horseback. What the inns were may be imagined from the unfrequency of travellers, and the general state of domestic comfort.

The absence of comfort and luxury-luxury as distinguished from ornamentmay be gathered from the memoirs of the time, and from such works as Bertuch's 'Mode Journal.' Such necessities as good locks, doors that shut, drawers opening easily, tolerable knives, carts on springs, or beds fit for a Christian of any other than the German persuasion,' are still rarities in Thuringia; but in those days when sewers were undreamed of, and a post-office was a chimera, all that we moderns consider comfort was necessarily fabulous. The furniture, even of palaces, was extremely simple. In the houses of wealthy bourgeois, chairs and tables were of common fir; not until the close of the eighteenth century did mahogany make its appearance. Looking-glasses followed. The chairs were covered with a coarse green cloth; the tables likewise; and carpets are only now beginning to loom upon the national mind as a possible luxury. The windows were hung with woollen curtains when the extravagance of curtains was ventured on. Easy chairs were unknown; the only arm-chair allowed was the so-called Grandfather's chair, which was reserved for the dignity of gray hairs, or the feebleness of age.

The salon de reception, or drawing-room, into which greatly honoured visitors were shewn, had of course, a kind of Sunday splendour, not dimmed by week-day familiarity. There hung the curtains; the walls were adorned with family portraits or some work of extremely native talent;' the tables alluring the eye with china în guise of cups, vases, impossible shepherds, and very allegorical dogs. Into this room the honoured visitor was ushered; and there, no matter what the hour, he was handed refreshment of some kind. This custom-a compound product of hospitality and bad inns-lingered until lately in England, and perhaps is still not unknown in provincial towns.

On eating and drinking was spent the surplus now devoted to finery. No one then, except gentlemen of the first water, boasted of a gold snuff-box; even a goldheaded cane was an unusual elegance. The dandy contented himself with a silver watch. The fine lady blazoned herself with a gold watch and heavy chain; but it was an heirloom! To see a modern dinner service glittering with silver, glass, and china, and to think that even the nobility in those days ate off pewter, is enough to make the lapse of time very vivid to us. A silver tea-pot and tea-tray were held as princely magnificence. The manners were rough and simple. The journeymen ate at the same table with their masters, and joined in the coarse jokes which then passed for hilarity. Filial obedience was rigidly enforced, the stick or strap not unfrequently aiting parental authority. Even the brothers exercised an almost paternal authority over their sisters. Indeed, the position of women' was by no means such as our women can conceive with patience; not only were they kept under the paternal, marital, and fraternal yoke, but society limited their actions by its prejudices still more than it does now. No woman, for instance, of the better class of citizens could go out alone; the servant-girl followed her to church, to a shop, or even to the promenade..

The foregoing survey would be incomplete without some notice of the prices of things, the more so as we shall learn hereafter that the pension Karl August gave Schiller was 200 thalers-about £60 of our money-and that the salary Goethe received as Councillor of Legation, was only 1200 thalers-about £200 per annum. On reading this, Mr. Smith jingles the loose silver in his pockets, and, with that superb British pride, redolent of consols, which makes the family of Smith so accurate a judge of all social positions, exclaims: These beggarly Germans; I give my head clerk twice the sum!'

At the little court, Goethe was all but idolised. He dressed in the costume which he had assigned to his Werther,' and the dress was adopted by the duke and the courtiers. It was not very sentimental, as Mr. Lewes suggests, being composed of blue coat and brass buttons, top-boots and leather breeches, surmounted by powder and pig-tail! The duke, Karl August, though patronising literature in the person of Goethe, seems to have been somewhat idle and dissipated; the

