consistencies and perplexing intricacies; in a | world, a picture of man and his existence, recognized as an enigma and treated as such. Did the aim of dramatic art purely consist of these important significant characteristics, not only would Shakespeare be entitled to rank as the first dramatist in the world, but there could scarcely be found a single poet, ancient or modern, worthy for a moment to be compared with him. But I conceive that the stage has another and a loftier aim. Instead of merely describing the enigma of existence, it should also solve it; extricate life from the tangled impression of the present, and conduct it through the crisis of development to its final issue. Its penetrating glance thus extends to the realms of futurity, where every hidden thing becomes exposed to view, and the most complicated web unravelled; raising the mortal veil, it permits us to scan the secrets of an invisible world, reflected from the mirror of a seer's fancy; it shows the soul how the inner life is formed by outward conflict, which results in the decisive victory of the immortal over the mortal. (Lectures on the History of Literature Ancient and Modern, by Frederick Schlegel. Lecture XII.) The conclusion is, that Calderon, of all dramatic poets, is the most Christian, the most romantic, and the most eminent. Does the reader feel astonished? If so, I can lessen his surprise in an instant. Just before delivering these lectures, Schlegel asked to be admitted to the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. He was perfectly entitled, indeed he was bound in that respect, to act up to his own criticism of life, and he did so. Unfortunately, he applied his criticism of life, which is a guide no man can discard in his choice of a creed, to his criticism of dramatic poets, with the singular result I have quoted. Nay, surprising as it may seem, does not Mr. Arnold himself furnish us with another instance, almost as remarkable as that of Frederick Schlegel, of the danger of approaching poetry with the bias inevitably engendered of a tenacious attachment to one's own criticism of life? "I doubt," is Mr. Arnold's most recent dictum upon the subject, "whether Shelley's delightful essays and letters, which deserve to be far more read than they are now, will not resist the wear and tear of time better, and finally come to stand higher, than his poetry.' Is there not here a marked confusion of thought? And how did it find its way into the mind of so clear a thinker? How can it possibly be said that a man's prose essays and letters are "higher than his poetry, if his poetry be really poetry, and not designated such for mere cour tesy's sake, everybody knowing that it is mere verse, and of no account. Such a view of Shelley's poetry, I need hardly say, Mr. Arnold would shrink from stating. He may rank Wordsworth above Shelley, which he does and I do not; and he may rank Byron above Shelley, which he does, and which I do also, though with becoming deference to those who think differently. But it is impossible that he should not think Shelley a poet of dazzling distinction. Indeed, he says of him, most truly, "he is a beautiful and enchanting spirit, whose vision, when we call it up, has far more loveliness, more charm for our soul, than the vision of Byron." This being so, I again ask how is it possible to compare Shelley's essays with Shelley's poetry, and pronounce the former as higher"? We cannot even meet the assertion with a negative; for a comparison is instituted between two things that cannot be compared. One might as well say that a canal is higher than a stream, that a locomotive is higher than a horse, or that an elegant cabinet or a useful chest of drawers is higher than a plane-tree. The main object of an essay is to instruct or to convince, the main object of a poem is to move and to please; and the consequence is that, though an essay which seemed to instruct yesterday teaches nothing to-day, and one that is found convincing to-day will be found rank foolishness to-morrow, the best poetry, which moved and pleased the human heart two thousand years ago, is moving and delighting the human heart still, and will delight and move it so long as the human heart continues to beat. What will be the ultimate fate of Shelley's essays and letters, I will not venture to predict. But this may be safely said, that if they resist the wear and tear of time for any very long period, they will enjoy a longevity never before accorded to essays or letters, or to any human composition embodying criticisms of life; whereas the sun will never rise upon the day when 68 My soul is an enchanted boat," "I arise from dreams of thee," and "Lines written in Dejection at Naples," will fail to chasten the joy of the fortunate or sweeten the bitterness of the afflicted. Why is this? Surely the answer is patent. Human opinions shift, human creeds change, human dogmas are dethroned; but human feelings vary little if at all, and never abdicate or are finally expelled. This is why it may be said of poetry, as of the human heart, whose voice it is, "They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, and that he is the greatest poet who has sung of love the most truthfully and the most healthily? The