FRASER'S MAGAZINE FOR MAY, 1856,

CONTAINS,

COLLEGE LIFE AT GLASGOW.

THE UNITED STATES, CUBA, AND CANADA.

A RIVER IN THE SOUTH.

KATE COVENTRY. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. EDITED BY THE AUTHOR OF 'DIGBY GRAND.' CHAPTERS XVII. TO XX.

SKETCHES ON THE NORTH COAST. BY A NATURALIST. No. II.—THE ROCKS IN SPRING.

SONNET TO MAY.

M. MONTALEMBERT AND JOHN WILSON CROKER; OR, Traduttore

Traditore.

OLD RINGS. PART III.

ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE.

THE NEW PITAVAL.

THE TREATY.

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Editor of FRASER'S MAGAZINE does not undertake to return papers that are sent to him for consideration.

FRASER'S MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1856.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL ABROAD.

III.

SCENE-The same wood near Spa. The same persons present.

MILVERTON.

Yes, Ellesmere, my love for woods is unabated. There is so much largeness, life, and variety in them. Even the way in which the trees interfere with one another, the growth which is hindered, as well as that which is furthered, appears to me most suggestive of human life; and I see around me things that remind me of governments, churches, sects, and colonies. Then one is not molested by tiresome, noisy winds, which, though they may be good things for health, are a hinderance to thought. A little bit of a breeze now and then strays into the wood, but it is innocuous. Regardless of it, the fungi expand, the dead boughs maintain their hold, and the flimsiest insects are not discomposed. Every wood is full of history and antiquity. But if you were to ask me what I prefer most in natural scenery, it would not be a wood.

What then?

ELLESMERE.

MILVERTON.

There are two kinds of scenery which fascinate a man: one connected with his early associations, the other corresponding with his character. You know that little rill behind our inn, which bubbles down amidst great stones. I was thinking this morning, as I watched it, how unutterably fond of such a rill, throughout his life, any man would be who had been born near it. My first recollections are of a pond, and you may laugh as you please, but life seems somewhat insupportable to me without a pond -a squarish pond, not over clean. You will ask me why I do not make one at Worth-Ashton. Perhaps, as the years go on, I shall, and totter feebly about it in second childhood, having returned, as we all do, to our first love. You are smiling at me. I see you are unworthy to have a pond, and that you do not know the beauties of it. Thither come the more contemplative insects, and sit upon the waters, or perch upon the top of the reeds. Quiet old fish, who have seen much of life, make their lazy waving way through the dull waters. You can trace their movements by the light ripples on the top, even when you cannot see the fish themselves. Then, perhaps, there is a majestic water-lily (there was one in my early suburban pond); and what can be more glorious to behold? And then, too, however small the pond, the sky is to be seen in it. And, as the little ill-shaped bit of glass, in which some exquisite rustic beauty is wont at morning and at evening time to see her fair self reflected, gains (oh, how surely in the eyes of her lover!) a dignity and a felicity from reflecting daily the most beautiful thing in the Creation that we know anything of, a beautiful woman,-so my little pond will never be despised by the ardent lover of Nature, while in its stillness it mirrors completely (giving even more repose to the great scene) the choicest wonder of the physical world.

ELLESMERE.

Oh! how these fine gentlemen, who know how to put big and soft words in the right places (as they think), can make anything out of any other thing. If a pond, why not a puddle? Please, Milverton, set up puddles as something grand.

MILVERTON.

You are unfortunate in your ridicule.

VOL. LIII. NO. CCCXIII.

S-, whom you particularly

A

admire as a rising statesman, and who is half a poet, said to me one night as we were pacing the wet streets of London, This is a constant delight to me, to see the long lines of reflected light in the wheel-tracks with their graceful curves.' Have I not spoken up for puddles now?

But you must let me tell you a story about the late Lord Melbourne; it is so much to the point. He went one night to a minor theatre, in company with two ladies and a fashionable young fellow about town-a sort of man not easy to be pleased.

The performance was dull and trashy enough, I dare say. The next day Lord Melbourne called upon the ladies. The fashionable young gentleman had been there before his lordship, and had been complaining of the dreadfully dull evening they had all passed. The ladies mentioned this to Lord Melbourne. 'Not pleased! not pleased! Confound the man! Didn't he see the fishmongers' shops, and the gas-lights flashing from the lobsters' backs, as we drove along? wasn't that happiness enough for him ?'