There was also a

Dowager-duchess Amalia was more intellectual. Baroness von Stein, wife of the Master of the Horse, who captivated Goethe, and the attachment lapsed into a liaison, not uncommon in that court, but which Mr. Lewes passes over too slightly, as a matter of course. The poet, however, applied himself to business, was made President of the Chamber, Minister of the War Department, and, finally, elevated to the nobility. Henceforth he is Von Goethe. He gets tired, however, of public life; travels into Italy: and, by consent of the duke, is released, after his return to Weimar, from official duties. His passion for the Frau von Stein now cooled-all his love-scenes are dissolving views; but in the autumn of 1788, Goethe, walking in the much-loved park, was accosted by a fresh, young, bright-looking girl, who, with many reverences, handed him a petition. The petition contained a request that the great poet would exert his influence to procure a post for a young author, the brother of the maiden who then addressed him, and whose name was Christiane Vulpius. Christiane was humble in rank, clever, but not highly gifted-not a Frau von Stein.' She was, however, elevated to the same bad eminence in the poet's regard, and, fifteen years afterwards, when a son had been born to them-when Wilhelm Meister,' the Faust,' and Lyrics' had placed Goethe at the head of German authors-he married Christiane Vulpius. The sunset,' which Mr. Lewes put at the head of 'Book the Seventh,' had then commenced. But stirring incidents still remained-the battle of Jena and sack of Weimar, and, subsequently, the gratifying interview with Napoleon. Love-passages also were interposed, and the sexagenarian poet deposited with deep emotion many a sad experience in his fiction and poetry. All this German sentimentalism seems as unlike real life as the scenes in the sparkling comedies of Congreve or Wycherley. Goethe at seventy was younger, Mr. Lewes says, than many men at fifty. The second part of Faust' was completed in his eighty-first year, and at eighty-two he wrote a scientific paper on philosophic zoology. In his latter years his daughter-in-law kept house for him, Christiane having died in 18:6. The poet survived her nearly sixteen years. Mr. Lewes thus describes the last scene:

Death of Goethe.

The following morning-it was the 22d March 1832-he tried to walk a little up and down the room, but, after a turn, he found himself too feeble to continue. Reseating himself in the easy chair, he chatted cheerfully with Ottilie [his daughter-in-law] on the approaching spring, which would be sure to restore him. He had no idea of his end being so near. The name of Ottilie was frequently on his lips. She sat beside him, holding his hand in both of hers. It was now observed that his thoughts began to wander incoherently. See,' he exclaimed, the lovely woman's head. with black curls, in splendid colours-a dark background! Presently he saw a piece of paper on the floor, and asked them how they could leave Schiller's letters so carelessly lying about. Then he slept softly, and, on awakening, asked for the sketches he had just seen-the sketches of his dream. In silent anguish they awaited the close now so surely approaching. His speech was bec ming less and less distinct. The last words audible were, More light! The final darkness grow space, and he whose eter

nal longings had been for more light, gave a parting cry for it as he was passing under the shadow of death. He continued to express himself by signs, drawing letters with his forefinger in the air while he had strength; and finally, as life ebbed, drawing figures slowly on the shawl which covered his legs. At half-past twelve he composed himself in the corner of the chair. The watcher placed a finger on her lip to intimate that he was asleep. If sleep it was, it was a sleep in which a life glided from the world. He woke no more.

The influence which Goethe's writings exercised on all the literature of Europe has been noticed by Carlyle, and is fully traced by Mr. Lewes. He gives copious analyses of the principal worksespecially the Faust'-and on all points of the poet's history and his romances of the heart' (more properly of the imagination) we have ample details. No more original or exhaustive memoir has appeared since Lockhart's Life of Scott.' A new edition of Mr. Lewes's work, still further improved, was published in 1875.

MRS. OLIPHANT.

