everything; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even the deformity of vice seems beautiful." "And this you think should be forgiven ?" "At all events, it is forgiven. The world loves a spice of wickedness. Talk as you will about principle, impulse is more attractive even when it goes too far. The passions of youth, like unhooded hawks, fly high, with musical bells upon their jesses; and we forget the cruelty of the sport in the dauntless bearing of the gallant bird." "And thus do the world and society corrupt the scholar!" exclaimed Flemming. Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of Prince Metternich. He then very slowly filled his pipe, and began to smoke. Flemming was lost in a day-dream. TIME CHAPTER VIII. LITERARY FAME. IME has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters, never to be effaced. These are the high nobility of Nature,-Lords of the Public Domain of Thought. Posterity shall never question their titles. But those whose fame lives only in the indiscreet opinion of unwise men must soon be as well forgotten as if they had never been. To this great oblivion must most men come. It is better, therefore, that they should soon make up their minds to this; well knowing that, as their bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their graves tell no tales of them, so must their names likewise be utterly forgotten, and their most cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions have no longer an indi vidual being among men, but be resolved and incorporated into the universe of thought. If, then, the imagination can trace the noble dust of heroes, till we find it stopping a beer barrel, and know that "Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used to stop men's mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion. Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which are now resolved. into the common mass of thought; their authors forgotten, and having no more an individual being among men. It is better, therefore, that men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive in what they do than the approbation of men, which is Fame-namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in our imperfection; impossible, perhaps, to achieve it wholly. Yet the resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve much,—at times even this victory over himself; being persuaded that fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny. It has become a common saying that men of genius are always in advance of their age, which is true. There is something equally true, yet not so common-namely, that of these men of genius the best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, but of every age. As the German prose-poet says, every possible future is behind them. We cannot suppose that a period of time will ever arrive when the world, or any considerable portion of it, shall have come up abreast with these great minds so as fully to comprehend them. And oh, how majestically they walk in history; some like 342 the sun, "with all his travelling glories round him;" others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars! Through the else silent darkness of the past the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an earthly paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven listed colours, as from the trail of pencils! And yet, on earth, these men were not happy,-not all happy, in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much ;-and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death,—and the world talks of them while they sleep! It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sanctified them; as if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them holy; as if the hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun s eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life-eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and for ever! This was Flemming's reverie. It was broken by the voice of the Baron, suddenly exclaiming : "An angel is flying over the house !-Here, in this goblet, fragrant as the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the wild flowers in the Angel's Meadow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams." "This is all sunshine," said Flemming, as he drank. "The wine of the Prince, and the Prince of wines. By the way, did you ever read that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany? an ode which seems to have been poured out of the author's soul, as from a golden pitcher, 'Filled with the wine Of the vine Benign That flames so red in Sansovine.' He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines." "Prince Metternich," said the Baron, "is greater than any king in Italy; and I wonder that this precious wine has never inspired a German poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine. Many little songs we have on this theme, but none very extraordinary. The best are Max Schenkendorf's Song of the Rhine, and the Song of Rhine Wine, by Claudius, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. will drink for him a blessing on the Rhine." We And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each other, with a musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage-time from the villages on the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder that the German poet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy schoolmaster, Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from Germany to Mr John Raves, of John's College: "Tell Mr Maden I will drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of Rhenish wine." Nor, in fine, do I wonder at the German emperor of whom he speaks in another letter to the same John Raven, and says, "The emperor drank the best that I ever saw; he had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a good quart at once o. Rhenish wine." "But to resume our old theme of scholars and their whereabout," said the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught, no doubt, from the golden sunshine, imprisoned, like the student Anselmus, in the glass bottle; "where should the scholar live? In solitude, or in society? in the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of Nature beat; or in the dark, gray town, where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in the dark, gray town. Oh, they do greatly err, who think that the stars are all the poetry which cities have ; and therefore that the poet's only dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature, when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest, vast and shadowy, with all the sights and sounds of rural life. But, after all, what are these but the decorations and painted scenery in the great theatre of human life? What are they but the coarse materials of the poet's song? Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land. The river of life, that flows through streets tumultuous, bearing along so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks of humanity :-the many homes and households, each a little world in itself, revolving round its fireside, as a central sun; all forms of human joy and suffering, brought into that narrow compass;—and to be in this, and be a part of this; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing, with his fellowmen ;-such, such should be the poet's life. If he would describe the world, he should live in the world. The n.ind of the scholar, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armour should be somewhat bruised by rude encounters even, than hang for ever rusting on the wall. Nor will his theines be few or trivial, because apparently shut in between |