No. I. Holles of Haughton How John Holles married the fair Anne Stanhope, and so gave offence to the Shrewsburys. High feud between the two houses; the very retainers biting thumbs, and killing one another. John Holles and Gervase Markham: 'Markham, guard yourself better, or I shall spoil you!' Loose-tongued, loose-living Gervase Markham could not guard himself; and got spoilt' accordingly (p. 385). No. II. Croydon Races Scotch favourites of King James, and English jealousies. Scotch Maxwell, and his insolent sardonic humour: Fashionable Young England in deadly emotion. How his Majesty laboured to keep peace. At the Croydon Races there arose sudden strife; and the hour looked really ominous: Philip Herbert (beautiful young man), of the best blood in England, switched over the head by an accursed Scotch Ramsay! And Philip Herbert's rapier-did not flash-out (p. 389). No. III. Sir Thomas Dutton and Sir Hatton Cheek How unthrifty everywhere is any solution of continuity, if it can be avoided! Peace here, if possible; over in the Netherlands is always fighting enough. Swashbuckler duels had now gone out: Fifty years ago, serious men took to fighting with rapiers, and the buckler fell away: A more silent duel, but a terribly serious one. Hot tempers at the siege of Juliers: Under military duty; but not always to be so. Two gentlemen on Calais sands, in the height of silent fury stript to the shirt and waistband; in the two hands of each a rapier and dagger clutched: A bloody burial there that morning. Ill-fated English human creatures, what horrible confusion of the Pit is this? (p. 392.) THE OPERA Music the speech of Angels, raising and admitting the soul to the Council of the Universe. It was so in old earnest times, whatever it may have come to be with us. The waste that is made in music among the saddest of all our squanderings of God's gifts. David's inspired Psalms; and the things men are inspired to sing now at the Opera (p. 397). The Haymarket Opera, with its lustres, painting, upholstery: Artists, too, got together from the ends of the world; capable of far other work than squalling here. The very ballet-girls, with their muslin saucers and mad ugly caperings, little short of miraculous. And to think of some Rossini or Bellini in the rear of it! (399).—All this to afford an hour's dreary amusement to a high-dizened select populace—not worth amusing. The Rhythmic Arts, with their magical accessories, a mere accompaniment ; VOL. IV. 2 I SUMMARY PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION THE French Revolution the grand event of these modern ages (p. 1).— Innumerable Histories, and attempts to picture it. Thiers's History, with its superficial air of order and candour, inwardly waste, inorganic, incorrect. Mignet's, although utterly prosaic, a much more honestlywritten book: His jingling dance of algebraical a's, and Kalmuck rotatory-calabash. Only some three publications hitherto really worth reading on the matter (2).—The Histoire Parlementaire a valuable and faithful collection of facts and documents. Account of old Foulon's miserable end. Camille Desmoulins, a light harmless creature, 'born to write verses'; but whom Destiny directed to overthrow Bastilles. The French Palais Royal, and the Roman Forum: White and black cockades: Insurrection of Women (7).-The Jacobins Club in its early days of rose-pink and moral-sublime: In some few months the September Massacre: Like some Ezekiel Vision become real, does Scene after Scene disclose itself. The French Revolution, an attempt to realise Christianity,' and put it fairly into action in our world: For the love of Heaven, Messieurs, humez vos formules,' and look! (15). SIR WALTER SCOTT Instinctive tendency in men to look at any man who has become distinguished (p. 22).-Sir Walter Scott's unparalleled popularity. Mr. Lockhart's Life, in Seven Volumes: Essentials of a real Biography. Necessity for paying literary men by the quantity they do not write : Not what stands above-ground, but what lies unseen under it, determines the value. Fenimore Cooper, and what it lay in him to have done. When the Devil may fairly be considered conquered. Mr. Lockhart's work an honest, careful compilation: Foolishly blamed for being too communicative. Delicate, decent, empty English Biography; bless its mealy mouth! (24).—No extent of popularity can make a man great: The stupidity of men, especially congregated in masses, extreme: Lope de Vega; Cervantes; Kotzebue. The real ungarnished Walter Scott, reduced to his own natural dimensions: Other stuff to the making of great men that can be detected here. His highest gift, a love of picturesque, vigorous and graceful things. The great Mystery of Existence had no greatness for him: His conquests were for his own behoof mainly, over common market-labour. The test of every great divine man, that he have fire in him to burn-up somewhat of the sins of the world: Paltry, self-conscious, hollow imitations. A great man ever possessed with an idea. Napoleon, not the superfinest of great men, had an idea to start with: His idea, The tools to him that can handle them,' the one true central idea to which everything practical is tending. Small vestige of any such fire, latent or luminous, in the inner-man of Scott. Yet he was a right brave and strong man, according to his kind: One of the healthiest of men. A healthy soul, the blessedest thing this earth receives of Heaven. Walter Scott and William Cobbett, the two healthiest men of their day: A cheerful sight, let the greatness be what it will. Scott, very much the old fighting Borderer, in the new vesture of the nineteenth century. Who knows how much slumbers in many men? (33).—Till towards the age of thirty, Scott's life has nothing in it decisively pointing towards distinction of any kind. His infancy and boyhood: How Destiny was steadily preparing him for his work. Presbyterian Scotland: Brave old Knox, one of the truest of the true! A true Thought will take many forms, in the Voices and the Work of a hardy, endeavouring, considering Nation. The good in the Scotch national character, and the not-so-good (41).—Scott's early days pleasant to read of: A little fragment of early Autobiography. His 'Liddesdale Raids' Questionable doings; whisky mounting beyond its level. A stout effectual man, of thirty, full of broad sagacity and good-humour. The uttered part of a man's life bears but a small unknown proportion to the unuttered, unconscious part: The greatest, by nature also the quietest. Fichte's consolation in this belief, amid the infinite chattering and twittering of commonplace become ambitious. Scott the temporary comforter of an age, at once destitute of faith and terrified at scepticism : In his Romances the Past stood before us, not as dead tradition, but as palpable presence: His brilliant, unprecedented success (44).—For a Sermon on Health, Scott should be the text: Money will buy money's worth; but 'fame,' what is it? How strange a Nemesis lurks in the felicities of men! What sadder book than that Life of Byron by Moore? Poor Byron! who really had much substance in him. Scott's commercial enterprises: Somewhat too little of a fantast, this Vates of ours! Scott and Shakspeare. If no skyborn messenger, heaven looking through his eyes; neither is he a canting chimera, but a substantial terrestrial man (51). Considering the wretched vamping-up of old tatters then in vogue, |