frantic Dances of Death, but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to you, through your casement,-call (not giving you the name of the English poet's lady, but the name of Dante's great Matilda, who on the edge of happy Lethe, stood wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:"Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad Will you not go down among them?-among those sweet living things, whose new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep color of heaven upon it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of promise; and still they turn to you and for you, "The Larkspur listens-I hear, I hear! And the Lily whispers-I wait." 95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first stanza; and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now: "Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown. I am here at the gate, alone." Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden, alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maude but a Madeleine who went down to her garden in the dawn and found one waiting at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought Him often;-sought Him in vain, all through the night; sought Him in vain at the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set? He is never there; but at the gate of this garden He is waiting always-waiting to take your hand-ready to go down to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded. There you shall see with Him the little tendrils of the vines that His hand is guiding-there See note, p. 124. you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand cast the sanguine seed;-more: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers, that, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to each other between the vineyard rows, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." Oh-you queens-you queens; among the hills and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; and in your cities, shall the stones cry out against you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His head? INTRODUCTORY NOTE WALTER BAGEHOT, economist, journalist, and critic, was born at Langport, Somersetshire, February 3, 1826. He was the son of a banker, and after graduating at University College, London, and being called to the bar, he joined his father in business. In 1851 he went to Paris, and was there during the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon, of which he gave a vivacious account in letters to an English journal. Soon after his return he began to contribute his first series of biographical studies to the "Prospective Review" and the "National Review," of which latter he was for some time joint-editor. From 1860 to 1877 he was editor of the "Economist," and during this period he published his notable work on “The English Constitution,” his “Physics and Politics,” and his "Lombard Street: a Description of the Money Market." He died March 24, 1877. It is chiefly as one of the most brilliant and original of recent writers on political philosophy that Bagehot is known, but he holds also a distinct place as a critic of literature. He did not write criticism like a professional man of letters, and his production in this field is at times less fine in workmanship than that of some men of much less ability. But, in compensation, he was free from the tendency to the use of a technical literary dialect and to the excessive self-consciousness in style which mars so much modern work in this department. He wrote as a man of affairs with a vigorous mind and a gift of picturesque speech, a robust taste and a genuine love of letters. He always had something definite to say, and no one can read his discussion of such a man as Milton without feeling braced and stimulated by contact with an intellect of uncommon strength and incisiveness. JOHN MILTON' (1859) HE "Life of Milton," by Prof. Masson, is a difficulty for the critics. It is very laborious, very learned, and in the main, we believe, very accurate; it is exceedingly long, there are 780 pages in this volume, and there are to be two volumes more; it touches on very many subjects, and each of these has been investigated to the very best of the author's ability. No one can wish to speak with censure of a book on which so much genuine labor has been expended; and yet we are bound, as true critics, to say that we think it has been composed upon a principle that is utterly erroneous. In justice to ourselves we must explain our meaning. There are two methods on which biography may consistently be written. The first of these is what we may call the "exhaustive" method. Every fact which is known about the hero may be told us; everything which he did, everything which he would not do, everything which other people did to him, everything which other people would not do to him, may be narrated at full length. We may have a complete picture of all the events of his life; of all which he underwent, and all which he achieved. We may, as Mr. Carlyle expresses it, have a complete account "of his effect upon the universe, and of the effect of the universe upon him." We admit that biographies of this species would be very long, and generally very tedious; we The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time. By David Masson, M. A., Professor of English Literature in University College, London, Cambridge: Macmillan. An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton. By Thomas Keightley; with an Introduction to "Paradise Lost." London: Chapman & Hall. The Poems of Milton, with Notes by Thomas Keightley. Chapman & Hall. 2 Review of Lockhart's Scott. Copyright, 1891, by The Travelers Insurance Company London: |