lish the recognition of literature and art Senate. Up to his 29th year, his poetical on a par with the noblest of human pur- sympathies were with the Liberal party. suits, afforded an abundant compensation."His appearance, therefore, shortly afterThe leading-strings may be needed no longer, but the services they rendered entitle them to grateful remembrance.

wards as a member of the Conservative party of the House of Commons occasioned considerable surprise." The change is atThe footing of good-fellowship upon tributed by his biographer to an apprehenwhich Prior stood with his brethren ap- sion that "the reforming party at that pears to have been common to the wits at critical period (1830) were tending to large. After reading Pope's correspond- what he considered to be a revolutionary ence and Spence's anecdotes, calling to extreme," and this view is borne out by a mind the literary partnerships of the letter of Praed's upon the subject. No "Spectator" and "Martinus Scriblerus;" imputation of interested motives could the close intimacy of Pope with Swift, possibly attach to him, but the rapidity Arbuthnot, and Garth, of Addison with of his conversion may fairly be ascribed Steel and Tickell, their common admira- to the absence of deep and solid conviction for Congreve, their common affection tion an explanation which seems confor Gay one cannot come to any other sistent with the general tenor of his charconclusion than Thackeray's, that notwith-acter, and is rather confirmed than constanding a few big quarrels and petty tradicted by the fact that he entered with jealousies, "there never has been a society great eagerness into the service of the of men more friendly." Take it for all in all, the world of which Prior was the prophet, seems compounded of elements akin to those in his own nature, and if we cannot accord it more esteem, it is equally secure from our dislike.

party which he had espoused. He took an active part in the Reform debates of 1831-2, stood three or four contested elections, and contributed several squibs to the ephemeral literature of politics. Being soon recognized as a "rising statesWinthrop Mackworth Praed may be man," his zeal was rewarded by Sir Robnamed as another poet of the society in ert Peel in 1834 with a seat in the Govwhom the conditions indispensable to ar- ernment. In 1835 he was happily mar tistic success were fully satisfied. This ried, and spent four years in an atmoswill be sufficiently apparent from an out-phere of domestic peace, of which the melline of the graceful but somewhat colour- lowing influences may be traced in his less memoir which Mr. Derwent Coleridge later verse. These years also seem to has prefixed to his collected works. Born have been marked by a gradual widening in 1802, the son of parents of ancient fam- of his political views, and his co-operation ily and good social position, he was edu- in schemes of National Education and Free cated at Eton and Cambridge, where, amid a circle of brilliant contemporaries, he highly distinguished himself. In the "Etonian," of which he was the editor, and "Knight's Quarterly Magazine," of which he was the "animating and directing spirit," several of his burlesque romances-written before he was of age. were first printed. On leaving the University, he entered upon a promising career at the bar; intermingling literary with legal studies, and finding recreation in what he afterwards described as the "continued and violent excitement" of fashionable life a sphere for which his lively wit and a rare charm of disposition and manner seem to have eminently qualified him. In the ephemeral literature of fashion, keepsakes, souvenirs, and books of beauty, appeared some of his best verses. His leading ambition, however, was distincticn neither in letters nor law, but in the

Trade opposed to the traditions of his party. His nature, moral and intellectual, was evidently ripening with time, but the strain of over-exertion occasioned by his ambition to excel in too many different spheres of action undermined his health, and he died of consumption in 1839.

The period between 1821 and 1834, to which Praed's most characteristic vers de société belong, is too near our own to be adequately estimated, but certain salient aspects therein reflected cannot easily be misapprehended. The influences mainly discernible in his early writings are, of course, literary rather than political or social. In the "Poems of Life and Manners," written at Eton, the influence most apparent is Crabbe's, whose sententious manner does not sit well upon a boy of eighteen, and sometimes gives him the air of a moral prig. The distinguishing qualities of his riper verse are here in embryo

the slight but vivid painting of character, the antithetical pointedness of style,. clear diction, and fluent versification.

