AN UNHEARD SERENADE.

COMPROMISE. The soft petunia's dim.seen snow

BY LORD TENNYSON. With hymns of fragrance hails the night; In the following epigrammatic lines we have The bats like shadows come and go,

Lord Tennyson's mind on the present posture The owlets wing their noiseless flight; of our political affairs. It is uncertain to Hushed is our garden, herb and tree;

which“ steersman " of the political ships the Rest peaceful, love, and think of me.

epigram is addressed, since it would be ap.

plicable to either Lord Salisbury or to Mr. Beneath the lamps of heaven I lie

Gladstone ; but it is quite clear that Lord (And heaven for us is still the same);

Tennyson is, like the Duke of Argyll, strongly Deep in the silver-clouded sky

in favor of a compromise : One great star burns with steadfast fame; Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act Shut close, sweet eyes, from trouble free; Of steering; for the river here, my friend, Sleep soft, my love, though far from me. Parts in two channels inoving to one end;

This goes straight forward to the cataract, The sweetest star above the rest

That streams about the bend ; Watch o'er thy sleep with influence mild;

But tho’ the cataract seem the nearer way — The breezes hastening from the west

Whate'er the crowd on either bank may say, Bring thee glad dreams of home and child; Take thou the “bend,” 'twill save thee many a May all unrest thy pillow flee ;

day. Dream on, my heart, and beat for me. We hope almost against hope that the laureate

may yet have cause to trust to what he calls The dawn is come, the channels flow,

Our crown'd Republic's crowning common The bindweed shows her purple sheen; The flame-acacia * takes the glow

St. James's Gazette. With all her arms of waving green ; Light of my life, where'er thou be, Wake happy, love, and pray for me. Temple Bar.

W. WATERFIELD.

How often have I now outwatched the night

Alone in this grey chamber toward the sea • The flamboyant, or gold Mohur tree (Poinciana regia), the glory of Indian gardens.

Turning its deep-arcaded balcony !

Round yonder sharp acanthus leaves the light
Comes stealing, red at first, then golden bright;

Till when the day.god in his strength and glee
Springs from the orient flood victoriously,

Each cusp is tipped and tongued with quiv.
NATURE'S SILENCE.

ering white.

The islands that were blots of purple bloom, MYSTERIOUS Sponsor of Godlike humanity

Now tremble in soft liquid luminous haze, Nature, deputed custodian of Time, All careful for needs — when exposing no van. And dim discerned ere while through roseate

Uplifted from the sea-floor to the skies; ity

gloom, Punishing ignorance rather than crime

A score of sails now stud the waterways, Why through the ages as lost in reflection

Ruffiling like swans afloat from paradise. Speak you no word to your suffering charge?

J. A. SYMONDS. Leaving each folly to end in dejection,

Each roaming fancy to wander at large.

sense.

The children of men in their anxious solicitude (Rocked in their infantile cradle of earth),

IN MEMORIAM:
To find consolation in ev'ry vicissitude

HENRY STORMONT LEIFCHILD.
Turn unto thee as the agent of birth.
Some with resource of a finer conception

In what fair presence hast thou lately been, Steal from the zephyr your snatches of song: Him of the Resurrection, that thy face

Genius of Death ? Hast thou a moment seen
Piece them together, but prone to deception,
Hearing imperfectly, render them wrong.

Is like to love, and soft is thy embrace ;
And through the darkness of thine eyes in.

drawn Perhaps in your silence you wield an authority

A beam of dawn?
Voices of stones e'en could never bestow,
Inducing the sad ones, if not the majority, Lightly the spirit, parted from its clay,

Higher to seek what is wanting below. Rises; but thou dost wait to smooth away These in your reticence, find confirmation, The pain of high endeavor from the brow, Not of a leaderless gen'ral control,

Leaving it but its aspiration now, But of the truth, of divine revelation,

Hope, and the earnest purpose strongly willed, That a Creator embraces the whole.

