the same name. Like his father, he was excellent at an epigram, and there are some good ones in this MS. He was living at "Bonis Hall," in Prestbury parish, at the time of his death, April 14, 1782. At the head of the verses he has written the words in pencil, "Bowdon Church," which is in Cheshire, near Manchester; but I have never met with any who remember to have seen the inscription there. He writes it thus: Our Life is but a Winter's Day: Others to dinner stay, and are full fed; The oldest man but sups and goes to bed. Long is his debt who lingers out ye day--Who goes the soonest has the least to pay The words seem to have been copied and placed upon a stone in the churchyard of Ashton-on-Mersey-bank in Cheshire, a few miles from Bowdon :"Here Resteth the body of William Alderley. Died Sep'ber the 8th, 1812. Aged 67 years.-Jane, Wife of William Alderley of Sale, who departed this life July 31 1808. Aged 62 years.--Ellen, daughter of William and Jane Alderley of Sale, who departed this life March 12th 1805. Aged 22 years. Our life is like a Winter's day; Some to breakfast only and away; Others to dinner stop and all full fed; The oldest man but sups and goes to bed. Large is his debt who lingers out the day,-Who goes the sooner has the least to pay." The idea that human life may be compared to time spent in an inn is found in Cicero, who says: "Ex vita ita discedo, tamquam ex hospitio" (Senect.,' 23); and later writers have adopted and amplified the thought. Dryden puts it thus:Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend; The World's an Inn, and Death the journey's end. ⚫ Palamon and Arcite,' iii. 887. In the translation of Gerhard's 'Meditations' published in 1840 we read: "We are in this life as it were in another man's house . . . In heaven is our home, in the world is our inn: do not so entertain thyself in the inn of this world for a day as to have thy mind withdrawn from the longings after thy heavenly home" (Meditation xxxviii.). John Gerhard, the author of this little work, frequently translated, died in 1637. It is recorded of Archbishop Leighton that he was wont to say that, if he were allowed the choice of a place to die in, it should be an inn-the "traveller's rest" as it is sometimes called. One Niccolo Capasso, an Italian poet of the last century, is reported to have written, for a friend who kept a tavern near Naples, some lines to be placed over the door. They may be thus rendered: Let us eat, my friends, let us drink and eat, But life has not only been likened to a brief sojourn at an inn; other similitudes have been employed, and it has been called a voyage, a play, a lottery, a winding road, a chequered shade, a flower, an April day, &c. That a single day has been frequently regarded as the epitome of a lifetime-the early dawn representing infancy and sunset old age -needs but brief notice, instances being numerous and familiar. Thus, on referring to St. John ix. 4, we see that the word "day" evidently means the course of active human life, in contrast with the night of death, when darkness closes in and worldly labours cease. And what's a life ?-a weary pilgrimage, To this I would add the concise description by Auguste de Piis of the chief events which go to make up an ordinary day; On s'éveille, on se lève, on s'habille, et l'on sort; Man's life is like a Winter's day: Others to dinner stay and are full fed, ETIENNE DOLET. Etienne Dolet, le Martyr de la Renaissance, sa Vie et sa Mort. Par Richard Copley Christie. Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglais par Casimir Stryienski.. (Paris, Fischbacher.) — That a work such as Mr. Christie's 'Etienne Dolet,' admirable in industry, keen in analysis, and exhaustive in research, which practically revealed to Frenchmen one of the most original of their race, should sooner or later be translated into French was a foregone conclusion. It is fortunate for scholarship that the translation has been accomplished under the author's own direction, and that the French version, which incorporates all Mr. Christie's recent discoveries, is in fact a new, revised, and enlarged edition. In the bibliographical portion of the work the result of Mr. Christie's later labors is most conspicuously appar ent. The dispersal of two or three great libraries has brought within reach some unknown publications of Dolet's press. Further additions have accordingly been made to the list of Dolet's produc tions, already little short of double the length of that furnished by his French biographer Boulmier. Three works previously unknown, one of them being an edition of Marot's translation of the Psalms, are for the first time described, while in sixteen other cases books which had been mentioned at second-hand have now undergone Mr. Christie's personal investigation and collation. From the list, meanwhile, two books concerning which some doubt was previously felt are now definitely rejected. Of the eighty-three books assigned to Dolet's press, sixty-seven have passed through Mr. Christie's hands and undergone his close and trustworthy scrutiny. The knowledge of the bibliophile as to the scarcity of works from the press of Dolet is necessary to estimate aright the amount of perseverance and