A rose-bud and a pair of gloves,

And " Fly not yet" upon the river;
Some jealousy of some one's heir,

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted,
A miniature, a lock of hair,

The usual vows-and then we parted.'

Some alterations in the aspect of society since Praed wrote are obvious upon the surface. His brilliant satirical sketches recall the time when "Almack's" was as solemn an institution as an Established Church-so rigidly governed by canons and tests that the Duke of Wellington himself was once excluded for a solecism verses that the change in English society, There are ample indications in these in the matter of trowsers*- when Landor's since Praed was its lyrist, has been more wild saying that it was "the duty of every- than superficial.

--

Such an allusion as

"The hell where the fiend in his glory
Sits staring at putty and stones,
And scrambles from story to story

To rattle at midnight his bones,"

one to go to balls" might have been taken this au pied de la lettre when the inland "watering-place" had not been superseded by its rival on the coast when terms for which we have now to consult a dictionary -Spadille, Loo, Quadrille, Vole, - and others fast becoming archaic, buck, exquis- belongs to a period when White's Boodles, ite, blue were in common use- when and Crockford's were palaces of ruin. ladies played the harp, kept " albums," and References to duelling and pugilism tell ordered dresses of a "mantuamaker; "of the time when a second, not a solicitor, and gentlemen wore pumps, buckles, stays, was taken into counsel after a quarrel, and and cravats. With allowance made for when the art of self-defence was still part certain changes in these particulars, how- of a gentleman's education. References ever, the best of Praed's verses on such to the laborious occupation of the hangthemes as "The County Ball," "The Fan-man speak of the yet unmitigated ferocity cy Ball," "The Belle of the Ball-room," of the criminal law. In one respect there "My Partner," "Good-night to the Sea- is less alteration than might have been son," and "Private Theatricals," might be- expected. As compared with the social long to our own day. Within its limits, morality of Prior's age, that of Praed's the art with which the author has clothed appears singularly pure. The readers of them is perfect. The portraiture of char-Lord Lytton's "Pelham," a work of 1828, acter is as delicate, the representation of will find the contrast, though considerable, movement as graphic, the dialogue as nat- far less marked. Unless allowance were ural, the style as racy, and the versification as smooth as can be desired. The observation of life is quite superficial, but it pretends to be no more; and where thought and feeling would have been out of place, their absence is not remarked. As a piece of compendious word-painting it would be difficult to match the following:

"Good night to the season! the dances,
The fillings of hot little rooms,
The glancings of rapturous glances,
The fancyings of fancy costumes;
The pleasures which fashion makes duties,
The praisings of fiddles and flutes,
The luxury of looking at beauties,

The tedium of talking to mutes;
The female diplomatists, planners

Of matches for Laura and Jane; The ice of her ladyship's answers,

The ice of his lordship's champagne.” † Nor could the course of a love born of a mere ball-room acquaintanceship be better summarized than thus:

"Our love was like most other lovesA little glow, a little shiver,

made for his having had a clerical editor, some might question whether the poet were so faithful a chronicler in this respect as the novelist. But doubtless society was parti-coloured then as now, and the artists saw different sides of the shield. Praed seems to have had a careful religious training, and from principle or from taste, was indisposed to scenes of vice. If the section of society with which he mixed was of the same temper, the fact may be similarly explained. The increased purity of modern domestic life due perhaps to a variety of causes - including, as Thackeray points out, the example set by the court of George III.,t must be ascribed in greatest measure to the practical working of religious conviction, which, from very opposite directions, for a century past has given evidence of earnestness. So far at least, as the outward absence of vice betokens a sound condition of morals, Praed's time was healthy; and if his poetic picture of it be compared with a similar one of our own, the indications of subsequent improvement