same question might be asked concerning war, adventure, nature, the soul, country, all of them themes strikingly congenial to the emotions of the poet, but none of them, any more than love, constituting the raison d'être of poetry, or conferring upon the poet who sings of them most felicitously pre-eminence over his fellows. all of them shall wax old like a garment; | main function of poetry is to sing of love, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." How came Mr. Arnold to make so incongruous, indeed so impracticable, a comparison, and to pronounce so singular a judgment? I can account for it only on the assumption that, like Schlegel when judging Shakespeare and Calderon, he brought his criticism of life to bear upon the comparison and allowed it to mislead him. Thus guided, he found in Shelley's poetry an incurable want of sound subject-matter," just as Schlegel finds in Shakespeare an incurable want of a solution of the enigma of the universe. That being so, Schlegel places Calderon above Shakespeare, and Mr. Arnold ranks Shelley's essays higher than Shelley's poetry. With all humility, I think each conclusion is a striking and valuable reductio ad absurdum of the theory that poetry is a criticism of life, and that a poet should be estimated by us according to the soundness and healthiness with which we happen to think life has been criticised by him. Thus far, then, I think we have got: that if poetry be mainly a criticism of life, and if the relative greatness of a poet depends principally upon the truth and healthiness with which he criticises life, we are left without scales in which to weigh his greatness, and the canon or standard thus offered us turns out to be a pure mirage. At most, then, to criticise or pass judg ment upon life, is only part of the business of poetry, an incidental function of the art, by no means its main occupation or its principal end. And why is it even part of the function of poetry to criticise life? In the answer to that question, we come upon the traces of the real truth of the matter. It is a part of the business of poetry to criticise life, because poetry is, not a criticism, but a representation of life; and criticism of life is part, though only part, of life itself. If then, it be true, and I confess I can entertain no doubt upon the subject, that poetry is a representation of life, what sort of representation I will attempt to define in due course, does it not materially help us to discover how it came about that a critic of such eminence and penetration as Mr. Matthew Arnold should have inadvertently been betrayed into the dictum concerning poetry which it is impossible for us to accept? Every age has its fetich, its favorite idea, its pet But can it not be shown, directly and pursuit, its ruling intellectual passion, its explicitly, and not merely indirectly and criticism or estimate of life. The mania by a reductio ad absurdum of an opposite-I do not use the word slightingly, but assumption, that poetry is not, and the function of the poet is not, mainly a criticism of life? I think it can. As a matter of course, a poet may criticise life, if he chooses; and, as a fact, poets have frequently done so. But does it therefore follow that criticism of life is, or should be, the main function of poetry? Let us consider a moment. Poets have written about love, and written about it very extensively; indeed, though there are poets who have not attempted to pass any serious judgment upon life, I doubt if the poet ever lived who has not at some time or another sung of the passion to which, alone, Anacreon declared he could tune the strings of his lyre; thereby, be it said in passing, allowing it to be seen what a second-rate lyre his was. But though love has been one of the most, perhaps the most, frequent of the themes of the poet, would it be correct to say that the only in order to express what I mean "An age," says a thoughtful writer, "is like climate. The hardier may escape its influence in much, but the hardiest will not escape its influence entirely." Doubtless Mr. Arnold is among the hardier spirits of this age; but in respect of the particular influence we are considering, it is too congenial to his own constitution for him to have resisted it with marked The constellations move round and round, and he moves with them, singing the song of the winds, the thunders, and the never-ending tides. In his spacious dwelling-place, Opinion, like any other shivering wanderer, is free to enter, but only as a compassionated guest, and its place is below the salt. The theologians would fain capture him, and he laughs. The moralists would ensnare him, and he smiles. Society with one hand brings him provender, and with the other a halter, half-concealed, and he, because he is not without some sense of humor, sniffs, and perhaps even snatches the specious bait; but, before the noose is over him, with quick limbs of Pegasus he breaks away, and exults in the fulness of his freedom and his joy. He is for no man to drive, for no woman to ride, though to her call he will always come, and she success. To remember that Mr. Arnold | taph. is a poet, and we all remember it, is to save us from forgetting that he is perforce capable of confronting