is the one curse of humanity of which we might absolutely cut off the entail.' Alas! the Archdeacon tempts an old lawyer to say, we should then be seised in fee simple of this sin, and have the largest possible estate in it.

The Archdeacon makes a great, I must say a mischievous, mistake when he says, 'It is a shameful injustice that the rich should be easily able to keep public-houses from the parks and squares in which they live, while the poor are left helpless and unprotected, to their most fatal temptation.' I call this mischievous as a suggestion of ill-usage of the poor of which there is much too much inflammatory talk already. It is a mistake, because it supposes that there is some law or arrangement which causes it, when it is only the result of this, that a public-house in a square in which the rich live would not pay. What does the Archdeacon say to the injustice of shutting up the place where the poor man gets his beer, and leaving open the rich man's club?

The Archdeacon says: Lord Bramwell bids us trust to the good sense and improvement of mankind. Alas, we have been doing so for centuries.' He refers to the cockatrice on Amiens Cathedral, and cruelly says Lord Bramwell once more hangs the desecrated shield of liberty on the signboard of the gin-palace.' This is 'magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.' It is eloquent, at least I suppose so, but it is not argument. Why should the Archdeacon distrust mankind and want the aid of the law? He supposes there are three to four million total abstainers in England. How many were there fifty or twenty years ago? Yet the Archdeacon wants more law. He speaks as though it was now being asked for for the first time. Laws in restraint of drink have existed for nearly three centuries, have been broken more than any others, and have caused more offences than any others. I have tried more cases of perjury arising from them than from any other cause. I will quote what Mr. Harrop said in a lecture at Cambridge. Speaking of the time of Charles the First and of the drink legislation up to then, he said:

In the short space of twenty-four years no fewer than seven distinct Acts of Parliament were passed, each intensifying and strengthening the penalties of its predecessor, and all directed to one object, the forcible repression of drunkenness. People were not permitted to make use of taverns except under the stringent provisions I have stated; fines, degrading exposure in the public stocks, flogging, and imprisonment in the common gaels, were the punishments inflicted; an army of spies and informers was called into being; something very like inducements to perjury and malicious prosecution were held out; the King and the Parliament were of one determination in the matter; and the whole population to be dealt with was not equal to the present population of London. Am I not right in saying that never again can the policy of repression and coercion be carried out so sternly or under such favourable circumstances? And do not the facts show that under even the most favourable conditions, and after full trial, this policy was a complete failure, a failure proved again and again on the unimpeachable evidence of the very authors of that policy? As to the unintended and unforeseen results which this

policy brought about, we have, firstly, an actual increase of drunkenness; secondly, an enormous increase in the number of unlicensed and illegal ale-houses; thirdly, the degradation of our people's characters by forcing them to have recourse to mean and evasive tricks; and, fourthly, the abandonment of the business of tavernkeeping to worthless characters, because respectable people would not submit to its harassing and degrading risks. The truth of this last assertion is proved by the Act 1 Charles I., chap. iii., which prescribes the flogging of innkeepers, because they were so poor that they could not pay fines nor bear the charge of being conveyed to gaol, and moreover do leave a great charge of wife and children upon the parish wherein they live.'

I will not notice Edward the Fourth, the Duke of Burgundy, or Oliver Cromwell. But I will express my agreement with the good and venerated nobleman Lord Shaftesbury, that 'I see the absolute and indispensable necessity of Temperance Associations,' if he means, as I believe, temperance and not total abstinence. Nay more, if there are men who cannot drink in moderation but can totally abstain, I heartily agree that they should do the latter. As to Goethe, does the Archdeacon know that one of Goethe's characters quotes, I suppose with Goethe's approval, the following line from an old song:

Der Wein erfreut des Menschen Herz.

The Archdeacon may like the rest of the quatrain :—

Drum gab uns Gott den Wein.

Auf! lasst bei Rebensaft und Scherz

Uns unsers Daseins freun!

Does the Archdeacon approve the life and conduct of Lacordaire whom he cites?

I have now been through the 'Reply.' Let us see where we agree and where we differ. I said that 'drink' in moderation is a source of great and harmless enjoyment. Does he deny it? No. He says it causes great mischief. Did I deny that? No. He thinks the mischief outweighs the good. I think the good outweighs the mischief. So far we differ. I say that, if not, the good may be had without the mischief. I do not understand him to deny that, if people would only be wise. I said it is unjust to deny enjoyment to A and the other letters of the alphabet down to Z, because Z abuses the means of enjoyment. Does the Archdeacon deny it? He complains of adulteration and the vile stuff that is sold as 'drink.' I did not mention that, but heartily join him, and would punish the makers and sellers as poisoners. He advocates temperance; have I said a word in favour of intemperance? No. I deprecate compulsory legislation as leading to breaches of the law. This is a subject he leaves untouched. I asked for charity and indulgence for those who think as I do. He does not say we are entitled to it. He appears to think we get as much as we deserve.