will be scarcely perceived. On the other he so rarely carried his fine pencil and hand, the political allusions in his poems warm brush into regions beyond the presuggest abundant matter for congratula- cincts of fashion. The miscellaneous tion on our constitutional progress. The poems of "Love and Fancy "are of very gibes which (before his conversion to unequal value; now and then, as in Toryism) he flings at venal and "rotten "Time's Song," attaining to no ordinary boroughs," the tone of conviction in height of force and terseness; more often, which (after that event) he chronicles the as in "I Remember," and "The Runadoom of "Gatton's charter," and his sar-way," sinking into low depths of nambycastic references to the debates on Cath- pamby. We cannot put faith in the olic Emancipation, the abolition of Slav-reality of those which assume to be loveery, and Free Trade, recall the history confessions. Their sentimental character of those fierce struggles that resulted in will be apparent on comparing them with the slow acquisition of reforms, whose such unaffected expressions of feeling as abrogation would involve as vast a revolu- the lines on his sister's death, and the tion as the repeal of Magna Charta or the series addressed to his wife. Only in Bill of Rights. How characteristic of the these poems, and one or two more belongperiod which witnessed those changes, ing to the last years of his life, does and of the writer's stand-point in regard Praed succeed in shaking off the pestilent to them, are these lines on seeing the infection of Byronism which fastened on Speaker asleep, during a debate of the his youth. The sudden revulsion of senreformed Parliament:timent in others, and the occasional mistiming of levity, as in the stanzas on the approach of the Cholera in 1831.† combine with the foregoing characteristics to suggest that the writer's mind was too readily susceptible to every influence that offered itself, to allow of any impression being deep or lasting. His nature might be compared to an Eolian lyre that is stirred by inspiration from without, rather than a harp that vibrates to the touch of human fingers. Or one may see in him a likeness to that type of character which the greatest of modern masters has pourtrayed in "Tristram," whose mind, even when haunted by an object of real passion, was prone to yield to any transient distraction.‡

"Sleep, Mr. Speaker; slumber lies

Light and brief on a Speaker's eyes.
Fielden or Finn in a minute or two
Some disorderly thing will do;
Riot will chase repose away –
Sleep, Mr. Speaker — sleep while you may !

"Sleep, Mr. Speaker. Sweet to men

Is the sleep that cometh but now and then;
Sweet to the weary, sweet to the ill,
Sweet to the children that work in the mill.
You have more need of repose than they -
Sleep, Mr. Speaker-sleep while you may!

"Sleep, Mr. Speaker, Harvey will soon

Move to abolish the sun and the moon; Hume will no doubt be taking the sense Of the House on a question of sixteen pence; Statesmen will howl, and patriots bray Sleep, Mr. Speaker-sleep while you may!" The disgust with which a well-bred Tory member must have regarded the daring disregard of tradition displayed by the new Radical importations, and his contempt for their pertinacity on so paltry a subject as retrenchment, could hardly be better expressed. There is a touch of pathos in the reference to the factory children, as if the writer had been moved by some recent accounts of their condition, and was constrained to own that there were some abuses in the existing régime which needed the reformer's besom.

Praed's less distinctive vers de société will not long detain us. Such admirable specimens of portraiture as "The Vicar," "Quince," and the correspondent of “ My own Araminta," must awaken regret that

"Utopia," and Marriage Chimes" (1827.) "Portrait of a Lady" (1831).

With the half sincere and sympathetic, half morbid and frivolous nature that we conceive him to have possessed, Praed may not unfairly be deemed representative of his age, wherein germs of a nobler life than the nation had yet attained were strangely contrasted with the growth of unsound principle and ignoble habit; in which the manliest advocacy of essential reforms, and the most obstinate defence of scandalous abuses—the poetry of Wordsworth and the poetry of Byron-schools and hospitals-gaming-houses and the prize-ring-philosophical and religious theory, and the practice of George IV.'s court were exhibited side by side. Some further illustration of Praed's intellectual calibre may appear on comparing him with

the representative poet of society par excellence of our own time.

