know Bettina until she herself called on me this autumn. At her first visit she remained with me more than three hours, and, although I disliked her restless manners, yet she is capable of really prophetic utterances, she is a genuine poet, even in conversation, and-the greatest proof of her worth-she has brought up her three daughters and three sons admirably. The sons are held up as models of energetic, philanthropic land-owners and adore their mother. . . . She is a noble, kind-hearted woman, whose philanthropy is guided by common sense.'

Besides Niebuhr and Arndt, Mrs Austin made friends at Bonn with that connoisseur of ancient philosophies, Christian August Brandis. The latter had an unconquerable dislike for Varnhagen von Ense, husband of the brilliant Rahel von Varnhagen, whose niece, Ludmilla Assing, had just published a further collection of letters from the inexhaustible mass of literary gossip and garbage which her uncle had left behind him. Brandis gave vent to his feelings on this subject in the following letter to Mrs Austin:

'March 7, 1860.

'A melancholy literary event has lately occurred, namely the appearance of Alexander von Humboldt's letters to Varnhagen von Ense. Our great naturalist was weak enough to overestimate Varnhagen von Ense's talent for glib delineation, and to make this unprincipled man the recipient, in notes and interviews, of outbursts of bitter feeling, and to give him many interesting letters addressed to himself from highly-placed people, such as Metternich, etc., for the sake of the autographs. Varnhagen's niece has now published these notes and letters, together with the memoranda of conversations with Humboldt; but there can be no doubt that Varnhagen had already prepared all this for publication. I hope this shameful work, which lays bare Humboldt's weaknesses in so melancholy a form, will never be translated into English.'

Sarah Austin had also exchanged a number of letters with Alexander von Humboldt. This occurred when, after her translation of Ranke's 'Popes' had met with such a brilliant reception, she entertained the idea of translating Humboldt's 'Ansichten der Natur' into English. But, perhaps because he was a courtier, it seemed as though she could not feel altogether in

sympathy with Humboldt's personality; and it may have been for this reason that she abandoned her project, which cannot have greatly pleased Humboldt. Sarah Austin's translations were true interpretations. The philosophical writer, Friedrich Wilhelm Carové, a modest light beside the star Humboldt, when he was so fortunate as to be translated into English by Sarah Austin, expressed his gratitude for her art in the following humble words: I almost blushed, just as a lily of the valley might hang its head when it found itself placed in a richly gilt vase.'

Sarah Austin's daughter was not unworthy of her mother. Twenty-two years after the death of Lady Duff Gordon, Mrs Ross, at the instigation of her friend, John Addington Symonds, published in 'Murray's Magazine,' under the title Some Translations of Heine,' translations by her mother of a number of Heine's poems. She prefaced these translations by a few words in regard to her mother's relations with the German poet-words which were based on Lady Duff Gordon's own reminiscences. These reminiscences had been written at the request of her friend Lord Houghton for his work 'Monographs, Personal and Political.' Mrs Ross also refers to her mother's acquaintance with Heine in her book Three Generations of English Women.'

It did credit to this beautiful woman that, in her prime, she should often have forsaken the brilliant society in the midst of which her life in Paris was passed, to visit the martyr in his mattress grave,' and devote many hours to him. It does credit to the invalid poet that, already more spirit than body as he was, he should have been able from that grave to captivate one of the loveliest women of his day.

It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer in August 1833. Little Lucie Austin, a child of twelve with great brown eyes and beautiful hair which fell in long plaits down her back, was seated at the table d'hôte chattering in German to her mother, Sarah Austin. The charming little girl at once attracted the notice of the pale, sickly man who sat beside her, the more so because she gazed up at him with pitying eyes. The stranger got into conversation with Lucie and said, jestingly: When you go back to

England you may tell your friends that you have seen Heinrich Heine.' The child looked in wonder at the strange man and asked: And who is Heinrich Heine?' This amused him greatly, and he introduced himself as a German poet. It was to Lucie Austin, therefore, that the verses in the Buch der Lieder' were addressed;

'When early in the morning

I pass thy house, sweet child,
I look up to your window
And meet your glances mild.

'So searchingly your dark brown eyes

My features seem to scan:

"Who art thou, and what ails thee,

Thou stranger pale and wan?"

'I am a German poet

Well known in German land;
Where the first names are written
My own with right may stand.

'And what ails me, dear maiden,

Ails many in my land;

Where bitterest griefs are mentioned

My own with right may stand.'

