us as a friend. But this poet of society
does not always sing with the cap and
bells on. Now and then, though very
seldom, he must draw from the fount of
tears. He will do it tenderly, but it
must be done, for life is not made up en-
tirely of either the grave or the
gay. He
knows that every man has his "skeleton
in the cupboard," and there is nothing to
be gained in blinking the fact. Having,
therefore, an unpleasant subject to en-
counter, but also a most pressing one,
this is how he must deal with it:

We hug this phantom we detest,
We rarely let it cross our portals:
It is a most exacting guest
Now, are we not afflicted mortals?

Your neighbour Gay, that jovial wight,
As Dives rich, and brave as Hector

Poor Gay steals twenty times a night,

On shaking knees, to see his spectre.

A similar surprise, though not of so hu-
morous a nature, follows the reading of
"The Old Cradle," which is amongst the
lyrics that have deservedly become gen-
eral favourites. Mr. Locker sees
the
emptiness of life, and pursues like every
poet the unattainable ideal, and yet is They shriek, and stir it for our sins,
able to extract a modicum of enjoyment
in the pursuit. The knowledge that
things" are not (exactly) what they seem
is not to be suffered to make him miserable.
It cannot, for instance, stop his song·

Ah me, the World! How fast it spins!
The beldames dance, the caldron bubbles;

If life an empty bubble be,

How sad for those who cannot see

The rainbow in the bubble!

Whatever may be the case with society in the nineteenth century, or a large portion of it, at any rate there is no blasé air in Mr. Locker's verses. To read them makes one cheerful, and causes us to lose the sensation of selfishness and isolation which the individual course of life is apt to create. To write with ease and sim

And we must drain it for our troubles.

We toil, we groan; the cry for love
Mounts upwards from the seething city,
And yet I know we have above

A Father, infinite in pity.

And thus our poet, in his quiet and unobtrusive manner, becomes a moral teacher. The verses we have just quoted and may serve to correct a very prevaare from Mr. Locker's serious poems, lent but erroneous notion respecting his poetry. He has acquired so conspicuous a position as a writer of vers de société of him as though he never wrote anythat people are in the habit of speaking plicity strains which shall touch the thing else. True, if the scope of this peasant and the peer is no small achieve the manner we have indicated, all he has class of verse be vastly widened, and in ment, and when the poet attains to that written would come under the definition. he needs no other raison d'être. Some But if the narrow, restricted meaning be writers have not that airy quicksilver spirit which catches momentary impres-er's work which has been completely taken, then there is a side of Mr. Locksions of grace and beauty; they are too cold and too severe, and hence their of much richer quality than is ever witmisapprehended. He manifests a vein works are not adapted to any mood or nessed in mere fugitive verse. any person. The true writer of occaThus in sional verse has the advantage of his "The Widow's Mite " there is a vein of stronger intellectual brother in this regenuine pathos : — spect. He never comes amiss; his music is ever welcome and refreshing. We do not require him to fill us with awe, to dilate on the grandeur of nature, and to discuss the great problems of life and mind. We ask him to speak to us as a brother, to laugh with us as in the family circle, and, if need be, to mourn with

A widow
- she had only one!
A puny and decrepit son;
But, day and night,

Though fretful oft, and weak and small
A loving child, he was her all-
The Widow's Mite.

The Widow's Mite
ay, so sustain'd,
She battled onward, nor complain'd

but he has by no means done such good work as was expected of him. Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song" deserve to Occupy a higher rank in poetry than such lyrics as form the subject of this article. They are full of thought-sometimes overburdened with it; but they have a graceful facility of versification which entitles their author to rank with the most cultivated poets of the day.

The question may be asked, of what use is this Horatian poetry; but we

The most promising of the younger apprehend it will be its own justification writers of minor verse is Mr. Austin in the eyes of most lovers of the poetic Dobson, whose "Vignettes in Rhyme "art. The brooklet is not so imposing as betoken considerable poetic fancy, though his wit is far inferior to that of Mr. Locker. The following lines, which are a fair example of Mr. Dobson's style, are taken from his poem suggested by a chapter in Mr. Theodore Martin's "Hor

Science proceeds, and man stands still;
Our "world to-day's as good or ill,
As cultured (nearly),
As yours was, Horace! You alone,
Unmatched, unmet, we have not known.

