Caller herrin's no got lightlie, Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? &c. Neebour wives, now tent my tellin', Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? They're bonnie fish and halesome farin' Wha'll buy my caller herrin' New drawn frae the Forth? A charming song-writer, in the second half of our century, was Bryan Waller Procter, who wrote himself on his title-pages by an anagram of his name, less five of its letters-Barry Cornwall. He was born about 1790, and died in 1874. Quiet, genial, earnest, all moods of his mind were expressed in little poems that had caught some of their grace and melody from loving commune of the singer with the poets of the days before the Commonwealth. this song serve for an example : Let CALLER HERRIN'. Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? New drawn frae the Forth? When ye were sleepin' on your pillows, Buy my caller herrin', New drawn frae the Forth. Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? They're no brought here without brave darin'; Buy my caller herrin', Haul'd thro' wind and rain. Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? &c. Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? Oh, ye may ca' them vulgar farin'; Wives and mithers, maist despairin', Ca' them lives o' men. Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? &c. When the creel o' herrin' passes, and he was one of those who represented in its many forms of thought the deeper life of the University. In 1848, when he was leaving Oxford, Clough published, as a Long Vacation Pastoral, "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich," a playful romance in English hexameter of the sayings and doings of an Oxford reading party in the Braes of Lochaber- —a poem rich with evidence of his own yearning for the higher truths of life, "wrestlings of thought in the mountains." One feature in this poem of "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich" is the idyllic beauty of its painting of the grace, tenderness, and young love of a Highland maid. But most characteristic is its author's sense of the reality of life, and the mixed playfulness and thoughtfulness with which it represents young minds attacking some of its problems. Arthur Hugh Clough felt much as Richard Steele felt, that a man is but as much as he can do, and that whoever does nothing is nothing. His worth is measured by the genuineness of his work. The young men and the tutor of the Highland reading party vary in opinion on divers points, but thus writes the lover of the Highland maid :— This is a letter written by Philip at Christmas to Adam. There may be beings, perhaps, whose vocation it is to be idle, Idle, sumptuous even, luxurious, if it must be: Only let each man seek to be that for which nature meant him. If you were meant to plough, Lord Marquis, out with you, and do it; If you were meant to be idle, O beggar, behold, I will feed you. If you were born for a groom, and you seem, by your dress, to believe so, Do it like a man, Sir George, for pay, in a livery stable; Ah, fair La ly Maria, God meant you to live, and be lovely; you Puts you to shame with ticking; the fire-irons deride you. You, young girl, who have had such advantages, learnt so quickly, Can you not teach? O yes, and she likes Sunday school extremely, Only it's soon in the morning. Away! if to teach be your calling, It is no play, but a business: off! go teach and be paid for it. In with your fingers! their beauty it spoils, but your own it enhances; For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for. This was the answer that came from the Tutor, the grave man, Adam. When the armies are set in array, and the battle beginning, Is it well that the soldier whose post is far to the leftward Say, I will go to the right, it is there I shall do best service? There is a great Field-Marshal, my friend, who arrays our battalions; Let us to Providence trust, and abide and work in our stations. This was the final retort from the eager, impetuous Philip. I am sorry to say your Providence puzzles me sadly; Children of Circumstance are we to be? you answer, On no wise! Where does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it ? What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with? If there is battle, 'tis battle by night, I stand in the darkness, Here in the mêlée of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides, Signal and password known; which is friend and which is foeman? Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother. Still you are right, I suppose; you always are, and will be; Though I mistrust the Field-Marshal, I bow to the duty of order. Yet is my feeling rather to ask, where is the battle? O that the armies indeed were arrayed! O joy of the onset! array us, King and leader appear, thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee. Would that the armies indeed were arrayed, O where is the battle! Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor King in Israel, Yet you are right, I suppose; if you don't attack my conclusion, Let us get on as we can, and do the thing we are fit for; Every one for himself, and the common success for us all, and Thankful, if not for our own, why then for the triumph of Many works of imagination produced during the second quarter of our century bear witness to its fruitfulness of wholesome thought. In 1827 appeared John Keble's "Christian Year," of which something will have to be said in the next section of this Library, that which illustrates English Religion. In 1828 appeared the third volume of W. S. Landor's "Imaginary Conversations;" in 1829, Mr. Tennyson obtained his University Prize for the poem on Timbuctoo, and in 1830 first appeared his poems. There were produced, in 1831, Ebenezer Elliott's "CornLaw Rhymes;" in 1832, Barry Cornwall's "English Songs;" in 1833, Elizabeth Barrett's (Mrs. Browning's) translation of "Prometheus Bound," and Robert Browning's earliest verse, "Pauline;" in 1834, Henry (not then Sir Henry) Taylor's "Philip van Artevelde;" and in 1835, Talfourd's "Ion," works to be spoken of in the volume of this series which illustrates English Plays. In 1836, Charles Dickens-a poet in his own way-began his career of success with "Sketches by Boz," and the next year (1837) was the year of "Pickwick," as well as of Robert Browning's tragedy of "Strafford." In 1838 appeared new "Sonnets by Wordsworth, and Mrs. Browning's "Seraphim" and other poems. Mr. Philip Bailey published, in 1839, his "Festus;" Mr. 1 Heartiest thanks are due to authors and publishers who have met with unfailing courtesy any request of mine for leave to use their copyrights. In a few cases, for accidental reasons, I have been unable to quote what I wished to quote, but in no case have I found anything but a kind readi ess to make the work of illustrating current literature by pieces extracted from copyright books as little difficult as possible. This makes me confident that if in any case I should inadvertently infringe a right, I shall be pardoned for the unintended oversight. Browning, in 1840, his "Sordello ;" and in 1841 Mr. Westland Marston produced his play of "The Patrician's Daughter." 1842 was the year of Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," and in that year Mr. Browning began with "Pippa Passes," the publication of cheap shilling parts under the common title of "Bells and Pomegranates," which included a fine series of plays thoroughly poetical, two of them-" Luria" and the "Return of the Druses "—thoroughly actable in any theatre that cares to cater for the educated public. In 1843, Thomas Hood battled against cruelty to starving seamstresses, by contributing to Punch his "Song of the Shirt." In 1844, appeared a collection of Mrs. Browning's Poems; in 1845, Robert Browning's "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics;" in 1846, Charles Kingsley's "Saint's Tragedy;" and in 1847, Alfred Tennyson's "Princess." Arthur Hugh Clough's "Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich" appeared in 1848, and his poems under the common name of " Ambarvalia." These were circuits-originally sacrificial circuits of the cultivated fields. It is not yet hard to trace the bounds of our best civilisation; only our aspirations remain boundless. In 1850, Alfred Tennyson uttered the highest hopes of man in his "In Memoriam ;" Robert Browning looked to the highest life in his "Christmas Eve" and "Easter Day;" Wordsworth had just closed his years of labour for the bettering of man, and his "Prelude,” which is the true key to his life and poetry, and to the life of England in the nineteenth century, was published in that year 1850. feeling gave him a popularity of which he sought advantage only in the power of doing the best day's work to which God enabled him to set his hand. Of the true-hearted man who went to his rest in the last year of the last quarter of a century, let due praise be spoken, though of living labourers, with whom it is still noon in the harvest-field, the time for such remembrance is not yet. Of Charles Kingsley's lyric power these are examples : THE THREE FISHERS. Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbour bar be moaning. Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come home to the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep; And good-bye to the bar and its moaning. CHAPTER XX. THE THIRD QUARTER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TENNYSON AND BROWNING, ALGERNON SWINBURNE, WILLIAM MORRIS, AND OTHERS. A.D. 1850 TO A.D. 1875. PROBLEMS Of Society were boldly treated by Charles Kingsley in his novel entitled "Yeast," which appeared in 1851. He was then thirty-two years old, had taken rank as a poet three years before with his "Saint's Tragedy," and united poetical enthusiasm, religious feeling of a kind that deepened human sympathies, and wide-reaching intellectual activity in one of the gentlest and most vigorous of natures. He was born in the vicarage of Holne, on the high ground about Dartmoor, within a walk of a famous chase, and some of the best scenery of Devonshire. He graduated at Cambridge in 1842, taking a firstclass in classics, and a senior optime in mathematics; and in the same year he became curate (two years afterwards rector) of Eversley, the parish he held until his death in January, 1875. From 1859 to 1869 Charles Kingsley was Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. In 1869 he was preferred to a Canonry in Chester Cathedral, and transferred in 1873 to a Canonry in Westminster. His "Saint's Tragedy," on the story of Elizabeth of Hungary, places him among dramatists; and as a writer, his lively imagination and his generous 1 ODE TO THE NORTH-EAST WIND. Welcome, wild North-easter! Tired of gaudy glare, Turns us out to play! Fill the marsh with snipe; Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky. 10 20 Hark! The brave North-easter! While a lip grows ripe for kissing; Breast-high lies the scent, On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent. Chime, ye dappled darlings, Let the horses go! Chime, ye dappled darlings, Down the roaring blast; You shall see a fox die Ere an hour be past. Go! and rest to-morrow, Hunting in your dreams, While our skates are ringing O'er the frozen streams. Let the luscious South-wind Breathe in lover's sighs, While the lazy gallants Bask in ladies' eyes. What does he but soften Heart alike and pen? 'Tis the hard grey weather Breeds hard English men. Through the snowstorm hurled, Drives our English hearts of oak Seaward round the world. Come, as came our fathers, Heralded by thee, Conquering from the eastward, Lords by land and sea. Come; and strong within us Stir the Vikings' blood; Bracing brain and sinew; Blow, thou wind of God! THE WORLD'S AGE. Who will say the world is dying? Who will say our prime is past? Sparks from Heaven, within us lying, Flash, and will flash till the last. Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken; Man a tool to buy and sell; Earth a failure, God-forsaken, Ante-room of Hell. Still the race of Hero-spirits Pass the lamp from hand to hand; Age from age the words inherits "Wife, and Child, and Fatherland." Still the youthful hunter gathers While a slave bewails his fetters; While an orphan pleads in vain : While an infant lisps his letters, Heir of all the age's gain; 10 While a moan from man is wrung; Know, by every want and blessing, That the world is young. A FAREWELL. My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day. Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song. What of the thousand voices of song that expressed the music of our life in the third quarter of the nineteenth century? Master singers were scarce, but there was no lack of good labourers. Increase of population, increase in the proportion of those who had culture enough for such utterance, increase in the facilities of publication, produce increase in the number of the singers. A miscellany which should gather into itself from each living poet the piece making nearest approach to the one song that each man's life may be said to have in it, would surprise many who have not yet learnt how easily the gift of metrical expression is acquired. Many there are who have in our time not only acquired it, but have also good sense or true feeling to express. The most natural form of this widely-diffused singing was some utterance of the music of our home life; and the great abundance of this in our current verse is surely a sign of strength. There is right feeling in it even where there may be no great power in the thought. There were the distant wars of a great empire that hardly stirred national feeling. Chief among these, the Crimean War, between April, 1854, and April, 1856, came of a provocation that touched no heart as hearts presently were touched when evidence was drawn from it that Englishmen, good common men content with common lives, could still flash into heroism at the call of duty. Alfred Tennyson's 66 Charge of the Light Brigade" was a short poem on a typical example of that which was the chief glory of our arms in many a distant war during the third quarter of the century. For even in war we Englishmen look now to our army not as a mass, but as a body of single men, to each of whom there are duties owing, and by each of whom there is a duty done. Perhaps the greatest trial of temper borne by a large mass of the English people was produced by secession of the Southern States of America from the Union in 1860-61. This caused in the year 1862 a disastrous failure of that cotton supply from North America which fed a very large number of English families. The Lancashire cotton famine lasted for three or four years. Where one person in Lancashire had parish relief in September, 1861, four had it in 20 September, 1862, although gifts to the value of a |