Lord Melbourne had then ceased to be Prime Minister, but you see he had not ceased to take pleasure in any little thing that could give it. Great men are ever young. Indeed, I do not know whether that would not form the best definition of them. You look incredulous, Ellesmere. You doubt the greatness of Lord Melbourne. Well, if not a great man, he had, at any rate, the makings of a great man in him. But, however, that is not so much the point: I was to speak up for puddles; and I think I have spoken.

ELLESMERE.

Oh! I give up, I give up. There is no contending with this man of many words and skilful anecdotes. Have your pond, if you like, and enjoy it, and make it out to be one of the finest things in the world. A philosopher's tub is a palace, we all know; but somehow or other I do not find that philosophers are particularly fond of living in tubs. I will own that where there is a large young family, a pond may be useful, if it be deep enough.

But wait a moment. Did you ever fish in your pond, my friend?

MILVERTON.

Yes, a great deal; until, unfortunately, one day I caught a fish. It seemed so unhappy at being introduced into upper air, and made such a fuss about it, that I sympathized with the poor creature, and resolved to fish no more. It was not my business to supply the London market, and therefore I did not seek to conquer the repugnance I felt at seeing any creature suffer pain.

It was a little incident of a different kind, which I may as well tell you, my dear Ellesmere, that made me give up as far as I could, the practice of sarcasm. I was endeavouring once to serve and make happy some poor fellow, and something always happened to prevent my service being of any good. The creature was always tumbling down, however much I tried to keep him on his legs. Suddenly it beamed upon me, 'What a difficult thing it is to serve, aid, or encourage any human being: upon my word, I'll think twice before I say anything needlessly to hurt anyone. is so hard to redress the matter-not merely to the individual, but to mankind in general.'

ELLESMERE.

It

Well! if there is anything I dislike, it is being talked at. Everybody must see that all this depreciation of sarcasm is meant at me. Whereas I merely say the things which you wish to have said-even against yourself. That is the reason you like to have me so much with you. Some day I will set up to be perfectly amiable, and then everybody will drop my acquaintance. You would be the first to do so, Milverton.

MILVERTON.

Ah! Ellesmere, if no one were more satirical than you-at least more unkind in their satire-the world would go on well enough.

BLANCHE.

But the second kind of scenery, what of that?

1856.]

Large and Suggestive Seenery.

MILVERTON.

3

That, my love, as I said before, depends upon character. I found this out accidentally. I perceived that, though I had much respect for mountains, a quiet liking for lakes, and a great regard for rivers, there was a kind of scenery which might, or might not include these beauties might, or might not, be famous in guide-books, but which enchained and enchanted me. I have seen the same thing in the arid plains of Castille, and in the verdure-clad scenery of the Tyrol. Its characteristics are great extent and boundlessness. It is not the scenery which you look down upon from some height, and appreciate at once; but flowing scenery-suggestive scenery,-scenery in which your mind travels easily beyond that which you actually see. There is a picture of Poussin's in the National Gallery which would explain what I mean. There is also a scene in real life, that opens upon you just beyond the little town of Holzkirchen, on the borders of the Tyrol, and which exactly coincides with what I admire,-where everything is broad, large, fluent, expansive.

MIDHURST.

I like the vast plains about Leipsic, in the evening.

MILVERTON.

Ah! you see, you like what is gloomy, as well as what is large; but I hardly care whether the landscape smiles or frowns, so that it is large in itself, and suggests far more. It was at that very spot, near the Tyrol, where it occurred to me that what I liked in natural scenery was exactly what I liked in human character, and that largeness and suggestiveness formed my only measure of a man's companionship. You behold a fierce river forcing its way through rocky impediments. It is a very interesting scene; but I am soon tired of it in man, as in nature, and prefer the wide undulating prairie which leads you know not whither, where you guide yourselves by the points of the compass, as in talking with a man of like character you refer only to first principles, and seldom condescend to enter upon the minute rules and mere conventional proprieties which form the staple of other men's thoughts and conversation.

ELLESMERE.

Charmingly vague! And on these wide expanses, may I ask, is there ever an hotel where one might get a dinner? Not that my friend Mr. Midhurst cares about such sublunary things. Who, on the wide plains of Leipsic, condescends to poor formalities of that kind?

