the same composer's abstruse string quartett in A minor, Svendsen's octett for strings, which made so great an impression at its first performance at Mr. Coenen's concerts last year, and a very clever pianoforte quartett by Mr. A. C. Mackenzie. Mr. Coenen is a pianist of very high abilities; and that he took care to be adequately supported in the string department will be seen from the list of the artists whom he engaged, which included the names of Messrs. Wiener, Amor, Vogell, Jung, Zerbini, Stehling, Daubert, C. Ould, and Lasserre all "good men and true." The vocal music, too, was quite worthy of the instrumental; and Mr. Coenen has fairly earned the gratitude of those who desire to become acquainted with the more modern developments of musical art. The first concert for the present season of the Philharmonic Society took place on Thursday evening after our going to press. As the first part of the programme included only Sterndale Bennett's music (the Woman of Samaria being its most important feature), and as Herr Joachim played a work so universally known as Mendelssohn's violin concerto, a mere record of the performance must suffice. EBENEZER PROUT. ANOTHER of Mr. Mapleson's new "stars," Mdlle. Pernini, has appeared at Glasgow in Rigoletto, and is well spoken of by the press. AT a recent pianoforte recital in Edinburgh Dr. Hans von Bülow introduced into his programme a "Romance" composed by Professor Oakeley, which was as warmly received as it was (it is superfluous to say) admirably played. BEETHOVEN'S Choral Symphony formed the principal item at last Sunday's concert at the Conservatoire, Paris, under the direction of M. Lamoureux. The work was also given on the same day under M. Edouard Colonne at the Concert du Chatelet. Two performances of this colossal work at the same time are sufficiently remarkable to be worthy of a note. THE death is announced of the Belgian ladyvioloncellist Mdlle. Gabrielle Platteau. THE last number of the Musikalisches Wochen general opinion of the music in these words: "There can be no doubt that Richard Wagner in the Götterdämmerung has reached the summit of his creative power, of his mastership, and of his geniality." A NEW opera by Johann Strauss, in three acts, entitled Cagliostro in Wien, has just been produced in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien, with great success. WE have very great pleasure in announcing the election of Mr. G. A. Macfarren to the Professorship of Music at Cambridge. Without intending the least disparagement to any of the other candidates, we may safely say that Mr. Macfarren was so pre-eminently the right man for the post that no other appointment would have given general satisfaction. M. JEAN-BAPTISTE LABAT, a French organist and composer of repute, died last month at the age of seventy-three years. All the Books in Circulation or on Sale at MUDIE'S SELECT LIBRARY may also be obtained, with the least possible delay, by all Subscribers to blatt contains a most interesting letter from Dr. Theodor Helm, of Vienna, giving an account of the great Wagner concert which took place there on the 1st inst., when fragments of the Mudie's Library, Barton Arcade, Manchester. Götterdämmerung-the concluding part of the great "Nibelungen' drama-were produced in public for the first time. Dr. Helm expresses his MUDIE'S SELECT LIBRARY, NEW OXFORD STREET. CITY OFFICE-2, KING STREET, CHEAPSIDE. HOW TO SELECT AN OFFICE for LIFE ASSURANCE. 66 Extract from Board of Trade's Report, July 2, 1874. Taking Insurance business as it exists in this country, the Public cannot be misled if, when seeking an Office in which to effect an Insurance, they select one which transacts its business at a small percentage of working cost, and does not anticipate its profits." THESE TESTS ARE ENTIRELY FULFILLED BY THE ROYAL INSURANCE COMPANY, the Report itself showing that of all the English Provincial Offices and all the Scotch Offices, the Royal's Ratio of Expenses to its Premium Income is the Lowest, and the Company have never anticipated a Single Shilling of Profit. 66 "On the whole, it would be safe for the father of a family, contemplating the Insurance of his Life, to select one of the Offices with a Large Life Fund, a Small Expenditure on Management, and a Rate of Interest ranging from 4.2 to 4.5 per cent." "THE ROYAL" ENTIRELY MEETS THE WHOLE OF THESE REQUIREMENTS. Its Life Fund is close upon Two Millions Sterling; its Expenses are Lower than those of any other English Provincial Office, and of any Scotch Office; and its rate of Interest is 4.4 per cent. "We have examined and counted every Security, and have found all correct and in perfect order, and that the present aggregate market value is in excess of the amounts in the Balance-sheet."-From Auditors' Report, July 17, 1874. "As evidence of the care exercised in the Investment of the Life Funds, it may be mentioned that they have never been reduced a single penny by bad or doubtful securities."