And now fulfilled.
Temple Bar.
F. W. J. Spectator.

F. L

or

From The Fortnightly Review.

press affords, was never submitted to by MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES.

Mr. Paya, between whom, however, and The two entertaining and instructive Mr. Yates there exist, in spite of marked volumes in which Mr. Edmund Yates has dissimilarities, some resemblances recorded the experiences and reminis- coincidences. Both may be said to have cences of a varied, animated, and success. been brought up in the school, and at the ful career, had as their predecessors some feet, of Dickens; both enjoyed in varying interesting recollections by a popular nov. degrees his friendship; both formed his elist, and bave been followed by the narra. acquaintance about the same time, Mr. tive of “ Episodes in the Second Life” of Yates in 1854, Mr. Payn two years later; a distinguished journalist, told by himself. both made their real literary début in Certain characteristics are possessed by Household Words. The first appearance each of these autobiographies in common. of each in print was poetical – Mr. Yates, Mr. Yates combines, or has combined, in when a mere boy, sending to Mr. Harrihis own person the function of Mr. James son Ainsworth some stanzas which were Payn and Mr. Antonio Gallenga. Like inspired by Thackeray's “ At the Church the former he is a novelist; like the latter Gate; ” and Mr. Payn at the same tenhe is, or has been, a writer of newspaper der age contributing a composition en. articles, and among the most locomotive titled “ The Poet's Death” to Leigh and picturesque.of newspaper special cor- Hunt's journal. Both have, or have had, respondents. With Mr. Yates, as with many common friends, and many of the the two other literary autobiographers, same famous or familiar characters appear existence has been a strenuous and a and reappear in the pages of the books of prosperous affair, - full of labor and each. The education, like the natural effort, but of effort ending in fruition, and tastes and aptitudes, of Mr. Payn and Mr. of labor sweetened by fame. Mr. Yates Yates was widely different. The former, tells us how first, at the bidding of the who went from Eton to Woolwich, and post-office authorities, he performed rapid from Woolwich to Cambridge, was withjourneys between London and foreigo out any turn whatever for languages. capitals, and how when the government “ Languages,” he writes, “have been alwas taking over the telegraphs, he vis ed ways as unattainable to me as the science nearly every portion of the United King- of music. I spent many years over dom; how, dext, at the bidding of the French and German, but could never read, editor of the New York Herald, he had no far less converse in, either tongue with sooner returned to England from Amer. facility." Mr. Yates received the rudi. ica, than he was summoned to Paris, and ments of a sound classical and general then instructed to proceed without a mo- training at Highgate School, was transment's delay to Vienna or Madrid, to St. ferred to Dusseldorf and Bonn, whence in Petersburg or Berlin. The correspon. nine months' time he returned to England dence of Mr. Gallenga was for the most with a perfect command of the German part in a more serious vein than that of vocabulary and accent. It is to his koowl. Mr. Yates. He was present at scenes of edge of French and German that Mr. greater historic significance, and he chron. Yates attributes much of his success in icled the decision of more momentous life, and notably the opportunities of issues. But both men were in their sepa. studying men, manners, and cities, which rate departments of journalism equally in his Continental missions for the postthe first rank; equally prompt, accurate, office supplied. persevering, graphic. This discipline, One admirable quality pervades, in a perhaps the most trying of any that the conspicuous degree, each of these works.

"I do not think," writes Mr. Yates in his • Edmund Yates: his Recollections and Espeo, preface, “I have said any harsh thing of

2 vols. (Beniley). Episodes of my Second Life, by A. Galienga. * vols. (Chapman & Hall). any person, alive or dead. I am ceriain Some Literary Recollections, by James Payn. ; vol. that I have not said such a thing con. (Smith, Elder, & Co.).

