the gorgeous times of feudal romance, peopling | Brutus and Cassius, instead of being cockedher high streets with the forms of the middle hatted like so many drum-majors of the Great ages, and consigning the tailor of the nineteenth Frederic; † the Ghetto the site of an école de century to an oblivion of twenty-four hours. natation, and the Jews living where they please; But space forbids us to turn our page into a beggars a reminiscence of the past, vermin an "Field of the Cloth of Gold," and we can only object of enthusiasm to the antiquary, and stinks afford the following rare bit, the conclusion of relegated to Cologne; "nationals" mounting the picture :guard, in place of Swiss condottieri; the streets perambulable on a rainy day without the risk of being stunned by a shower-bath at every sixth step, from the spouts projecting from the housetops; Torlonia un-duked, and an English ambassador inhabiting a palace in the Corse! Shall we recognize "the Niobe of nations" out of mourning? And will this "new face" of an "old friend" please us as well as the one we were used to? We wish nothing better than that our good star may speedily put us in a way to answer these questions. "No Roman triumph, nor Mediæval pageant, could have surpassed what I witnessed to-day. To realize one part of the classic procession, there was only wanting the Rev. Dr. Newman, Ambrose St. John, and George Talbot, to walk in the character of war-captives 'Britannus ut descenderet Sacrâ catenatus viâ."" An instance of good taste was exhibited by the Irish seminary at Rome on this occasion. While all other decorations that met the eye of the Pontiff on his triumphal way, displayed the white and yellow, the hereditary colors of his house, the fathers of the institution above-mentioned thrust in his face "a huge green banner, bearing a harp uncrowned, and other heraldic puzzles," to the great mystification of the eternal city. These worthies were, evidently, fitter to figure at some raffish "repale" meeting, than to have a place among those who celebrated the inauguration of the Mastai Ferretti. Many and many a passage, rarer and racier than any we have yet transferred to our columns, had we marked for extraction, in this pleasantest of last year's books; but - but Well, we have only ourselves to blame. Why did we twaddle so long with Mr. Vicary? What can we say more, except breathe a fervent prayer that Pope Pius IX. may live as long as the popedom. POSTSCRIPT.-We have been guilty of a great, though unintentional, injustice to the authorities of the Irish seminary at Rome. It was not at that institution that the "Repale" flag was stuck under the Pope's nose, but at the Church of St. Clement's, which our author describes as being "celebrated on many accounts, and now tenanted by a few Irish friars." Apparently, these Irish friars had forgotten that the festival of the 8th of November was held in honor of Pope Pius IX., and not in theirs. -Dublin University Magazine. One doubt we have, with relation to the course which the present ruler of the Latin Church has judged it wise to take a doubt as to its ulti-fluence on the mind. In youth, in health and mate results. We are not entirely without misgivings, as we watch the progress of pontifical reform. With all these changes, will Rome seem to us Rome, should it be in store for us to see her again? A ring of railway termini girdling | her like a belt of wampum, and, with their modern trimness, making her ancient walls seem seedy; gas-lights dissipating for ever the holy darkness of her streets, not leaving one inscrutable prescriptive corner, where, stiletto in hand, the ladrone might await his prey; a dozen different newspapers coming out every morning, an English one ("edited by the son of the late poetic Mrs. Hemans,") among the rest; the afternoon, as marked by the horologe of the Quirinal, beginning with one o'clock, instead of thirteen; the guardia nobile helmeted like "As a trifling indication of the Pope's anxiety to bring his states into better unison with the other civilized communities of Europe, the great clock of the RELIGION has always the same beneficial in prosperity, it awakens feelings of gratitude and sublime love; and purifies at the same time that it exalts; but it is in misfortune, in sickness, in age, that its effects are most truly and beneficially felt: when submission in faith, and humble trust in the divine will, from duties become pleasures — undecaying sources of consolation; then it creates powers which were believed to be extinct, and gives a freshness to the mind which was supposed to have passed away for ever. Sir H. Davy. Quirinal Palace marks the hours no longer in the oldcontinuous, but in the duodecimal used on your side fashioned and exploded system of twenty-four hours of the Alps. It is an humble effort to teach his Romans the time of day.'"