-From Chairman's Speech at Annual Meeting, August 7, 1874. HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE and EFFECTS, including PICTURES, CHINA, JEWELLERY, &c., ROYAL INSURANCE COMPANY, NORTH JOHN STREET, LIVERPOOL; and LOMBARD STREET, LONDON. SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1875. No. 151, New Series. THE EDITOR cannot undertake to return, or ment another, or the mind compensate for science. In the poets it takes the form the deficient sense. "Oh thou vain comforter! do men bereft In their first blindness, turn to what is left? Nay, rather, the birds' songs through flowery May to correspond with the writers of, rejected The above is one of the passages from manuscript. It is particularly requested that all business letters regarding the supply of the paper, &c., may be addressed to the PUBLISHER, and not to the EDITOR. LITERATURE. All in All: Poems and Sonnets. By Philip which the poet's privation might be sur- "God knows I had no hope before she came, And found me in the darkness, where alone This volume is of hopelessness-something beyond sad. thoughted uncertainty, and short of despair there is some protest in it, and more of acquiescent resolute endurance. This frame of mind necessarily excludes some of the most manifestly poetical elements pertaining to elegiac verse: yet such is the virtue of sincerity and earnestness, and of a reliance upon the actual truth as the individual perceives and realises it, that there still remains much which can be treated with poetic depth and variety, and, as in the writings of our author, with an unfailingly elevated tone. A All in All consists of numerous sonnets, preceded and followed by a moderate number In circumstances which would shake the of poems in diversified structural forms. Of these poems the finest is perhaps the strongest, the intellectual courage of our one entitled "A Dream : the stanzas author is remarkable. highly noteworthy among those poems, headed "After," likewise, are very graceful increasingly numerous in our time, in in lyrical impulse, as well as pathetic in Two or three years ago Mr. Philip Marston which frank and unterrified utterance is meaning. The final poem, "To Cicely published his volume named Song-tide; advisedly given to total uncertainty-or, Narney Marston, a Brother's Tribute," which, without producing any very general as it is commonly termed, " scepticism "though not among the completest in execuimpression, was nevertheless quite sufficient, regarding the problems of the moral govern- tion, can be perused with unfeigned pleasure in the mind of judges here and there, to mark ance of the world, and the immortality by others besides the sister whose lifelong him out as truly a poet. The volume which of the human spirit. Darkness around tenderness is here so warmly acknowledged: now lies before us is intended as a sequel to him, darkness below and above, is the this is the only composition which deviates the Song-tide, it being the author's aim to element within which this poet moves. He from the main theme of the volume. As a depict love under various aspects. The would fain find a meaning in the reiterated rule, the best work is to be found in the earlier book represented love without hope rigours of Fate, but he knows not whether sonnets. Of the depth of feeling in these, of success; the present one shows that this he may discern it or not: he longs for and indeed throughout the whole book, it love has at last obtained a response, but its ultimate spiritual reunion with the beloved were superfluous to say anything more: but course has been sundered by the death of the and lost one, but he does not permit his the feeling is not only deep, it is strenuous beloved one, and the lover is left with his cravings to stand to him in the place of conon- and high-strung, and the author evinces his intense grief and with yearning aspiration.victions; he neither anticipates this blissful poetic vocation by co-ordinating emotion Another volume, to be entitled A Pilgrimage, solution of the mystery, nor believes in it, with thought. He can vary the presentment is to close the series. The author's preface nor even ventures to hope it. At the same of his grief, and even make it ornate on sets forth the foregoing points in brief time, not only do his desires point to im- occasion, without losing the true key-note terms, which we have still further shortened. mortality as the goal, but his reason allows of a personal and unrelieved sorrow. The Pilgrimage (it would appear from a sonhim to entertain it as a possibility-a faint considerable number of the sonnets take the net in the present volume) is to dwell more and arcane possibility, dimmer than the first form of abstract embodiment, in which Love in detail on the character of the lady, and dimness of dawn half surmised through the is the dominant figure; Love being conthe actual course of the wooing. blackness of night, and half discredited, on sidered not exclusively as the amorous pasBesides its literary or poetic merits, which the uttermost horizon. Whatever comes, sion, but partly in that largest sense in are of considerable account, two things he will be sovereign within his own mind: which, to quote the Christian or theological lend a peculiar interest to this work. In tremors shall not wholly overwhelm, nor expression, "God is Love." Not that Mr. the first place, it is unmistakeably evident desire and hope betray him. To her, rest Marston ever speaks definitely as a theolothat Mr. Marston