MILVERTON.

There may, or may not be, human habitations in the scenery I speak of. It is large enough to admit them. It is too large to be subdued by them.

ELLESMERE.

How about tithes? My worthy friend to the left (Mr. Dunsford) has imparted to me in confidence his opinion, that an untithed country has always a ragged and miserable appearance. [There was no standing this sally, and we all laughed.] I see you are not disposed to answer me. Each of you thinks to himself, or herself, That scoffer must have his way, he cannot enter into my poetic feelings.' In fact, I believe that Fixer thinks he is a far better judge of natural scenery, pictures, and works of art, than John Ellesmere. And the dog is right. I shall always for the future get him to go to the Exhibition for me.

Here Fixer and ELLESMERE made faces at one another. The dog has a way of interchanging looks with ELLESMERE which is irresistibly comic.]

MR. MIDHURST.

I do not think it is so interesting to remark how the different kinds of scenery affect you, as how the same scenery or the same object affects you at different times of your life.

I remember, when I was a young man, seeing one of the most celebrated ruins in Europe. I was young in health, in hope, in heart, in everything.

I felt a great pity for the poor old ruin. It would tumble down, no doubt, while my fortunes were rising, and when my happiness was culminating. With an Englishman's notion of doing everything by sheer cash, I would have subscribed some money to prevent the great ruin from becoming more ruinous.

I passed through that critical period of one's life, in which one generally contrives to do so much that cannot be undone, and that certainly had better not have been done. My hopes fled. My fortune was deeply injured. My schemes of ambition failed. I had in every way cause for regret and sorrow. Bankrupt, though the world did not observe it, in fame, in fortune, and in health, with something very like remorse constantly biting at me-as of course my follies and my sins had taken their full share in my ill-success,-I revisited that ruin.

It scarcely seemed to me ruinous at all. I paced along its vast halls, its corridors, and galleries, and found no change in anything. The same yellow lichens were upon the same broken archway, and I said to myself, I am the ruin now.'

Time went on. It is not so easy for a man of any force and perseverance to be ostensibly ruined. I silently recovered myself. Through long tedious years (oh! how tedious) I rebuilt my fortune, lowered and reconstructed my ambition, and even reinvigorated my health.

Again, in a tour of Europe, I was near the great ruin, and resolved to revisit it. My original perception of its ruinousness came back upon me; but withal it seemed so young. I was now the more aged of the two, had suffered more-suffered irreparably, had seen more of life, could have given the old building some advice, I thought.

The next time that I visit that ruin-and I fancy that it will be just before I die,-I shall see it in its true light. I shall perceive that it is aged and ruinous, and I shall know that I am so myself."

ELLESMERE.

6

Pray, don't be so lugubrious, Mr. Midhurst! If you do, that dog and I shall set up howling together. I came out to enjoy myself, and I will not be moralized upon, philosophized upon, sentimentalized upon, or otherways maltreated. If one of the young ladies will come with me ('two's company,' as the old proverb says, and three's none'), I shall run away up the Rhine, and shall leave all you intelligent and pleasant ruins to yourselves. No! upon second thoughts, I shall not quit a ruin that orders dinner, so judiciously. No young lady's society, not even that of the learned Miss Mildred, can compensate for bad cookery and ill-composed dinners. Young wives should sometimes think of that.

MILVERTON.

You are the most impertinent man, Ellesmere, that ever was invented, and almost everything you say ought to be an aside,'-not a stage 'aside,' heard in the remotest gallery, but a real 'aside.' For my own part, I should not care if it was a soliloquy.

ELLESMERE.

This is the man who abjures satire; but I am always trampled upon.

MILVERTON.

I have been very much struck, Mr. Midhurst, with the truth of what you have been saying. I have appreciated the immense changes that go on in one's self, by the different ways in which one contemplates the same picture at different epochs of one's life: especially if it be a picture of any depth and meaning. I was looking the other day at a great work of art, which in my green youth I used to dote upon, and I was lost for a time in mere criticism upon it-indulging the habit I have unconsciously picked up, while living with authors, artists, and critics. It was only by a vigorous effort that I put aside all that was needless in the criticism, and again recalled and revelled in the joy which I had first felt in contemplating the great work. I am one of those fortunate men to whom criticism came late. I never knew anything about style, for instance,