- PROUT. "The most novel feature was the brilliant appearance of the Noble Guard, in their new steel helmets. This new head-gear is after the fancy of Pius himself, who is a connoisseur in military points, and has produced something superior to your Albert hat."". PROUT. THE PRINCESS. The Princess; a Medley. By ALFRED laughs at their college talk, and threatens them TENNYSON. with a college of her own to which men shall not be suffered to approach, No poem should be judged decisively at a first reading- but this new poem of Mr. Tennyson's least of all. It is cast in a form which few readers will take kindly to. Nevertheless, let them read on—and again. It is not unsafe to begin with a little aversion, where love lies waiting for you. Not the least interesting question raised by this book is whether or not Mr. Tennyson has shown an advance of power. We think he has. No luckless poet has been more pelted with his laurels, but not always considerately. We are content that he should leave unsurpassed the mere verbal melody, the lyrical sweetness, of his first utterances in song; since he has far overpassed that circle of the sensuous which appeared to bound him at the first. His sense of the beautiful could never have been more luscious, gorgeous, delicate than seventeen years ago; but it has become chastened, and is less alloyed. Mind and heart have come up with ear and eye. Enlarged views, increased knowledge, powers in all respects maturing, show the unwearied student. Take the versification of the poem before us, and (making allowance for some wilfully prosaic lines) say if all that in that respect has won most admiration for Mr. Tennyson be not here in sustained completeness. Sweetness and music have found variety and strength. The same instrument is giving forth a more quiet fulness and depth of sound. Thought, feeling, and expression, are balanced with happier and more finished results. Sometimes we object to what seems an echo from the days of Elizabeth's great men; but it is such only as could have reached us through a man of kindred greatness. We will not say that the poem is not irregular, even clumsy, in its structure; but it is built of gold. Nor, whatever may be objected to its plan, can it be urged that the foundations are lofty and the erection mean. The poet has avoided that error. He lays down a very humble ground-work, with whatever ambition he may aspire to rise above it. The poem is really what the poet calls it, a Medley; being a summer's tale told after the fashion of a Christmas game by a "set" of college students. Assembled in the summer vacation at an old English country house, the home of one of them, whose sister Lilia ("A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, ..one said smiling 'Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet-girl graduates in their golden hair;"" and out of such laughing talk the story springs. It is to be of the character of the scene that surrounds them, and to suit the time and place. But the story-tellers are sitting at a luncheon "silver-set," among the old Gothic ruins in the park; the broken statue of an old feudal ancestor is popped up nigh them, gaily enrobed with Lilia's silken scarf; on the lawn of the modern Greek-built mansion beyond, the members of the institute of the neighbouring borough are holding happy holiday with their children, putting science into sport; and to suit all this, and take up the talk of college, what other than a Medley should the story be? A princess is its heroine, and a prince who had been betrothed to her in childhood is supposed to tell it. The old regal fathers (a brace of kingly portraits very perfectly contrasting the easiness and the wilfulness of kings) have a compact that their children shall wed; but the girl opposes it as she approaches womanhood, prevails on her father to give her his summer palace and gardens on the border between the two kingdoms, and, penetrated with man's injustice and impelled by the counsels of two ladies of her court, has founded a college for women there, to redress past centuries of her sex's wrong. The prince's father, with help of some hundred thousand men, is for bringing her to the altar in "a whirlwind;" but the prince, loving her already from her portrait, prefers with two companions to follow her, and try to win entrance to her college. They disguise themselves as girls, it being death for men to enter. All these details are charmingly given, and our dry summary does them no justice. Then comes the action of the poem, and the grave sweet purpose that lies hidden beneath its burlesque peeps out and shows itself. Thus they find the head of the college: แ .. at a board by tome and paper sat, ("A rosy blonde, and in a college gown In crystal currents of clear morning seas;") -and the second is a pretty young widow with a babe "a double April old," who is in fact the sister of one of the Prince's companions. To her lecture room the three (supposed) tall young northern damsels are assigned, where With scraps of thundrous Epic lifted out, -And so ends the college day. We cannot of course follow the story out in the same detail, but the reader must come with us on a day's country excursion with the Princess, who invites the three new students as a Master might three freshmen to dinner. When they have reached a fitting spot they pitch their tent of satin, ("Elaborately wrought With fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood, and after fruit and wine, music is called for, and a maiden sings. The song is not pleasing to the Princess. Its luxurious sadness is not of heroic temper, nor does its yearning affection sort with college aspirations. But therefore is it the finer manifestation of the poet's art. From out its dreamy lingering music rises so much of the very soul of gentleness and womanhood, that, in its heavenly tenderness and sweetness, colleges and professors fade far away. As a piece of writing it is not to be excelled, even in the wonderful melodies of Tennyson (unless it be by a pastoral on Love's home which