is writing from actual has come; this at least he can believe in: gian, but with a concrete sense of the personal feeling and retrospect; he is no to him also, rest after long sorrow and highest in human experience, and in the masquerading Damon who languishes for turmoil is the prospect. To find rest swal- realm of the supersensuous. He even adopts an improvised Delia, but a man who has lowed up in conscious felicity is remote from now and again certain watchwords or lived that which he writes about-to whom his expectation, yet not alien from the range symbols of Christian faith, and re-applies these agitating, terrible, and mournful ex- of his ideas. In all these respects, the book them with his own meaning: as when, in periences have been the very realities of suc- is an eminently sincere one, and as high- the sonnet entitled "Saving Love," he puts cessive years. Secondly, Mr. Marston has minded as sincere. It may indeed be reainto the mouth of Love the words :bad the misfortune of being blind from sonably compared, in origin and scope, with a very early period of childhood; a fact the Canzoniere of Petrarch; and, whatever which is indicated here and there in the superiority may be awarded to the Italian course of his poems, although these are for poet as regards exquisiteness of artistic dethe most part written as if no such bereave-velopment, the Englishman may assuredly ment affected the author. This fact enhances in an extreme degree the sorrowfulness of the story shadowed forth in the poems, and the consequent sympathy of the reader both for the writer's depth of emotion, and for the fortitude which he nevertheless does not permit to be altogether quelled in his mind and spirit. Besides, it causes many passages, which under other physical conditions might excite no particular attention, to become a singular and interesting study-showing, as they do, how far perceptions can be appropriated by a reflex mental act, or how far one sense can supple claim the more absolute tribute of sympathy. "I am the Resurrection and the Life; I am the Love whereby redeemed thou art." The sonnets of this personating class bear "Love walks with weary feet the upward way, O Love, 'tis summer,' or, Behold the spring,' And still Love heedeth not. O Love,' I cry, Wilt thou not rest? The path is over-steep.' Love answers not, but passeth all things by, Nor will he stay for those who laugh or weep. I follow Love, who follows Grief: but lo, Where the way ends not Love himself can know." "Not Thou but I. "It must have been for one of us, my own, To drink this cup, and eat this bitter bread. Had not my tears upon thy face been shed, Thy tears had dropped on mine. If I alone Did not walk now, thy spirit would have known My loneliness; and, did my feet not tread This weary path and steep, thy feet had bled For mine, and thy mouth had for mine made moan. And so it comforts me, yea not in vain, To think of thy eternity of sleep, 66 liarity which may even be made charming when any special choiceness in the variation of the pauses is observed, but which, under other conditions, should be but sparingly indulged in. Multitude" and "solitude" (p. 46) are not true rhymes, though we know that the authority of Shelley and others may be pleaded in cases of this sort; nor yet "beach" and "besiege" (p. 85): possibly "besiege" is here a misprint for beseech," which would seem not less admissible as regards meaning. In English poetry it is somewhat hard to blame as excessive the very free use of monosyllabic words, the language making this all but a 66 To know thine eyes are tearless though mine necessity. Still, our best masters of style weep: "A little time for laughter, A little time to kiss and cling, To me to have thy love: A little time for speaking Things sweet to say and hear; Words the heart breaks to say; We shall conclude by specifying some of the technical points which may be regarded as defective; without intending, however, to dogmatise upon matters that are open to difference of opinion, nor to derogate from the general executive merit of Mr. Marston, which keeps pace worthily with his subjectmatter. There is some excess of semiarchaic diction, as in the word "doth," and similar forms of the verbs; and in the frequent use of "lo," or of "yea verily," &c., or of an unbending expression when a lighter one would serve fully as well; for instance, in the sonnet named " Spring's Return," the phrase, "And I made answer, saying thus." In the poem written in the heroic metre, "De Profundis," we find a lavish introduction of biblical language, after Mr. Swinburne's pattern; also in the sonnet "Wasted Spring," some lines, without being biblical in phrase, are obviously do what they can to keep it in bounds, more especially in that gem-like form of verse the sonnet. Their example might be commended to Mr. Marston, and particularly so as regards the terminal words of lines. In one sonnet, "Unseen Worship," we observe that all the terminal words are monosyllables; and probably this is not the sole example to the same effect. The reader may also refer to the sonnet which we have quoted, "Not Thou but I." The following are presumably mere misprints -P. 31, "invisible godhead,' for "in visible godhead;" 45, "in her maiden's sight," for "in her maidens' sight;" 94, "all thou hast lain upon me," for "all thou hast laid upon me." 129, the line "And memorable sorrow makes love memorable," is not in sonnet-metre, nor does the first appear "memorable" to be exactly the right word. Should it be present"? 