TO MRS. OLIPHANT, the distinguished novelist, we are indebted for two volumes of Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II.,' 1869, which appeared first in 'Blackwood's Magazine.' These consist of a series of short biographies, political, literary, and fashionable. Queen Caroline and Walpole head the list, and to these succeed the man of the world' (Chesterfield), the woman of fashion' (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), the poet' (Pope), the Young Chevalier (Charles Edward), the reformer' (John Wesley), the 'sailor' (Anson), the philosopher' (Berkeley), the novelist' (Richardson), the sceptic' (David Hume), and the painter' (Hogarth). The portraits in this little gallery are drawn with truth and nice discrimination, and give the reader a good idea of all the leading characteristics, the tastes and opinions, prevailing in the reign of the second George. Besides these Historical Sketches, Mrs. Oliphant has written two original and interesting biographies-the Life of Edward Irving,' and the Memoir of Count Montalembert,' the latter ‘a chapter of recent French history,' in which Montalembert was for thirty years, till his death in 1870, a conspicuous actor.

The Rev. Edward Irving (1799-1834) was a remarkable man, who, like George Whitefield, enjoyed amazing popularity as a preacher, but whose writings fail to give even a faint idea of his power and influence. De Quincey considered him the greatest orator of his times;' Coleridge and Carlyle were his intimate friends; George Canning heard the Scotch minister preach the most eloquent sermon he ever listened to;' Sir James Mackintosh, too, was a hearer, and treasured up a saying of Irving's while praying for an orphan family, thrown upon the fatherhood of God.' Hazlitt, Wordsworth, and Scott were all more or less attracted by this meteor, and for a time a whole host of distinguished, noble, and fashionable persons

witnessed his manifestations.* Around him in London were 'mad extremes of flattery, followed by madder contumely, by indifference and neg'ect' (Carlyle). Edward Irving was a native of Annan, Dumfriesshire; was educated at the university of Edinburgh; then assistant to Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow; afterwards minister of the Scottish Church in Hatton Garden, London, whence he removed to a larger church built for him in Regent Square. Whilst officiating in the latter, he was charged with heresy, and ultimately ejected by the trustees of the church, and deposed from the ministry by the presby tery of Annan, by whom he had been licensed. One of his delusions was a belief that the millennium would come in less than forty years. The heresy charged against him was maintaining the doctrine of the fallen state and sinfulness of our Lord's human nature' -the oneness of Christ with us in all the attributes of humanity. He had also introduced at his church manifestations of miraculous gifts and prophecy and unknown tongues, occasioning scenes of excitement and disorder. A number of his hearers still clung to him, and a sect of Irvingites' was formed, which is now represented by a body of Christians under the name of the Apostolic Catholic Church. Irving was profoundly convinced of the truth of what he preached. He clave to his belief as to his soul's soul,' says Mr. Carlyle, toiling as never man toiled to spread it, to gain the world's ear for it-in vain. Ever wilder waxed the confusion without and within. The misguided, noble-minded had now nothing left to do but die. He died the death of the true and brave.' His de th took place at Glasgow, December 8, 1934, in the forty-second year of his age. His last words were: If I die, I die unto the Lord. Amen.' Mrs. Oliphant adds: Scarce any man who knew him can yet name, without a softened voice and dimmed eye, the rame of Edward Irving-true friend and tender heart-martyr and saint.' When we open the works of Irving this mournful spell is broken. They are mostly written in a stilted, unnatural style. Their very titles betray them: i.e., For the Oracles of God,' Four Orations; 'For Judgment to Come, an Argument in Nine Parts,' 1823; and For Missionaries of the Apostolical School, a Series of Orations in Four_Parts,' 1825. Irving also published several volumes of Sermons, Lectures and Discourses.' A collection of the writings of the once popular divine has recently (1864–65) been published by his nephew, the Rev. G.

The personal appearance of Irving aided the effect of his preaching. He was a tall, athletic man, with dark, sallow complexion and commanding features, long glossy black hair, and with a very obvious squint. Sir Walter Scott, who met him one day at a dinner-party, says: I could hardly keep my eyes off him while we were at table. He put me in mind of the devil disguised as an angel of light, so ill did that horrible obliquity of vision harmonize with the dark tranquil features of his face, resembling that of our Saviour in Italian pictures, with the hair carefully arranged in the same manner.' It was a question with the ladies whether his squint was a grace or a deformity! One lady said he might have stood as a model for St. John the Baptist.

