'Tae literary event of the week is no doubt the appearance in the Nineteenth Century of Mr. Tennyson's dramatic monologue 'Despair.' It is introduced by a short note to the following effect:—A man and his wife having lost faith in a God and hope of a life to come, and being utterly miserable in this, resolve to end them-
Ives by drowning. The woman is drowned, but the man is rescued by a minister of the sect he had abandoned." Of course it is a dismal production, But it is full of earnest thought, The passages in which the unfortunate man describes the condi tions of mind though which he passed on his way to the goal of atheism are very telling, Once he believed in a Heavenly Father; but now, only a cloud and a smoke who was once line of fire, The ews of a worm in the dust and the shadow of its derire—Of a worm as it writhes in" world of the won trodden down by the strong, Of w dying worm in w world, all uinssncre, murder, and wrong.
This leads to an impassional outburst of dospair—
0 we poor orphans of nothing—slono on that lonely shore—Born of the Ureinless Nature who knew not that wi she here!
Truxting no longer that earthly flower would be heavenly fruit—Come from the brate, poor soul soule—and to die with the brute:
Than, suddenly breaking off, he avows the cause of his loss of faith. Another instance, some will say, of the "foolishness" of a certain class of preaching.
Nay, but I am. not else ig your pity: I know you of old—Small pity for those that have ranged from the narrow warmth of your fold Where you bawld the dark side of your faith and n God of eternal rage, Til you fg us bvek on guieelves, and the inman heart, and the Age, One more verse, to show the results of the teaching that had driven the man to his desperate act, and we pass on.
What! I should call that Infinite Love hat has served us so well Infinite wickedness, rather, that made Hell, Made us, foreknow us, foredoomed us, and does what he will with his own Better our dead brute mother, who never has beard us groan The same periodical contains a fine article by the Rev, Baldwin Brown, written in is finest style, and called the Last Great Dream of the Crusade," The Crusading spirit, thinks Mr. Brown, is essentially Christian, It is a gift which Christianity has bestowed on man, "That wonderful outburst of power, that resurrection of human life, which marked the age of the Advent, was the direct result of the grand apocalypse, the unveiling of heaven." OF course we cannot summarise the whole of this admirable essay. We commend it, however, to the attention of our readers. Farther on we have an article by the Earl of Lytton entitled "A Now Love-Poet,' which deals with The Love Sonnets of Proteus, published by C. Kegan Paul and Ca. Itis highly interesting and suggestive.
Proteus, says the writer, has a masterly touch upon all the stops of his instrument, and can elicit from thei, to suit his varying moods, the notes appropriate to the tender, the pathetic, or the satiric. The following proves that his instrumentation can also rise to the grandiose acle, he blue noon, and being swoon, ut valley afrown vant, and still, whiolt has hewn A voice as of w nation overthrown With heat of drums, when hosts have marched to war.
The first six lines of this bring vividly before our mind acertain peak in Mongolia, the topmost top of a spur of the Great Wall, where the surrounding view is here splendidly depicted by a poet who certainly did not have that particular spot in his mind's eye when he wrote this. The Spectator this week is good. ' Fishing in Londo: gives some very strange and interesting experiences of a collector of antique gems, intaglios, cameos, and signet rings. The most remarkable discoveries are sometimes made in this Wepartment of research. "The present writer," says he, "bought only the other day, in a little country town, out of a watchmaker's window, an old-fashioned silver seal, such as country gentlemen used to went in the last century at their fobs, set with an antique gem of greatest value and rarity,—a head of a Parthian king in the grandest style of Greek art. This gem, a hundred years ago, when collectors and money were plentiful, would have been worth at least a couple of hundred pounds. Its cost in the present instance was exactly two shillings—Another example may be adduced. The writer is prowling about, on his favourite quest, through some dingy bye-streets in Clorkenwell. Being repulsed at one shop, he says, "I turn away, and in the same street, where there are one or two refiners, shops, a little green stone catches my eye, in a saucer, in company with broken teaspoonsand watch-cases.... It isa little cylinder of emerald, of poor quality, but engraved on each of its facets with the name of Augustus Cwesar, and the masters of his mint. How did this memorial o the world's great ruler come there? To whom did it belong? What was its use?
Igo home, satisfied with that day's fishing, at any rate." The Correspondence column, contains a remarkable letter from a well-known contributor, Mr. Richard F, Little-dale, giving an example of the mysterious so-called sentiment of pro-existence, which we think is worth reproduction In 1865, I was on my way from Belgrade to Constantinople, and was ws 1g for a Danube boat to pass at midnight by some no-man'a. land, where T was at the time, not far from Semfin,—a place wholly new tome, T fell in with tivo companions, a Montenegrin officer a diplomatic errand somewhither for his Prince; and another, whose nationality 1 for-li summer-house in the inn garden We agreed to dine together, which we
and after dinner we got into conversation, taking in a Zingua franco, partly French, partly Italian, and" partly anything which came Suddenly there flashed seress me pression that I ad been through it all 1 the same place, and with the same Accordingly, T said to myself, ICT have boon hero before, 10 next thing that man opposite will say, is so." And he said it immediately. 1 should add that it was, to the my recollection now, an entirely fi sh subject which he started, and ing out of the previous conver n, which might, of course, have been guessed by a quick-witted observer. Had I dreamt it all beforehand, and forgotten the dream?
Novel-readers, if they accept the' recommendation of the Spectator, will immediately send to the library for The Dingy House at Kensington, which is spoken of in the highest terms of praise. It is by an anonymous author—apparently a Indy, and a very clever one. 'There is one feature in this week's Spectator which is a little puzzling. 'The late Mr, J, R. Black's Young Japan, which was published nearly three years ago, is included in the ' Publications of the Week.' We notice, too, that the publishers are Messrs, Triibner and Ca. It is to be hoped for the sake of authors in China that Messrs, Tribuer and Ca. are not in the habit of delaying the publication of works quite such a long time as this, The Saturday is just a little heavy. There are however one or two articles which try to be light, and one which actually succeeds—on English Landscape but taking the number all round itis duller than usual. The Athenceum has a long review of Mr. Loftie's book, Queen Anne's Son: the Memoirs of William Henry, Duke of Gloucester. It is very interesting, and contains some amusing incidents in the life of the unhappy little Duke, We are told that he was twice birched; once, for the pardonable offence of refusing to take some un-palateable physic. From the column of terary Gossip, we gather that Mr. Gladstone, the President of the Royal Academy, and other persons connected with art, literature, and science, have allowed outlines of their hands to be made for "The Book of Hands, which is about to be published by Mr. Cloud Warren. M. Ernest Rénan's translation of Ecclesiastes, with an elaborate preface, is expected to be out towards the end of the years. A Dutch translation of Edwin Arnold's 'Light of Asia' has been: made by Dr. Meijboom, of Asson, Holland, under the euphonious title of 'Het Licht van Azié,' and the original has been formally placed in the Sacred Library of the Rankoth Vihara, at Panadaré in Ceylon, by the Chief and Council of that Buddhist monastery, who have addressed to the author letters testifying their respect and friendship for him,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.