good fortune involved in this portion of the book. In the body of the work some important additions are traceable. Of these the most noteworthy consists of a document Mr. Christie has found in the municipal archives of Lyons. This deed, which is dated "10 Juillet, 1542," is, with the exception of a few words which cannot be deciphered, printed as a note. It is an act to renew for six years an earlier act of association between Dolet and a certain Helayn Dulin. It reveals for the first time the name of Dolet's wife, Loyse, otherwise Louise, Giraud, concerning whose parentage Mr. Christie has some ingenious conjectures; and it settles definitely how it came to pass that Dolet was able, in a city in which he had served no apprenticeship, and was regarded as an intruder by his fellow printers, to obtain the funds necessary to purchase his presses and establish himself in business. The money, it is evident, was supplied him by the Helayn Dulin in question, who was the "moneyed partner." In addition to this important discovery other matters of interest are brought to light. From the 'Deux Dialogues du Nouveau Langage François Italianizé' of Henri Estienne is extracted a passage in which the services of Dolet as a grammarian are recognized. Such other enlargement as we trace consis s of Mr. Christie's response to M. O. Douen, who, in two articles in the Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire du Protestantisme. subsequently reprinted with the title 'Etienne Dolet, ses Opinions Religieuses,' claims Dolet as "un Catholique biblique, à moitié réformé." This reply reaffirms the opinions upon Dolet maintained throughout the volume, and backed by a weight of authority which few will be found to dispute. In all bibliographical respects the book is attractive. The translation is vigorous and accurate. In its new shape and with its admirably comprehensive index Mr. Christie's great work constitutes an important and, as time will doubtless prove, a welcome addition to French literature. :0: MILTON AND EYFORD. About two miles from Stow-on-the-Wold, in Gloucestershire, in a little sequestered valley, through which glides a purling stream, stands Eyford, a charming hamlet in the parish of Upper Slaughter. A few years ago there stood there a pleasant villa, since pulled down, once the country seat of the Earls of Shrewsbury, and there the twelfth earl entertained William III. in 1695. Rudder tells us that on the estate, "in a summer-house, built over a cascade long since fallen into ruins, the inimitable Milton wrote part of his 'Paradise Lost."" Rudder published his History of Gloucestershire in 1779, and, so far as I know, was the first person to give birth to this tradition about Milton, which is still a pious belief in the neighborhood. Neither Bigland nor Sir Robert Atkyns makes the slightest allusion to any such legend. Now one does not want to be an iconoclast of local tradition, but one would like to know where Rudder got this notion about Milton; for not only is there not a scrap of evidence to prove that Milton was ever in Gloucestershire in his life, but also the Earls of Shrewsbury were Cavaliers till the twelfth earl espoused the cause of William of Orange in 1687. So that Eyford could hardly ever have been a place open to Milton, who died in 1674. Not only that, but we are informed, on the authority of Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, of the curious psychological fact that Milton could never write poetry freely-that his vein never happily flowed-but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal. Incidentally this bears somewhat on the question, forit shows that he was not likely to draw his inspiration from hours in the summer spent with dædal nature, but that his imagination was most lively when away from the scenes of his fancy. Thus there was no need for delightful Eyford to aid him in courting the Muse, even could he have seen its charms. He became totally blind early in 1652, and did not (according to Masson) begin the 'Paradise Lost' seriously till 1658, so that, as it was published in 1667, he actually followed Horace's famous rule, "nonumque prematur in annum." Mark Pattison thought Phillips "transposed the seasons," and takes upon himself, therefore, to say that "Milton's vein flowed only from the vernal to the autumnal equinox." But, with all due deference to the late Rector of Lincoln, I cannot but think Phillips's account correct. Jean Paul Richter finds no difficulty in accepting that account implicitly, and says boldly in the 'Hesperus,' "Milton poetized in winter." Eyford is indeed a most delightful spot, and one would gladly believe the tradition if one could. But truth is paramount. Often and often have I sat by Milton's Well, and felt most forcibly the genius loci. And a charming embodiment of the local tradition and description of the spot is still to be seen, inscribed just twenty years ago on the wall near the well, which is covered in by a dome above. The punctuation is, it will be seen, very sparing. In the tenth line, "Ey ford's" (sic)-the hamlet is sometimes spelt Eyeford-apparently an e after the y had been originally intended on the stone and finally expunged. So I take it: MILTON'S WELL. Tis