life with sensations purely emotional. But even in the days when verse, not prose, was the vehicle of his mind, it was pretty evident that he was curious more than contemplative; questioning rather than impressionable; not so much scanning life receptively, in order afterwards to reproduce it, as viewing it in the light of a problem, the key to which had to be found. In fact, he was very much and very markedly the child of the age in which he was born, and it gave him that elastic india-rubber ring the modern substitute for the more solid coral of our - criticism of life, to cut his intellectual teeth upon. Mr. Arnold still cherishes that relic of his infancy, and chewing the criticism of life is the occu-may say gentle words to him, if she will, pation he still prescribes for us babes and sucklings over whose welfare he so use fully and unremittingly watches. ancestors and lay her fair cheek against his unyokable neck. He has a foot in every camp, but a resting-place in none. His life is a perpetual transmigration of soul; and when he sees the shield of Patroclus Now against cutting the teeth of the intellect or the emotions upon criticisms of life, poetry, the most catholic and un-hanging upon the wall, he remembers prejudiced of all things, can have no possible objection. Quidquid agunt homines (using the word agere as meaning to think and feel as well as to act) behold the subject-matter of poetry; and so long as men criticise life, so long will criticism of life interest the poet. But he cannot allow criticisms of life to interest him exclusively, or even mainly. Whatever wisdom or folly, whatever pang or calm, whatever quest or questioning, whatever hope or disillusion, whatever straining, stumbling, or recovery, falls to the experience of man, the poet contemplates with eyes of instant sympathy, ready to render yearning into music, joy into chorus, doubt into harmony, sorrow into song. But though he thrills with the emotions, apprehends the thoughts, scans the actions, and penetrates the motives of his fellow-men, he does not share their prejudices, and, above all, he cannot be shackled by their limitations. What to each one of them in turn is all, is to him only part. All the seasons are before him at once. No snows of winter can take the sound of spring out of his ears; no autumn leaves can cover up the smile of summer in his heart. The centuries are his, and the sepulchres. The dogmas that are dead he remembers; the creeds that are to come he foresees; for the gods to whom altars are being raised, for whom incense is being burnt, he has already written an enduring epi that he was at Troy. He saw Jove born, art." He has moments of divine intoxi- | and the children of Apollo remember and cation, and then he sees all things double. observe the injunction of their sire. When Edgar leads Gloucester to the edge of the supposed cliff at Dover, Glouces ter kneels and exclaims: Does all this seem irrelevant to the demonstration to which I am committed? If it does, I fancy I can show at once that it is strictly pertinent, and that we are than we were. For though it may be true now a good deal farther on our journey that there are poets to whom the foregoing description can be applied but partially, is there no poet of whose qualities and characteristics it is a strictly accurate and unexaggerated account? Who is not ready with the answer? It is true of Shakespeare. It is true of the greatest poet that ever lived. Then mark what follows. We have already seen that it is not only useless but misleading to call poetry a criticism of What! In ill thoughts again? Men must en-life, and to declare that one poet is greater dure Their going hence, even as their coming hither, than another, because his criticism of life is more true and more healthy: useless, since there exists no consensus, either among poets or among their readers, as to what is true and healthy criticism of life; misleading, because it confirms and encourages the pernicious habit, already too prevalent, of estimating the poetic merits of poets according to the reader's individual estimate of what is true and what is healthy. And, now, what more do we see? That the greatest poet who ever lived is the poet of whom the foregoing passage may justly be written; the poet who thrilled with the emotions, apprehended the thoughts, scanned the actions, and penetrated the motives of his fellow-men, but did not share their prejudices and was not shackled by their limitations; the poet of whom it may be truly said that what to individual men is all was to him only part; the poet who made Opinion sit below the salt, the poet whom the theologians did not capture and whom moralists did not stall; the poet who had a foot in every camp and a resting-place in none; the poet who was in The poet, too, is a chameleon, and takes his hue from surrounding objects. To him everything is true that anybody believes. He is as chromatic as light; and, like the rainbow, he has shades of color the ordinary vision does not perceive. All the problems of life are present to bim, and he consorts perpetually with the enigmas of the soul. But he solves them not; rather, he holds them in solution. He is an oracle, it is true, but he is pro-deed a