has not said it at all. “Whatever judg. | are balloted for, by far the greatest dum ment," writes Mr. Gallenga, “ I may have ber consisted of twaddling and cackling passed upon myself, whether the picture fogies, whose bald pates, toothless gums, of my character resulting from the narra- and rickety limbs sent a chill through my tive of my thoughts and deeds be too veins, and acted as an unpleasant reminder partial or too severe, I must at least be that I also had left the mid career of life held guiltless of having indulged any behind me. I met but few old friends, personality offensive to the dead or liv. and made fewer new ones.” Again, “The ing." As for Mr. Payn, he makes no Athenæum Club was to me a workshop professions, because he spares himself the where I saw few I knew, and hardly spoke trouble of a preface, but he is consistently to those few. Literary men like Bulwer amiable and genial. It is only natural and Disraeli; statesmen like Lord Clar. that there should be more traces of a mel. endon, Lord Granville, Lord Salisbury, ancholy humor, bordering on bitterness, | Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, and Lord in Mr. Gallenga than in Mr. Yates or Mr. Hartington; diplomatists like Lord Ly. Payn. In the first place, he was a patriot ons, Lord Cowley, Lord Ampthill, Lord and an exile. He took liie seriously; he Lytton, Lord Howden, have all come withfelt acutely the vicissitudes and humilia. in the orbit of my acquaintance; but with tions to which, in his earliest attempts all the good-will on my part and all the to earn a living in America and in En- courtesy and amiability on theirs, the gland as a teacher of languages and a intercourse almost invariably ended where writer of magazine articles, he was com.it began.” The truth is, as he explains, pelled to submit. In the second place, Mr. Gallenga was very busy, very shy, though the success which Mr. Gallenga and very near-sighted. Mr. Payn, indeed, achieved as an English journalist and the is uniformly cheery, sometimes positively command he acquired of forcible and cor. chirpy. Yet a bubbling drop of somerect English are for a foreigner unique, thing very like acrimony occasionally wells he never forgot that he was a stranger, up to the smooth and smiling surface. living among strangers. "In spite," he My experience,” he says, “ of men and writes, “of the unfailing kindness and women of letters, which has been contin. deference which I received abroad, I was uous, and extends over thirty years, is full of silly complaints borrowed from that for kindness of heart they have no Dante about the salt that savors other equals. I have known but one absolutely people's bread, and the hardship of climb offensive man of letters, and even he was ing and descending other people's stairs.” said to be pleasant when sober, though But he had other hardships than these, as I only met him some half-dozen times, and for some years he was a man with a and his habits were peculiar, I never had grievance. He could not get back his a fair chance of finding him in that condi. manuscripts when he wanted, or see edi. tion.” “I am well aware," he writes in tors when he called. “Paying editors another place, “that there are a good were not many, and were accessible to many people who dislike me very cordialnone but their intimate friends.” Of De. ly. If they do so for a good reason I lane and Morris, under whom he did much exceedingly regret it. But there are some splendid work for the Times, he speaks in folks whose animosity is the highest of terms of unstinted admiration; but, with compliments. There is in my opinion no the exception of Mr. Sala, there is no one more fatal weakness in human nature than about whom he expresses himself with the desire to be thought well of by everymore than conventional cordiality. Elect. body”. - a doctrine to which perhaps no ed in 1853, after his name had been down one can take exception. Neither Mr. nine years, a member of the Athenæum Payn nor Mr. Gallenga is as uniformly Club, “ he did not much value the mere charitable and kindly, as absolutely free honor of belonging to a learned society. from all after thought of rancor, all hint. As," he continues, "members have to ing of faults and hesitating of dislikes, as wait at least a score of years before they | Mr. Yates, who, indeed, shows himself in

these volumes to be the incarnation of to my neighbor on the right, our host, from buoyancy, good nature, and good fellow. the opposite end, where the conversation was ship. Mr. Payo and Mr. Yates seem both flagging, suddenly and apropos to nothing, of them to be brimming over with an exu. called out loudly to me across the table, and

asked : “Pray, Mr. Gallenga” (he never berance of joyousness which may well ex.