said amidst these lovely glades Each object here that greets he eye But beauteous Nature reigns supreme W. H. C. Plowden, Esqr. Who Restored and Embellished [sic] this Ancient Well in the Year 1866 BESIDE THIS SPRING MILTON WROTE PARADISE LOST. A. R. SHILLETO. SHELLEY'S LETTERS. The interest which has been manifested of late years in England respecting the life and writings of Shelley, and which seems to us to have been promoted and stimulated by a set of fussy literary aspirants rather than by the just and generous admiration of the more intelligent portions of his countrymen-this interest, we say, has brought to light many reminiscences of this greatly gifted and much ill used man of genius, who is as largely over-praised now as he was underrated in his life-time, and has rescued from oblivion several of his minor pieces and a number of his letters. He was not a letterwriter, in the sense that Byron was, and Cowper and Pope that is to say, he was not noted for his letters, as they were for theirs, but in view of the little that is really known of him at certain periods in his career, anything from his own hand about himself and his doings, is not without value to his biographers, and, worthless as it may be in itself, is highly prized by his worshippers, who are willing to pay a good many guineas for little scraps of his writing. His correspondence, which is not voluminous as compared with that of Byron and Cowper, has lately been enlarged by two letters, which have hitherto been unknown, and which are stated to be in the Bodleian collection of autographs. The first of these letters, which dates from Eton at the period between his Eton and Oxford life, is fairly interesting, not merely for its characteristic style and its allusion to his novel of Zastrozzi, but as being earlier than any other letter yet published, with one exception, which may be found in Vol. III., pp. 328-9, of Forman's edition of Shelley's prose works. It is addressed to Edward Grabam, Esq., No. 29 Vine street, Piccadilly, and is as follows: ETON, April 1, 1810. MY DEAR GRAHAM-I will see you at aster. Next Friday I shall be in London, but for a very short time. Unable to call on you till Pa-sion Week. Robinson will take no trouble about the reviewers. Let everything proper be done about the venal villains, and I will settle with you when we meet at Easter. We will all go in a posse to the booksellers in Mr Grove's barouche and four-show them we are no Grub street Gazetteers. But why Harriet more than any one else? A faint essay, I see, in return for my inquiry for Caroline. We will not be cheated again. Let us come over York; for if he will not give me a devil of a price for my poem, and at least £60 for my new Romance in three volumes, the dog shall not have them. Pouch the reviewers-£10 will be sufficient, I should suppose: and that I can with the greatest ease repay when we meet at Passion Week. Send the reviews in which Zastrozzi is mentioned to Field Place. The British Review is the hardest-let that be pouched well. My note of hand, if for any larger sum, is quite at your service, as it is of consequence in future to establish your name as high as you can in the literary lists. Adieu. Yours most devotedly, PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Let me hear how you proceed in the business of reviewing. The only note that this epistle seems to call for is. regarding the word "pouch," which we are told is an Eton slang word, only lately superseded by "tip." Graham was requested to "tip" the reviewers, in order to obtain favorable notices, particularly those of the British Review, which was the hardest of the lot, and which Byron chaffed so unmercifully a few years later in Don Juan. The second letter, which has no address, is like the majority of Shelley's letters which Hogg has preserved for us, being at once pedantic and dull. AUGUST 12, 1812. DEAR SIR-Your reasons do not convince me. A buman being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as what is a part of a machine, intended only to contribute to some general joint result. He was created not to be merged in the whole as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on the sea shore, and to aid only in composing a man. He is an ulti ate being, made for his own perfection as his highest end, made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual, to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more important than the invisible, and an outward authority more important than his own secret conscience. Rulers have called the private man the property of the state, meaning generally by the state themselves, and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have even believed that this was their highest destination. These views cannot be too earnestly withstoo. Nothing seems to me so needful as to give the mind the consciousness-which governments have done so much to suppress-of its own separate work. Let the individual feel that he is placed in the community not to part with his individuality, or to become a tool. To me, the progress of society co sists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his mind. No man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effectually, so