SPECIMEN OF CARLYLE'S PROSE.

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PORTRAIT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.

He is a king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown, but an old military cocked hat generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute softness if new; no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he hits the horse "between the ears," say authors); and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings,— coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in colour or cut, ending in high overknee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished, -Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach. The man is not of god-like physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume: closeshut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labour done in this world; and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joys there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humour, are written on that old face, which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose, rather flung into the air, under its old cocked hat, like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man, or lion, or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have. "Those eyes," says Mirabeau, "which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you with seduction or with terror." Most excellent, potent, brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of the azuregray colour; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on depth. Which is an excellent combination, and gives us the notion of a lambent outer radiance, springing from some great inner sea of light and fire in the man. The voice, if he speak to you, is of similar physiognomy: clear, melodious, and sonorous; all tones are in it, from that of ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flowing banter (rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up to desolating word of rebuke and reprobation.

THOMAS HOOD, born in 1798, was the son of a London bookseller. His literary career began in Dundee, where he contributed to a local magazine. His works abound in sparkling wit and humour, being crammed with the choicest puns and most whimsical turns of thought. But his true power as a poet, unfortunately seldom put forth, appears in such tragic pieces as Eugene Aram's Dream, The Song of the Shirt, and The Bridge of Sighs, or

MISS LANDON, MRS. NORTON, MRS. BROWNING.

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A kindred

in the richly fanciful Plea of the Midsummer Fairies. spirit, Jerrold, says that "his various pen touched alike the springs of laughter and the sources of tears." Hood died in 1845.

born in 1802 at Old BrompHer signature of L. E. L.

DAVID MACBETH MOIR, born in 1798, was the Delta of Blackwood's Magazine. The busy surgeon of Musselburgh found time to cultivate a poetic genius of the first order. A gentle melancholy is the ruling spirit of his works; but from his novel of Mansie Wauch and some of his lighter pieces, a mellow, quiet Scottish humour shines softly out. He died in 1851. LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON was ton, one of the London suburbs. soon became known by the beautiful poems she contributed to the Literary Gazette. The Improvisatrice and The Golden Violet are among her principal works. She wrote also three novels, one of which is called Romance and Reality. Having married Mr. Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle in Africa, she went out to that lonely home to die. One October morning in 1839, about two months after her arrival, she was found dead on her bedroom floor, having accidentally, it is thought, taken an overdose of prussic acid. Rich luxuriance of fancy is the most striking characteristic of her poetry.

THOMAS AIRD, born in 1802, at Bowden in Roxburghshire, contributed many poems to Blackwood. He has long been editor of the Dumfries Herald. The Devil's Dream is his noblest poem. Some racy prose sketches of Scottish character have also come from his pen.

CAROLINE NORTON (Miss Sheridan), grand-daughter of the celebrated dramatist, was born in 1808. The Sorrows of Rosalie-The Undying One, a poetic legend of the Wandering Jew-The Dream -and The Child of the Islands, may be named among her poems. Stuart of Dunleath is her principal novel. Her unhappy private life has won much sympathy for the hardly-tried authoress.

ELIZABETH BROWNING (Miss Barrett) attracted notice first by a translation of the Prometheus Bound of Eschylus. A long illness in early life, occasioned by the bursting of a vessel in the lungs, enabled her, by a wide and varied course of reading and

502

AYTOUN, BAILEY, DOBELL.

much deep, solitary thought, to prepare for the high vocation of a poet. She certainly has given us the sweetest and noblest strains of poetry that have come in the present generation from her sex. Married in 1846 to Robert Browning, the author of Pipi Passes, she went to reside at Florence; and there what she saw of Tuscan affairs inspired her fine political poem of Casa Guidi Windows. A long poem in blank-verse, Aurora Leigh, depicts the maiden life of a poetess, "the autobiography of a heart and intellect." The principal favourites among Mrs. Browning's poems are, The Duchess May-Bertha in the Lane-Cowper's Grave-The Cry of the Children-Lady Geraldine's Courtship-Sonnets from the Portuguese. This gifted lady died in the earlier part of the present year (1861). Her husband, born at Camberwell in 1812, has written two tragedies, Strafford and The Blot on the Scutcheon, and several remarkable poetical works,—Paracelsus, Bells and Pomegranates, Men and Women, &c.

WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN was born in 1813 at Edinburgh. While at college his poem of Judith attracted the notice of Professor Wilson. But his fame rests chiefly upon his spiritstirring Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. He has also written the historic romance of Bothwell, and a most effective satire on modern poets, entitled Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, by Percy T. Jones. He fills the chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of Edinburgh, and is also Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Orkney. In conjunction with THEODORE MARTIN, a parliamentary solicitor in London, he wrote Ballads by Bon Gaultier, and lately joined the same friend in translating the lyrics of Goëthe.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY, born in 1816 at Nottingham, has written some noble but unequal poems. Festus is his chief work (1839). The Angel World and The Mystic followed in succession, both being in the same rapturous and exalted style. In The Age, a Colloquial Satire, he tried another key, pitched as low as his former strains were high.

SYDNEY DOBELL, whose nom de plume is Sydney Yendys, was born in 1824 at Peckham Rye. In the uncongenial atmosphere of a wine-merchant's counting-house-his father followed that

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF POETS.

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business near Cheltenham-he cultivated poetry with much success. The Roman (1850), was his first, and is still his best poem. Balder-Sonnets on the War, written in conjunction with ALEXANDER SMITH-and England in Time of War, complete the list of Mr. Dobell's works already published.

ALEXANDER SMITH, born in 1830 at Kilmarnock, made his fame by A Life Drama, written amid the toils of drawing patterns for a muslin house in Glasgow. A second volume, entitled City Poems, rich with the same excessive wealth of imagery, appeared in 1857. We have here the black streets of smoky Glasgow glorified with poetic light, which sometimes brightens to sublimity. The present year (1861) has produced mellowed fruit of his genius in a fine poem of the epic class, Edwin of Deira, which gives a stirring and truthful picture of Saxon life in old Northumbria. Mr. Smith has been for several years Secretary to the University of Edinburgh.

CAROLINE SOUTHEY.

Supplementary List.

(1787-1854) — Miss Bowles-Buckland, Hants-Ellen Fitz-Arthur; The Widow's Tale; Chapters on Churchyards (prose). WILLIAM THOM.-(1789-1848)-- Aberdeen—a weaver of Inverury—Rhymes and

Recollections.

BRYAN PROCTER.-(1790-still living)-known as Barry Cornwall--barrister and Commissioner of Lunacy-Marcian Colonna; Flood of Thessaly; Dramatic Scenes; Mirandola (a tragedy).

HENRY HART MILMAN.-(1791-still living)-London-Dean of St. Paul'sFazio, a tragedy; Samor; The Fall of Jerusalem; The Martyr of Antioch; History of Latin Christianity (prose).

JOHN CLARE. (1793—still living)-Helpstone, Northamptonshire-a ploughman-Poems of Rural Life; The Village Minstrel.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.-(1796-1849)-Clevedon, near Bristol-Poems; Lives of Northern Worthies (prose). DERWENT COLERIDGE.-(1800-still living) -Keswick-Memoir of Hartley Coleridge. SARA COLERIDGE.-(1803

1852)-Keswick-Phantasmion.

HAYNES BAYLY.—(1797-1839)--near Bath-lyrist-The Soldier's Tear; I'd be a Butterfly.

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. — (1797-1835)- Glasgow-journalist-Scottish Minstrelsy; Jeanie Morrison.

ALARIC ALEXANDER WATTS.-(1799—still living)—London-journalist-Poetical Sketches; Lyrics of the Heart.

JOHN EDMUND READE.-dramatist and poet-Italy; Revelations of Life; Cain and Catiline (dramas).