66 We take leave of Mr. Marston's book with sincere respect for the poetical faculty and attainment which it evidences, and with no small expectation as regards the forthcoming volume of his series, The Pilgrimage. When all the conditions under which he has worked are taken into account, it may truly be said that his book is not only an interesting and beautiful one, but hardly to be paralleled anywhere: it far surpasses his own presumable means, or the use which any one else has made of the like means. W. M. ROSSETTI. Pius IX.: the Story of his Life. By Alfred Owen Legge. (London: Chapman & Hall, 1875.) MR. LEGGE is, upon the whole, an attaching writer he is so simple-hearted, so benevolent, so well-meaning, so anxious to be fair if he only knew how, that one has no heart to say much of his numerous peccadilloes. He seems to suppose that Dr. Achilli is a cresition. dible and creditable witness about the InquiHe seems to imagine that if any rumour at a time fertile of rumours has gained the belief of any respectable writer on a subject where all writers are partisans, the matter of the rumour unless contra Swinburnian. Here aud there, verses occur andrine "Think not upon its dark unalterable course;" or, in "Prelude V.”— "Give to the winds again what the winds have given, Give I these songs to thee, my life and my heaven." In the lyrical poems, we observe over-much running of one stanza into another; a pecu for instance, after making Bedini the hero of the ubiquitous story about the tyrant who makes the wife's honour the price of the husband's life, he tells us that Bedini was very liberal for a cardinal legate. His English is almost as slovenly as the English of a readable book can possibly be; his only leading idea seems to be that Pius IX. was wrong whenever he opposed either the constitutional party or the radicals, and that the radicals were wrong whenever they opposed the constitutionalists. But with all these drawbacks he has succeeded by dint of sheer good faith in conveying an intelligible notion of the first four years of a remarkable reign to readers who are capable of disregarding his epithets and his moral remarks and his more or less apocryphal anecdotes, some of which no doubt are true, though neither he nor we know which. Gregory XVI., a shy, shrewd, and accom plished old bachelor, of simple tastes, who, according to the gossip of the time, which Mr. Legge endorses, had as many old bachelor vices as Sainte-Beuve, had carried out with exceptional rigour the system of repression into which the Papacy, like most other states of Italy, had drifted after the beneficent supremacy of Napoleon had been displaced by the rule of Austria; and the revolution of 1830 had naturally made the real or apparent necessity of repression more urgent. Pius IX., who succeeded him at the immature age of fifty-four, set to work at once with a great deal of hearty good-will, and not a little practical shrewdness of the Haroun-alRaschid sort, to infuse a new spirit into the government of his States. He had no fixed opinion either for or against organic changes, but he had made up his mind that thenceforward the administration must be got to work in a frank, straightforward, be nevolent that he ever promised or intended more; There is really no evidence way. in there is no evidence that if he had had time and quiet to work out his experiment fairly, he would have failed in accomplishing this. Nor can it be said that he perceptibly impaired his chance of a fair trial by any misjudgment or imprudence of his own; fact, he seems to have foreseen how the childish excitement of his subjects was rate, he did his best to calm it. But he likely to multiply his difficulties; at any never had much chance of a fair trial; and after Louis Philippe had run away from an insignificant riot at Paris, he had no chance at all. A minority which maintains its protest under severe and long-continued repres sion is terribly liable to fixed ideas; and it was a fixed idea with the Roman liberals that no good could be done till clerical government was abolished; and as this was the very last reform to be expected even from a reforming Pope, a peaceable reformation of the Roman state was hardly to be hoped for when all reformers insisted upon this reform before all others. It did not mend matters that the representative of France, a doctrinaire and friend of Guizot, was always urging the Government to make a series of large but definite changes and then to hold its hand. In France such a system was practicable: Louis Philippe effects were soon to be seen; but it was not on his accession had adopted it, and its practicable in a society whose manifold complexities and irregularities had not been effaced by such a catastrophe as the French Revolution. It is really to the credit of the Pope's good sense that he resisted these counsels while he could, and tried to find out gradually and in detail what changes were |