Carlyle. To the present generation,' says Mr. G. Carlyle, Edward Irving as a preacher and an author may be said to be unknown;' but the attempt to revive the writings has not, we believe, been success. ful. The 'Life,' as told by Mrs. Oliphant, and illustrated by his own journals and correspondence, constitutes his best and most durable memorial.

Foreign Memories.

There are some landscapes in the world in which foreign memories, alien to the place, and in some cases less touching and momentous than the natural local associations, thrust themselves in, and obscure to the spectator at once the rationality and individual character of the spot. The English traveller, when he climbs the height of Tusculum, has a scene before him full of the grandest memories of a past which is the common inheritance of the whole civilised world. His boyish lessons, his youthful studies, if they have done anything for him, have qualified him to identify every hillock, and hear a far-off voice out of every tomb. Or, if it is not old but modern Rome that charms him, there are a hundred lights on that Campagna, a thousand influences of sound and sense about, enough to move the least imaginative soul. Rome lying distant on the great plain-and the dome that Buonarotti hung between earth and heaven, standing out the one thing visible, full of suggestions of the treasures lying under and about it-are sufficient to overbrim the eager brain. How is it that, as we stand upon the wistful plateau with that great scene before us, Rome and her memories fade from our eyes? Shrivelling like a parched scroll' the plain rolls up and pisses away. The Highland hills all black with storms, the lonely, desolate, northern seas. the wild moors and mountain-passes, rise up a sad phantasmagoria over the gray olives and clustering vines. It is the wild pibroch that rings in our ears; it is the heather that rustles below our feet, and the chill of the north that breathes into our faces. Why? B cause yonder in the Duomo a line of inscription has caught the traveller's eye obliterating Frascati and Rome, and all Italian thoughts: Karolus Edoardus, Filius Jacobi. These are the words; and there lies the high heart mouldered into dust, which once beat against the breast of the Young Chevalier! ....

Shipwrecked, weary of life, shamed by his knowledge of better things, consumed by vain longings for a real existence such as never could be his, the Chevalier sank as, God help us! so many sluk into the awful abyss. To forget his misery, to deaden the smart of his ruin. what matters what he did? He lost in shame, in oblivion and painful decay, the phantasm which was life no longer-with other fantastic shadows -ill-chosen wife, ill-governed household, faithless and foolish favourites, a staring silly spectator-crowd-fitting across the tragic mist. A merciful tear springs to the eye, obscuring the fatal outlines of the last sad picture. There sank a man in wreck and ruin who was a noble prince when the days were. If he fell into degradation at the last, he was once as gallant, as tender. as spotless a gentleman as ever breathed English air or trod Scottish heather. And when the spectator stands by Canova's marble in the great basilica, in the fated land where, with ail the Cæsars, Charles Edward has slept for nearly a century, it is not the silver trumpets in the choir, nor the matchless voices in their Agnus Dei, that haunt the ear in the silence; but some rude long-drawn pibroch note, wailing over land and sea, wailing to earth and heaven, for a lost cause, a perished house, and, most of all, for the darkening, and shipwreck, and ruin of a gracious and princely soul.

George Whitefield and the Bristol Colliers.

The colliers of Kingswood, near Bristol, were proverbial for their savage character and brutality. They had no place of worship near them, and nobody so much as as dreamt of inquiring whether by chance they too might have souls to be saved. The wandering evangelist [Whitefield] saw, and with that instinct or inspiration which in a great crisis often seems to direct the instrument of Providence, saw his opportunity at a glance. On the afternoon of Saturday, February 17, 1739, breaking the iron decorum of the church, but not a single thread of the allegiance which bound him to her, he took his stand on a little summit in the benighted heathen district, and proclaimed to the gaping amazed populace the message they had never