The author of the "Carols of Cockayne" is deserving of mention for his humour and observation; but the writer of "The Bab Ballads" scarcely comes under our category; his effusions partake too much of the character of broad farce. Mr. Calverley, again, whose parodies are very close and very clever, belongs to that school whose best exponents were James and Horace Smith, the incomparable authors of "Rejected Addresses." Mr. Mortimer Collins is a much nearer approach to what we require,

the mighty river to which it is tributary, but its music may be as sweet and true. Men cannot always be climbing the magnificent passes of the Alps, but in the absence of sublime scenery does not the trimly cut and ordered garden present many points of attraction? Thus, all singers have their proper seasons and uses. The minor poets unquestionably flourish best in seasons of national prosperity, not in those of stirring events. They are satisfied with what the world has to offer them, though in the best of them there is a strain of genuine regret, testifying that this is not sufficient to satisfy the cravings of the soul. In all the excellent writers of Venusian verse whom we have named may be perceived the shade of melancholy, which lends an additional charm to their gaiety. With the deeper questions of the heart they very rarely intermeddle. If they can touch the springs of laughter and emotion in others they receive their reward. These poets, however, have yet something to learn: England has its Shakespeare but not its Horace. To write Horatian verse successfully requires all the earnestness and devotion which the greater poet exhibits in another field. But even these trifles are not without their use and their charm, for they may be accepted by posterity as a faithful commentary upon contemporaneous events, life, and manners. Who knows but that through their aid in some distant era the stranger in our deserted gates may obtain some glimpses of our nineteenth-century civilization; just as we now, with Horace or Martial for our friend and guide, may walk through the streets and converse with the denizens of ancient Rome?

From The New Quarterly Review.
IN THE RUE FROIDE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "PATTY."

CHAPTER I.

AN OLD MISER.

THE town of Vire is specially hilly; but there is near the river a steep flight of broken, moss-grown stone steps. Mounting these you find yourself on a raised walk level with the roofs and chimney-stacks of this part of the town, till turning sharply to the right, you come down a steep descent, which ends some way below in the Place aux Fontaines.

this afternoon one slanting beam has
found its way through an opening in the
opposite houses, and strikes boldly across
the street and through the dusty atmos-
phere, gilding the motes in its way till it
rests on Monsieur Fauve's high narrow
forehead. His forehead is so yellow, and
the skin fits the skull so closely, that it
looks as much like a bit of Eastern carv-
ing as the brow of a human being. The
rest of Nicholas Fauve's face is bloodless,
his lips are pale, the only colour is in his
small narrow eyes, like glittering slashes
of black velvet in the parchment skin;
his wig has once been black, but long
wear has changed it to a reddish brown:
all expression is concentrated in his eyes,
the rest of his countenance is immova-
ble, even when his utterance is sarcastic.
"I say again, madame," - his voice is
"that there are
an owl's,
harsh
plenty of fools ready to spend on super-
fluities; the wise profit by these and
keep their money. Why should Fran-
çoise waste her time over flowers, when
she can see yours better than you can
see them yourself?"

as

This descent is a narrow, roughlypaved street, with ancient houses on either side. Some of these houses are of grey stone, with carved pinnacles above their projecting dormer windows; others are half-timbered, and the greengrey oaken gables seem inclined to topple down into the street below. The massive carved beams are supported by grotesque brackets, sometimes partly hidden by a veil of nasturtium leaves, stretching down from lattice window-sills above. The quaintest-looking of these houses has flowers on the sills of all three stories "Well, no one can call you a hypocrite, - gleaming scarlet geraniums in the my friend; but I should be ashamed to gable, nasturtiums and moneywort below, enjoy my neighbour's goods and not offer and, level with the street, a starry cam- a return. Conceive, then, the pleasure panula hanging from the ceiling and fill-which the sight of a rose or a fuchsia ing the centre of the open window with its wreaths of blue blossoms.

Madame Duclair throws back her large head in disdain.

would give me, instead of all this dinginess from morning till night."

She points to the house-front and the cobwebbed broken lattice in the gable on the top story.

faience.