occurs at the close of the poem): "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. "Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns "Dear as remember'd kisses after death, The discovery of the Prince and his companions follows hard upon this, but we cannot dwell on its details. In the confusion which ensues he is the means of saving the life of the Princess, but this in no respect abates her wrath and scorn. There is flight and capture, and the offenders are threatened with death. Then comes upon the scene a counter-threatening from the Prince's father, who has suddenly made descent upon the father of the Princess; and exaggerated rumors, and fears of armed men, and numberless undistinguishable dreads, take possession of the college. A hubbub in the court of half the maids "Not peace, she look'd, the Head: but rising up But now the scene shifts to the camp upon the borders, where, as in a romance by Scott or a picture by Maclise, The two old kings Began to wag their baldness up and down, War is here thirsted for by the Prince's father, who protests that in no other fashion should a man hope to win a girl's affections, (“Tut, you know them not, the girls: They prize hard knocks and to be won by force. Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them As he that does the thing they dare not do, Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in Among the women, snares them by the score Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' dash'd with death He reddens what he kisses."") but the Prince will not have war. Ida is nevertheless obdurate, and finds armed advocates and warriors to espouse her cause, in her stalwart brother Arac and his captains ("Anon to meet us lightly pranced Three captains out: nor ever had I seen Such thews of men: the midmost and the highest Was Arac: all about his motion clung The shadow of his sister, as the beam Of the East, that played upon them, made them glance Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, indignant at the invasion of their kingdom. A tourney of fifty knights from either side is at length proposed for settlement of the matters in dispute; and this being gallantly fought upon a plain within sight of the College walls, the Prince is left for dead upon the field, and the brothers of the Princess, themselves with others wounded, are declared the victors. Then are the College Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and gates burst open, and crowds of girls with Ida at call'd Across the tumult and the tumult fell.” This is solid, noble writing. The epic calmness of that last half line is masterly indeed. But from the midst of the silence the voice of Ida is heard again. In vain, with passionate fervor, the Prince pleads his cause; in vain the two lady tutors, who had discovered the masquing before the Princess did, and been induced to conceal it, sue against dismissal: Ida drives them forth with resolute scorn, separating Lady Psyche from her babe, and retaining the child for companion and comforter. The poet's art and insight are shown in such traits as these. The woman is the woman still, and can as little disguise herself completely as the Prince or his associates. their head seen issuing forth — "Anon Thro' the open field into the lists they wound So can she only celebrate her triumph by yielding what it had professed to win. As charmingly is this executed as conceived. Victory is gained: but in her hands it is useless, save as a means of gentle ministration; and, warmed by woman's angel offices, the woman's nature can play the Amazon no more. The Prince is nursed and tended by Ida till she loves him. And love then shows greater than the knowledge she would have put in its place; for knowledge, as mere power, is nothing, whereas love is truth, embracing all that makes knowledge worth aspiring for. Thus the purpose of the poem is not to depreciate the intellectual or moral claims of women ("The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free; For she that out of Lethe scales with man The shining steps of nature, shares with man His nights, his days, moves with him to the goal, Stays all the fair young planet in her hands If she be small, slight natur'd, miserable, How shall men grow?") but to give them their just direction; and its moral is uttered in these beautiful, most majestic, most musical words. "For woman is not undevelopt man But diverse: could we make her as the man, Yet in the long years liker must they grow; Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; Like perfect music unto noble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, But like each other ev'n as those who love. Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm: The Princess yields, and the poem ends with their betrothment. Who look'd all native to her place, and yet IDA CHANGED BY LOVE. "From mine arms she rose That final turn is masterly; but the passage is altogether one of the most exquisite in the poem. THE HALL OF A MODERN ENGLISH MANSION. "From vases in the hall Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, And on the tables every clime and age Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; Jumbled together; celts and calumets, Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls, Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, His own forefather's arms and armor hung." The line there marked with italics is a poet's line; one of those charming toys of art with |