fervently, as he who is not their slave; as he who, casting off every yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit. Individually or moral self-subsistence, is the secret foundation of an all comprehending love. No man so multiplies his bonds with the community as he who watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the state and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever called to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the State. But his soul he must never stain or enslave. In my next I shall proceed to point out some of the means by which this spiritual liberty may be advanced. I have neither inclination nor room to say more. Write soon, and believe me ever yours. PERCY B. SHELLEY. Mr. Matthew Arnold somewhere expresses the notion that Shelley stands a better chance of being remembered by his prose than by his poetry-a notion which no reader of Shelley is likely to entertain for a moment, and which was probably promulgated by Mr. Arnold in order to show his superiority to the majority of his fellow-critics. When Shelley is remembered for his prose, Mr. Arnold will be remembered for his tragedy of Merope; until that time shall come, he will be remembered for Sohrab and Rustuin and Obermann, as Shelley is remembered for Alastor, Adonaias, and Prometheus Unbound. The volume in the Bodleian which contains these letters contains a version of Shelley's 'Ode to the Assertors of Liberty,' which varies considerably from the second poem. As it is nowhere given complete in its present form, the lovers of Shelley's poetry may like to include it in their editions of his works. The variations are printed in italics: ODE FOR MUSIC. Arise, arise, arise! There is blood on the land which denies ye bread; To weep for the dead-the dead-the dead! Your wives, your babes, your brethren were they, Awaken, awaken, awaken! The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes; To the dust where your kindred repose--repose. Wave, wave high the banner, Glory, glory, glory, For those whɔ have greatly suffered and dare! Was brighter than that which ye shall have won. Bind, bind every brow With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine! Hide the bloodstains now. With the hues which sweet nature has made tivine, Gather, O gather Foemen and friend in love and peace! Waves sleep together When the blasts that call them to the battle cease. N. Y. Mail. A VOLUME BY THOMAS MIDDLETON. A few days since it was my great good fortune to discover a unique and hitherto perfectly unknown volume by Thomas Middleton. No other copy of any edition of this book is known, and even the title is unrecorded by all bibliographers. The title-page reads thus:-" Honorable Entertainments Compos'de for the Seruice of this Noble Cittie. Some of which were fashion'd for the Entertainment of the Lords of his Maiesties most Honorable Priuie Councell, upon the Occasion of their late Royall Employment. Inuented by Thomas Middleton. Imprinted at London by G. E. 1621.” It is dedicated to the Lord Mayor, Sir Francis Jones, the Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Recorder, all of whose names are given; amongst the Aldermen included in the dedication is a Sir Thomas Middleton. The titles of the "Entertainments," ten in number, are as follows: 1. "On Monday and Tuesday in Easter weeke 1820 the first Entertainment, at the house of the right worthy Sr William Cokaine the L. Mayor which on the Saturday following was fashioned into Seruice for the Lords. of his Majesties most Hoble Priuy Councell; upon which day, that noble Marriage was celebrated betwixt the Right Hoble Charles L. Howard, Baron of Effingbam, and Mary, eldest Daughter of the said Sr William Cokaine, then L. Mayor of London, and L. Generall of the Military forces." 2. "At Bun-hill on the Shooting day; Another habited like an Archer did thus greet the L. Mayor and Aldermen after they were placed in their tent." 3. Upon the renewing of that worthy and Lauda, ble Custome of Visiting the Springs and Conduite Heads, for the Sweetnesse and Health of the City." 4. "A spee h intended for the generall Training, being appointed for the Tuesday next ensuing the visitation of the Springs, but upon some occasion, the day differed." 5. "Upon Simon and Judes day following, being the last great Feast of the Magistrates Yeare, and the expiration of his Pretorship." 6. "The Last Will and Testament of 1620 finishing for the City." 10. "Here followes the worthy and Noble Entertainments of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Councell; at the Houses of the Lord Mayor, and Sheriffes." The collation is table one leaf, "Entertainments" twenty-seven leaves, size small octavo. I think it probable that this book was privately printed by Middleton, and copies presented to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and other high officers; the vagueness of the imprint strengthens this supposition. I am pleased to say that it is a very fine, large, and clean copy. FRANK A. WHEELER. A TROUVAILLE. Poems written during the progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between the years 1830 and 1838. By John G. Whittier. Boston: Published by Isaac Knapp, No 25 Cornhill. 