The mistress of this array stands looking fixedly at her flowers from the opposite side of the street - a short, stout, M. Fauve shoots one of his bright, ugly dame, with a dark-blue skirt, a red neckerchief crossed over her ample chest restless glances at her, and goes on fixand secured by the waistband of her lilacing a rivet in a cracked plate of Nevers apron, and a tall conical muslin cap with wings behind each ear, a white bow in My neighbour, did I ask you to spend front, and a sugar-loaf shaped, pale-blue your time and your money on those flowlining. Suddenly she turns and looks ers? They give me no pleasure. To me through the open shop-front of her neigh- this bit of earthenware has more beauty bour, into a dingy square room, so full of than all the flaming scarlets and yellows litter, so dirty and overcrowded that a of your window-sills." bonfire in the midst would seem to be "Yes; yes. I know that." To her"Because you are a mumthe only means of purification. Rusty self she says, bronzes, battered brasses, broken china,my and not a man;" then aloud, "But and faience; tokens from the East, in you do not live alone, and Françoise is ivory, feathers, and lac; terra-cotta and young and has little amusement, and, if I plaster figures, fragments of old tapestry were you, I should make her home and carved oak, cracked and dingy pic- amusing; but that is not my affair, and tures, hideous gilt frames, bottles, pots, I have no daughter or son to study; cannot walk through this and urns. There is no use in enumerat-only one ing the mongrel contents of the shop of world with shut eyes, Monsieur Fauve ; Monsieur Fauve-it is a museum of good-day!" ghastly relics of the beautiful.

The first trace of feeling he has shown, The morning sun never visits it; but a faint flush, comes like a streak into the

LIVING AGE,

VOL. VIII.

398

Can I do anything for you?" she calls to him, as she passes. "I am going down to the fountain to fill my pitcher." He raises his head from his work, and gives her a keen, quick look.

"Well, you may meet Françoise; tell her not to loiter."

"Ah! pardon, neighbour; but that is just what I cannot do;" she speaks very significantly.

Monsieur Fauve's firm mouth does not even twitch; but he keeps his restless eyes fixed keenly on Madame Duclair's broad mocking face.

"Very well. Why, then, offer service?"

"Because I am ready to do what I can for you or any other neighbour between this and the great fountain; but Françoise is not likely to be there she is better employed."

said; "if you give a girl like Françoise no amusement at home, why, she is likely to find it abroad. I warned you of this, when you took charge of her. If the good God had thought you fit to bring up children, He would have given you some of your own; but you must needs know best. You adopt your brother's orphan, and you think that food and clothing are all a young girl wants."

She stopped abruptly, surprised at her own boldness. She rarely came off victorious in these word-contests with her neighbour.

Well, madame," he said, slowly and sarcastically, "it is true my married life was brief-yours has lasted three times as long, and yet you are also childless; it is possible that you, therefore, are not qualified as an adviser between father and daughter."

Madame Duclair's face got crimson. She swung the arm that held the pitcher and walked rapidly down the street.

"Sneering old curmudgeon!" she muttered; insolent miser that he is, I wish my tongue had been slit before I told tales of the poor child; and yet I did it for the best, she ought to marry a richer man than Louis Bertin."

CHAPTER II.

FRANCOISE.

THE Park, as the Virois called the grassed rock in the centre of the town, is planted with rows of tall trees, and has in the midst of these the ruined donjon "Ah! You have, then, seen her?" of the ancient Castle. The rock on which "Yes. Why not? She is not hiding. it is built stretches out a bold precipiShe will tell you herself that she has tous promontory two hundred feet above been sitting in the park with Berthe and the valley of the Vire. Sitting under the Nicole Bertin, and their brother-shade of the trees you can trace the Louis." course of the river among the lofty hills until the farthest point melts into misty distance.

She drawls the last four words separately, trying to revenge herself on his indifference, and she succeeds.

He starts, flushes, and his eyebrows settle into an ugly frown.

Two fair-haired, frank-looking, blueeyed girls were sit.ing on one of the benches trying to persuade a dirk-eyed, timid companion to stay beside them. A youth of twenty-three stood near silently watching the discussion.

66

"Are you sure of what you are saying, madame?" There was a sort of freezing courtesy about Nicholas which kept his neighbours in check; all, except Ma- Bah, bah, bah!" the eldest of the dame Duclair, and although he never cut fair-haired sisters kept firm hold of her jokes with her, or called her La Mère friend's slender arm while she spoke, Duclair, she would not be kept at a dis-"why not stay a little longer; see how tance; she persisted in treating him as she treated others.

"Dame!" she said, "he is made of flesh and blood after all, though he looks like a pagan idol."

"What will you, my neighbour?" she

lovely the valley looks, and it may rain to-morrow, who knows. Louis, why art thou so dumb? ask Françoise to stop." The youth smiled.

"If she will not stay for thee and for Berthe, I see no use in asking."