omitted the mister), “pray, who is your dencite the admiration of those whose moral

tist?” There was instant silence, and most mercury seldom rises above a figure con of the guests looked up at me. But I was temptibly low. It is oot so long since, if ready with my answer and spoke out instantly. I remember correctly, that Mr. Payn pub. “ John Heath, No. 11, Albemarle Street, the lished a volume of stories called “ High best in London.” Upon which the guests Spirits.” Mr. Payn's title has been from looked at each other for a few moments won. his earliest youth Mr. Yates's property, dering, and soon the confused buzz of voices and as Mr. Payn, although he was not went on as before. What whim was it that addicted to any form of physical exercise, prompted Michael Angelo Titmarsh with that had as a boy a fatal propensity towards apparently idle question? Did it arise from practical jokes, so Mr. Yates's inborn an ill-natured desire to call attention to the vivacity was so indomitable that his de- havoc that time might have made with my partmental chief in the post-office bade which art now repairs the grievous losses of

jaws and at the truly marvellous skill with him, as a preliminary discipline to the nature? Did he expect me to blush or faint day's routine, walk from St. John's Wood

like any middle-a madam, the mystery of to St. Martin's-le-Grand instead of being whose golden chignon or rosy cheek is by some driven on the omnibus. For genuine untoward accident brought into light in the amiability, as has been said, the palm presence of her most devoted admirers? Or must be given to Mr. Yates. His vol. was that merely his pleasantry, his wish to umes are not only in their way a master- give a fillip to a languid conversation by sup. piece, excellently written, whether as re. plying a new subject which might raise a laugh gards taste or literary style, with their no matter at whose expense ? If the latter component parts admirably arranged, the was his purpose, it flew wide of the mark, for

though some of our friends may have been product at once of an exceedingly clever man, wielding a practised and artistic pen; no one seemed to perceive its drift. No one

struck by the strangeness of his sudden sally, they are also the product of a kindly, noticed its "fun" or humor.

The joke, if courteous, and considerate nature, strong joke it was, fell flat. and impetuous, but sympathetic even to

As there were reasons which might tenderness. Unless Mr. Yates was

have excused Mr. Yates if he had adopted dowed in an unusually liberal measure

a very different tone in regard to Thack. with these qualities, it is certain that he would not have refrained from some ani. circumstances of a literary career which

eray, so there is much in the unavoidable madversions which might have been par might have prompted bim, as well as Mr. donably severe on Thackeray. Mention

Payn and Mr. Gallenga, to reflections far is made of Thackeray by Mr. Payn and more acrimonious than are to be found in Mr. Gallenga as well. Mr. Payn tells

any of the volumes I am now considering. what some persons may suppose to be a The life of a writer was defined by Pope characteristic anecdote of the great nov.

as “a warfare upon earth.” Few warriors elist. “Even B- I will call him B, for could have illustrated the principles of indeed he was busy enough, though he

amnesty with more generosity than Mr. made no honey – speaking to Thackeray Yates. Speaking of literature, Mr. Payo of Leitch Ritchie, admitted that he was says there is “no calling so bright and • a very gentlemanly man. But how does pleasant, so full of genial friendship, so B know?' said Thackeray." Mr. Gallen radiant with the glories of success; but ga, as an instance of Thackeray's playsul, there is also no pursuit so doubtful, so full ness, cites the following:

of risks, so subject to despondency and One day, at a large men's party, when we disappointments, so open to despair. Oh, were sixteen present, as I was seated nearly at my young friend, with a turn for literature, the lower end of the table and I was talking think twice and thrice before committing

en

yourself to it, or you may bitterly regret , upon the subject. There is, I firmly be.
io find yourself where that turo may take lieve, no instance on record of a man of
you." Yet though these are Mr. Payn's letters who, having trodden so persistently
sentiments, everything is rose-colored in the uphill path of an opposed career as
his autobiography, and as it is with Mr. Mr. Yates, and having gone through such
Payn so is it in a greater degree with Mr. a series of exertions and encounters, ever
Yates. Now it is no sufficient explana. took so urbane and kind a retrospect of
tion of this circumstance in the case of a the past.
man like Mr. Yates to say that he has In his chapter entitled “The Influence
been brilliantly successful. Success in of Pendennis,” Mr. Yates gives us what
most men is no remedy for resentment, is, from an autobiographical point of view,
and does not remove the causes of embit. one of the most interesting portions of his
terment. If there ever existed a calling work:
which could justify embitterment and re-
sentment, it is that of the professional