chameleon, and took his hue from foundly Delphic; and those who take his utterances for full and final guidance risk being wofully misled. From the sacred cave from which he speaks smoke also emerges in abundance; and if you question him too closely, there is a chance, if he does not respond with a divine smile, that he will answer you with demoniac thunder. He will be your friend, your consoler, even your enlightener, if you will have it so, but never your lackey, your hireling, nor your ally. It was rig idly forbidden to the Amphictyonic States to appeal against each other to Delphi, surrounding objects; the poet who never But if it be true of him who is confess | Milan and seized the passages of the Po edly the greatest of poets, that his poetry is not a criticism of life, but a representation of it, does it not raise a very strong presumption, to say the least of it, that poetry is not mainly a criticism of life; that the relative greatness of poets cannot properly be made to depend upon the truth and healthiness with which they have criticised life, even if we could agree what is a true and healthy criticism of life; and, finally, that in proportion as a poet occupies himself in his poetry with a definite and consistent criticism of life, to that extent he fetters his chance of being a great poet? Here, perhaps, we had better pause. In another and concluding paper I will endeavor to show what sort of representation of life poetry is. In pursuing that investigation we shall perhaps provide ourselves with certain critical canons, raised above the bias of individual taste or the prevailing spirit of any current age, by referring to which we may ascertain with sufficient fairness and tolerable accuracy the rank of any particular writer in the poetic hierarchy. Alfred Austin. From Fraser's Magazine. OF all Napoleon's victories the battle of Marengo is considered by military critics to have been, on the whole, the most brilliant in conception that he ever fought, as it certainly was one of the most fruitful in its results. Yet, after all, it may be said to have been won by a fluke. The passage of the Alps by the first consul took the ever-unready Austrians completely by surprise. Their forces were scattered among the fortresses of Lombardy and Piedmont, and their generals were disconcerted by the sudden apparition of Napoleon, and by the unexpected tactics which he pursued. Masséna, with a small French and Cisalpine garrison, was shut up in Genoa by an Austrian army and blockading squadron; and both he and the Austrians expected that Napoleon would march to the relief of the besieged garrison. Meanwhile the Austrian commander-in-chief, the Baron de Melas, was in Turin hurriedly collecting his forces. But, instead of marching on Genoa, Napoleon turned to the east and placed his army between the Austrians and their own fortresses. He entered and the Adda without firing a shot. Piacenza fell an easy prey, and in a few days Melas was completely cut off from his communications north of the Po. The Austrian commander was thus reduced to the dilemma of cutting his way through the French lines or making his escape to Genoa, Masséna having in the interval surrendered on condition of being allowed to retire with all his garrison. The besieging force, being thus released from Genoa, hastened to join Baron de Melas at Alessandria. But even then the Austrians could only muster thirty thousand men out of the eighty thousand which they had foolishly scattered in weak detachments all over Lombardy. Napoleon, whose force also was about thirty thousand, had his centre half-way between Piacenza and Alessandria. He made sure that Melas would retreat rapidly on Genoa, and he despatched accordingly the divisions of Desaix and Monnier to intercept him. But Melas did not retreat. He made up his mind to give Napoleon battle, and quietly awaited his approach at Alessandria. As soon as he discovered the mistake which Napoleon had made, he issued from his stronghold and flung his whole force against the weakened French line, first at Montebello, and then at Marengo. After seven hours' hard fighting, the French, in spite of Napoleon's exertions and Murat's brilliant charges, in spite also of the heroic stand made by the grenadiers of the Consular Guard, were driven into a narrow defile, where they were exposed to the Austrian artillery and almost surrounded by the Austrian infantry and cavalry. Having made his dispositions and secured, as he thought, his prey, the Austrian commander returned into Alessandria to take a little rest before summoning the French to surrender. So certain did he feel as to the issue of the battle that he sent out despatches announcing a victory. Meanwhile, however, the sound of the cannonade behind them had reached the ears of Desaix and Monnier, and caused them to hurry back to Marengo. They were met by a multitude of panic-stricken French fugitives, who declared that the battle was lost. "Then we will win another," gaily replied Desaix. The fugitives immediately turned back with him. The French, thus reinforced, instantly renewed the fight; and the Austrians, completely off their guard, were thrown into confusion by the suddenness of the onset, and Murat completed their overthrow by |