1837. A thin 12mo in a dingy brown cloth cover, with the title stamped askew on the side, 'Poems by J. G. Whittier.' A fairly executed steel plate illustrates Cowper's poem, The Morning Dream,' two pages. A blank leaf follows, and then the book proper, with the title given above. The editor says his wish to bind together "the fugitive pieces which compose this little volume" was strengthened in his mind by "the knowledge that the author is himself but too careless of preserving their form, as long as their spirit is kindling up [sic] in the community." The book is adorned with tail-pieces, to supply which the printer has used a lot of cuts evidently designed to illustrate the catalogue of some gardener or of an agricultural fair. It contains 103 pages. It is so rare that Leon Brothers catalogued it at $10; and so few have seen it that perhaps this notice is permissible. But my object in writing was to encourage the noble at of bookhunting by remarking that I picked up my copy last week, and in a book store, for twenty cents! Paterson, N. J., Sept. 28, 1886. WM. NELSON. DOROTHY WORDSWORTH Of Mr. Lee's monograph of Dorothy Wordsworth which has the misfortune to remind us of a certain passage in the Simone of Alfred de Musset: Dès qu'il nous vient une idée The Saturday Review says:-"Mr. Lee has chosen a canvass too large for his subject; or, at all events, larger than he is able to fill. What should have sufficed for a magazine article of moderate dimensions he has expanded to an octavo of over two hundred pages; and he has effected this mainly by lavishly padding his narrative with extracts in verse and prose, and by interposing reflections and sentiments whicb, it must be confessed, are not seldom of the platitudinous order. As a matter of fact, it is really very difficult to detach the figure of Miss Wordsworth from the distinguished group of which she was an unobtrusive but all-important member; and Mr. Lee's memoir is consequently rather a patchwork of gossip about Wordsworth, the Coleridges, the Lambs, De Quincey, and Lockhart than a study of the single personage whose name it bears. Of course, it is in the nature of things that, to some extent, this should be so. To withhold, suppress, efface her own individuality for the sake of those about her seems to have been this lady's "sole existence"; and when one pictures her tramping through Quantock's "sylvan combs" while Coleridge reason'd high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost, or followed her brother's walk as he went "booing" along, evolving what he would probably have described as "a chain of extremely valooable thoughts," it is hard to resist the thought that the privileges of "plain living and high thinking" afforded by that distinguished companionship must also have had their drawbacks. And Dorothy Wordsworth's life did certainly not consist wholly in the interchange of "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." At Racedown, and in the small Grasmere home, she must have known many of the trials of the domestic drudge-that domestic drudge who, according to an unimpeachable authority, Mr. Barry Lydnon, is your only help meet for man. Most of the cares of that modest ménage must have fallen upon her shoulders, and, like the inordinate pedestrianism in which she joined, have taxed her strength to the utmost, laying the fatal seed of the sad and vacant evening of her life. From 1832, when she had a severe illness, until 1855, when she died, she never wholly recovered her mental powers, and the spring and elasticity of her nature was gone. But in her prime she must have been a unique companion and confidant to that sublime poet and (may we say it without fear of the Wordsworth Society!) equally sublime egotist, her brother William. How much he owed to her-how much his poetry owed to her-we shall never with certainty know: She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; "Her taste," says Coleridge, "is a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and draws in at sublimest beauties and most recondite faults." Her own verses, of which Mr. Lee gives some examples, seem to suggest that in a certain line-the line of children's poetry-she might easily have won a reputation; while her letters and journals are charmingly fresh in their choice of words, and vivid in their presentment of natural objects. Here, for instance, is her description of the historical daffodils- a description which fully warrants the praise of Lockhart: When we were in the woods below Gow barrrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the water's side. As we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw there was a long belt of them along the shore. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy sto es about them. Some rested their heads on these stones as on a pillow; the rest tossed, and reeied, and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, they looked so gay and glancing. Fortunate in many things, the author of The Prelude was supremely fortunate in his womankind. To have beer blessed with such a wife as Mary Hutchinson was much; but surely fate dealt with a more than benignant hand when she gave him such a sister as Dorothy Wordsworth." |