To get admitted into the ranks of literary writer. Thackeray in one of the most men, among whom I might possibly, by in. acid chapters in his “ Book of Snobs,” began to be my constant thought; and I was

dustry and perseverance, rise to some position, after having shown that literature was full encouraged in the hope that I might succeed, of them, exclaimed in bitter irony, “ There perhaps more than anything else, by reading are no snobs in literature.” Mr. Yates the career of “ Pendennis," which, in its wellhas had a good deal more to do with jour. remembered yellow cover, had then been apnalism than Mr. Payn: he has therefore pearing month by month for the last two years, been brought more into contact with all and in its complete form was just obtainable kinds and conditions of gentlemen who at the libraries. There is no prose story in write. He has had as many opportunities our English language, not even the “Christ. as an Old Bailey barrister, or Mr. George

mas Carol," not even “ The Newcomes,” not Lewis himself, of seeing the seamy side Marner” – and now I have named what are

even the “ Scenes of Clerical Life” or “ Silas of human nature. It is not too much to to me the most precious — which interests and say that the social commerce and the pro affects me like - Pendennis." It had this fessional intercourse inseparable from a effect from the very first. I knew most of it literary life is to moderately sensitive na. so thoroughly. The scenes in the provincial tures a protracted torture. The compe. theatre – the Fotheringay, her father, the tition which must be encountered and prompter, the company - were such perfect defeated before the position is won, is creations (to this day I have never seen any incessant, bitter, and frequently humiliat. hwnt as to where Thackeray got his study of ing:

When a sort of tableland of success these people, who were quite out of his usual and influence has been reached, and the mother was so analogous to that of me and

line); the position of Pendennis and his competitor has at his disposal some degree mine - her devotion, his extravagance; the of literary patronage, he is upon the thres. fact that I was personally acquainted with hold of fresh troubles. The responsible Andrew Arcedeckne, the original of Foker, in conductor of any literary enterprise has whom he was reproduced in the most ludi. to deal with every sort of knavery and crously lifelike manner : all this awakened in incapacity — as to which let the intelligent me a special interest in the book; and when, reader consult Mr. Payn's remarks in the in the course of Pen's fortunes, he enters upon last hundred pages of his volume. He is the literary career, writes his verses for the perpetually assailed by the importunity of Spring Annual,” dines with Bungay, visits incompetence and the impudence of inapti. and chums with Warrington, who makes that

Shandon, is engaged on the Pall Mall Gazette, tude. "He will find himselt beset altero ever-to-be-quoted speech about the power of Dately by the entreaties and impertinences the press : "Look at that, Pen! There she is, of the opiniated dullard whose conceit is the great engine ; she never sleeps, etc., a bar to his improvement, and who in his when I came to this portion of the book my relations with the men whose kindly fate was sealed. To be a member of that won. offices he solicits begins with Aattery, derful Corporation of the Goosequill, to be then breaks into a snarl, and ends by recognized as such, to be one of those jolly suing with a whine. The monitions of fellows who earned money and fame, as í experience are thrown away upon these thoughi, so easily and so pleasantly, was the persons. They are the parasites of our tion could do it, I determined that my desire

one desire of my life ; and, it zeal and applica. literary system, and it is infinitely to the should be gratified. credit of Mr. Yates's native kindliness that he should have been able to practise One can understand that men should, a sell.control beyond that of Mr. Payn, even from the sober eminence of middle and not have bad an unkind word to say I age, look back to the novels of Marryat