The Archdeacon has called up Mahomet, Noah, his unlucky son Canaan and all his posterity, the Rabbi Oved the Galilean, and divers other rabbis, Propertius, Pliny, a legendary Thracian king, Aristotle, Franklin, the Duke of Burgundy, Edward the Fourth, Avicenna, Averrhoes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Oliver Cromwell, Milton, Goethe, and finishes with Lord Shaftesbury, who, I warrant, never before found himself in such company.

Is this the way to deal with the question? I say no; preach temperance, deprecate intemperance and show its mischief with all your force. Punish the mischievous drunkard. Punish those who supply drink to the man drunk already. Punish the adulterator. But respect the rights and opinions of those who do not agree with you; avoid the evils that attend on laws which have not the support of public opinion, feeling, or usage; be charitable to those who think otherwise than you do.

I have to thank a friend and correspondents for references and suggestions.

BRAMWELL.

'THE FAITHFULL SHEPHERDESSE.

We must turn to Hesiod, who lived about 900 B.C., for the foundation on which Theocritus, the first of so-called pastoral poets, built. For Hesiod's Works and Days' is a true shepherd's calendar, written by himself as he fed his father's flocks on the slopes of Helicon. The idylls of Theocritus, written B.C. 284-280, are, to the pastoral or bucolic poetry of earlier times, what Shakespeare's plays are to the pre-Elizabethan drama of England. They may be said to form the basis of the whole fabric of pastoral writers from the idyll to the opera. Among those whose lines are laid on the bucolics of the Syracusan poet, foremost in point of date and literary merit stands Virgil. His eclogues, nevertheless, have lost somewhat of that fascinating realism or nature which Theocritus married to his art. The older poet creates a veritable shepherd-life; Virgil plays at shepherds. The Greek gets inside the ribs of the goatherds, and wakes into harmony their sleeping song: the Latin weaves melodious verse round marionettes. Besides the classic pastorals there is a pastoral comedy written by one Adam de Schalle, 1150, called Le jeu de Robin et Marion. This is a curious bit of medievalism, and it is to be found in the MSS. of the Bibliothèque impériale nationale.

With the classical studies of the Renaissance came admiration of the purely literary quality of the bucolic idyll, which was now moulded into the form of the pastoral drama, the parent of the opera. The earliest I know of belongs to 1472, and is by the scholar Poliziano. It is the Favola di Orfeo, and was first performed at the Court of Mantua. It begins like an idyll, and ends like a tragedy. This was followed by others, including, in 1539, Tansillo's I due Pelligrini ; but the fully developed form was not reached till 1554, when Beccari produced his Arcadian pastoral drama, Il Sacrifizio, first played at Ferrara. This play, which was very popular, is an example of what Polonius means by the words 'pastoral-comical.'

Harpalus is supposed to be the first attempt at pastoral writing in our own language; we find it in a collection of Songs and Sonnettes of the Earl of Surrey,' first published in 1557, ten years after the Earl's execution, probably written before the death of Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1541. The story of his pastoral is given in one hundred

and four lines, and is briefly to this effect. Harpalus, a herdsman, loves Phylida; Phylida loves another herdsman, Corin, who is careless of her, and indifferent to love.

How often would she flowers twine,

How often garlands make
Of cowslips and of columbine,

And all for Corin's sake!
But Corin, he had hawkes to lure
And forced more the field;
Of lovers' lawe he took no care,

For once he was begilde.

And, because Harpalus found himself furthest from her thoughts, he grew pale and lean.

His clothes were blacke and also bare;

As one forlorne was he;

Upon his head always he ware

A wreath of willow-tree.

'With sighs and sorrows shrill' he told to himself his tale of trouble. His own love for her was the cause of his unhappiness. He finds that he went

First by sute to seeke

A tigre to make tame;

That settes not by thy love a leeke,
But makes thy griefe her game!

Meanwhile, Corin lives careless, leaping among the leaves. Harpalus, tired of bemoaning himself, now calls on his beasts to hearken to his complaint; he envies them their feeding and their simplicity of existence. He is determined to die the slave and thrall of the flouting Phylida, and begs that on his tomb shall be inscribed these lines:

Here lieth unhappy Harpalus,

By cruell love now slaine;
Whom Phylida unjustly thus

Hath murdered with disdaine.

The Scottish pastoral, Robin and Makyne, composed in rivalry of Harpalus, was revised and amended by Allan Ramsay, the author of the Gentle Shepherd.

Robin and Makyne was written by Robert Henryson, a schoolmaster of Dumferline, in 1571.

Makyne begins by making overtures to Robin in the first

stanza :

I haif thee luivt baith loud and still

This twamonds twa or thre.

Robin replies that he knows nothing of love, but would like to learn what it is to love or be loved. He thinks these advances of hers are due to the weather.