Lucie and Heine spent hours chatting together on the pier. The child sang English ballads to him, and, in return, he told her gruesome tales of strange fish and sea-monsters, and of a queer old French fiddler who bathed three times a day with his black poodle, and to whom the water fairies brought greetings from the North Sea. For was not Heine on a more confidential footing with the sea and the fairies than any other German poet? And was not Heine's 'Flying Dutchman' the precursor of Richard Wagner's opera of the same name? Little Lucie spent many delightful weeks in the company of the German poet, who once jestingly called himself the 'Court poet of the North Sea.'

Eighteen years had passed since that time; Lucie had become a celebrated beauty and had married Sir Alexander C. Duff Gordon. In 1851, Lady Duff Gordon, then thirty years of age, came with her husband to Paris. She was staying at the house of her friend Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, and she heard by chance that.

Heine was living in the Rue Amsterdam close by. They told her the German poet had fallen on evil days, that he was very ill and had to contend besides with financial difficulties. She sent to inquire whether he still remembered the little English girl to whom he had told such pretty fairy tales at Boulogne. He begged her to come and see him without delay; and the dying poet and the vigorous young beauty revelled in reminiscences. It was with difficulty that Lady Duff Gordon controlled the emotion which overcame her at the sight of the poet's sufferings. He lay there in his 'mattress grave,' which his descriptions have made so familiar to us; his body was so emaciated it seemed like that of a child; his eyes were closed, and his face altogether like the most painful and wasted Ecce Homo ever painted by some old German painter.' His spirit had obviously wholly survived his body. He raised his powerless eyelids with his thin, white fingers and exclaimed: Yes, Lucie still has the same great big eyes.' He then asked her to bring her husband to see him, and expressed the hope that, as a woman, she was no less happy than the merry child had been. She replied that she was no longer so gay as she used to be, but that she was happy and contented, nevertheless. To which Heine remarked: That is delightful. It does one good to see a woman who does not carry about a broken heart to be mended by all sorts of men, as the women do in this country. They are not aware of what really ails them-lack of heart."

6

·

A few years later, in the autumn of 1855, Lady Duff Gordon was again on a visit to Paris, where she stayed for two months. Heine meanwhile had moved to the Champs Elysées, and his English friend was also staying in that part of Paris. The beautiful woman sent him a message expressing her desire to see him again, whereupon he scrawled these words in pencil :

"Most revered great Britannic goddess Lucie! I sent word to you by the servant that I am ready to receive your godship on any day and at any hour convenient to you. Ne tardez plus à venir! Venez aujourd'hui, venez demain, venez souvent. Vous demeurez si près de moi, to the poor shade in the Elysian Fields. Do not keep me waiting too long. I am sending with this the first four volumes of the French edition of my unhappy works. Meanwhile I await your coming and

am your godship's most humble and devoted adorer, Heinrich Heine.'

Only a few minutes later his English friend was at his side. I found him,' she tells us, still on the pile of mattresses on which I had left him three years before; more ill he could not look, for he looked dead already, and wasted to a shadow. When I kissed him, his beard felt like swan's down or baby's hair, so weak had he grown; and his face seemed to me to have gained a certain beauty from pain and suffering. He was very affectionate to me, and said: "I have now made my peace with the whole world, and at last also with God, who sends thee to me as a beautiful angel of death. I shall cotainly soon die." To which she replied: "Poor poet, do you still retain such splendid illusions, that you transform a travelling Englishwoman into Azrael? That used not to be the case, for you always disliked He answered: "Yes, I do not know what possessed me to dislike the English, and be so spiteful towards them; but it really was only petulance; I never hated them, indeed, I never knew them. I was only once in England, but knew no one, and found London very dreary, and the people in the streets odious. But England had revenged herself well; she has sent me most excellent friends-thyself and Milnes, that good Milnes, and others."'*

us.

For two months Lady Duff Gordon visited the poet several times a week. Heine rejoiced even in the worst translations of his works, but he was extremely anxious to be well translated into English. He was aware of Lady Duff Gordon's talent for translation, and he therefore requested her to interpret his muse to the English, offered to make her a present of the English rights of all his works, gave her full powers to omit anything in the English edition which seemed to her unsuitable, and drew up a plan for a different arrangement of the poems. He was as eager as a child to see her set to work and to have her translations read to him. He sent her copies of all his works, and urged her to translate his 'Lieder' into prose; but this was contrary to her feeling in the

223-26.

Three Generations of English Women.' By Janet Ross, Vol. 1, pp.