"Mental dew

Where wit and truth and ruth are blent."

couplet

Mr. Frederick Locker is happily exempt- He faithfully pourtrays himself in another ed from the possibility of undergoing the post-mortem examination to which we have been able to subject his illustrious prede- "I only wear the cap and bells, cessors, and at our hands at least he is And yet some tears are in my verses." equally safe from vivisection. In predicating of him that he is no spectator ab "A jester by confession," and ever on the extra of the social life which he has depict- search for the droll, he recognizes materied in his "London Lyrics," we affirm noth- als for laughter where many would miss ing that they will not abundantly warrant. them, yet never intrudes "the cap and We are delighted to welcome this charm- bells" where, as in the presence of Sin or ing volume in an improved edition. In re- Death, their jingle would be out of place. turning afresh to it, after a study of Prior On the other hand, it is not only there, but and Praed, we have been forcibly struck in scenes where many might overlook it, by the superior healthiness of the atmos- that he discerns the elemental food of "tears." Humorists like Prior and Praed phere pervading it. This impression may be heightened by a natural association of too often forget Shakespeare's wise teachideas. All three are more or less poets of ing about "a jest's prosperity." Mr. Lockthe city; but whereas with his forerunners er is conscious alike of its power and his we are mewed within walls, Mr. Locker Own responsibility, and indicates, if he invites us out of doors. With Prior we does not accomplish, the highest ends usually breathe the scented air of a bou- which his gift is capable of subserving. doir; with Praed, the tainted air of Al-A jest with him is sometimes the spark mack's. But, though Mr. Locker has the which relieves a condition of electric tenentrée everywhere, he prefers to stroll sion, sometimes the feather which wings a down Piccadilly, Pall Mall, or St. James's shaft to its destined mark. Akin to that Street, canter in Rotten Row, or drive to type of jester idealized in Mr. Tennyson's Hurlingham. The variety of acquaintance latest and subtlest creation of Dagonet, we make in his company is another element and approximately realized in the historiof health. Prior's men and women gener- Mr. Locker seems most deservedly characcal figures of Will Sommers and Chicot,* ally, and Praed's exclusively, belong to the upper middle class; they are usually of terized by two epithets which no one about equal age, and respectively invite dreams of applying to Prior, and we think the sympathies of strictly select, if suffi- must be denied to Praed-earnest and ciently extensive, circles. The spectacle tender. Prior has a riper thought, a wider of a lovers' tête-à-tête soon becomes monot- observation, perhaps a more genial huonous. After twenty-five most people be-mour; Praed has a richer fancy, and a gin to be of Sir Cornewall Lewis's opinion more brilliant wit. But Mr. Locker is so about life and its pleasures, and find a ball- well furnished at all points that only by room tiresome. Mr. Locker's observations comparison is any deficiency perceptible, of human nature are not thus narrowed to and, when perceived, it will be disregarded the experience of lovers and pleasure-seek-in view of his higher excellences. It is in ers, though he has catered abundantly for virtue of their possession that he may both. Studies, minute but delicate, drawn claim to be en rapport with his age. Whatfrom every rank of society and every peri- ever else may be predicated of the prevailod of life, appeal to differing tastes. While ing temper of our time, credit can scarcely be refused to its earnestness. A feature in the choice of subjects he has nearly as much variety as Prior, and more than in the moral constitution of the leaders of Praed, though he has written far less than contemporary schools, as prominent in an either, the uniformity of his mode of hand- Agnostic like Professor Huxley, as in a ling is the test of his sincerity. None of the sharpness of contrast between gravity and gaiety, such as we remark in Prior, no

sudden revulsions, of sentiment, such as Praed exhibits, will be found in these poems. A subtle intermixture of seriousness and irony, of humour and pathos, is their prevailing characteristic. The "fun" in which they abound is always in accord with the poet's own definition of it as the

spiritual metaphysician like Mr. Martineau, or an Ultramontane theologian like Dr. Mill, as in a practical statesman like Mr. Mauning, in a political theorist like Mr. Gladstone, it shows itself not less clearly in the rank and file. Its presence is felt

"The light and noble-hearted Will Sommers," the jester of Henry VIII., as Dr. Doran calls him (History of Court Fools). See also his account of the wise, witty, and generous Chicot.