remained his firm friend to the last. | he wrote three papers, published in Fra-
Alone, among Shelley's biographers, he ser between June, 1858, and March, 1862.
has not shrunk from the truth. He per- In these he proves, beyond question, that
ceived at the time, and maintained to the Shelley's separation from his wife was
end, that Shelley's connection with Mary not the result of any coldness or misun-
Godwin was due to uncontrollable pas- derstanding, but sudden and unexpected.
sion. This led him to desert his wife, an "Nothing that I ever read in tale or his-
action which, in spite of anything which tory could present a more striking image
can be said to the contrary, was as base of a sudden, violent, irresistible, uncon
and mean an action in him as it is in any trollable passion, than that under which I
other man. If he sought to justify him- found him laboring when, at his request,
self, as others in similar circumstances I went up from the country to call on him
have done, by a theory that marriage is in London." This was just before Shel-
only binding while love continues-he ley left England with Mary Godwin on
merely proved his act to be the expression July 28, 1814. When they returned in
of principles entirely destructive of soci- 1816, Shelley took a house at Marlow to
ety. Had his life been prolonged, he be near Peacock, and the two friends re-
might have been induced by some new mained together till Shelley's final depart-
access of passion to treat his second wife ure for the Continent in 1818.
as he treated his first. For as the most
solemn promises had failed to bind him
in the past, there was no certainty that
they would bind him in the future. It is
ridiculous to palliate such weakness. Bet-
ter by far to begin with the assumption,
that men of genius being rare, we must be
content to accept them on their own terms.
Shelley was a man of genius, whose poetry
will continue to delight the hearts and
minds of men long after the sad story of
his life is forgotten. Let us take what he
gave us and be glad.

Peacock was often solicited to write the life of Shelley, but he steadily refused.

No man is bound to wrife the life of another. No man who does so, is bound to tell the public all he knows. On the contrary, he is bound to keep to himself whatever may injure the interests or hurt the feelings of the living, especially when the latter have in no way injured or calumniated the dead, and are not necessarily brought before the tribunal of public opinion in the character of either plaintiffs

Shelley assumed, in his letters to Peacock, that the character of Scythrop in "Nightmare Abbey was intended for himself, nor did Peacock deny it. He seems to have been pleased with the caricature of "misdirected enthusiasm." Yet Scythrop is represented as being in love with two women at the same time, and though it is true that he loses both, and consoles his loss with Madeira instead of a pistol, most men would have found it difficult to remind Shelley at such a time ("Nightmare Abbey" was published in 1818, and Harriet Shelley's death took place in December, 1816) of his simultaneous love for two women; and few, under such circumstances, would have wished to be reminded of their weakness. But so it was, and the fact throws a light on the character of the two friends. In this one matter Shelley's fine perceptions seem to have been wholly blunted, and Peacock never felt deeply enough to be blind to the comic aspect of a situation.

or defendants. Neither if there be in the life
In all his principal novels Peacock finds
of the subject of the biography any event
which he himself would willingly have blotted a place for a "reverend divine." He did
from the tablet of his own memory, can it not hold the character in much respect,
possibly be the duty of a survivor to drag it but the gradation is from worse to better.
into daylight. If such an event be the cardi- We begin with Gaster-venter et præ-
nal point of a life; if to conceal it or to mis- terea nihil-and Grovelgrub, and end
represent it would be to render the whole with Dr. Opimian. There is little humor
narrative incomplete, incoherent, unsatisfac-in representing the clergy as shameless
tory alike to the honor of the dead, and the
feelings of the living, then as there is no moral
compulsion to speak of the matter at all, it
is better to let the whole story slumber in
silence.

epicures, but for some reason, especially
in his early life, Peacock chose to give
them that character. Probably he looked
on the clergy as maintaining, not wholly
from disinterested motives, an order of
society destructive of freedom and prog-
ress. They were beneficiaries who slum-
bered and ate and resisted every sort of
innovation in the cause of humanity. This
was no novel view of the Church, nor was
it wholly untrue.

"Many anatomists," said Mr. Foster, are of a different opinion, and agree in discerning

the characteristics of the carnivorous classes.

"I am no anatomist," said Mr. Jenkinson, "and cannot decide where doctors disagree; in the mean time I conclude that man is omnivorous, and on that conclusion I act."

"Your conclusion is truly orthodox," said the Reverend Doctor Gaster; "indeed the loaves and fishes are typical of a mixed diet; and the practice of the Church in all ages shows

"That it never loses sight of the loaves and fishes," said Mr. Escot.

"It never loses sight of any point of sound doctrine," said the reverend doctor.

The parsons of the later volumes, Dr. Folliott and Dr. Opimian, are of a higher order. They enjoy a good talk, but they enjoy it rationally. Their conversation is that of gentlemen who are at once schol.

Peacock was as far as possible removed from the Tories; if at any time he appears to maintain a Tory view, it is because he is maintaining something which he reand sanctioned by immemorial time. gards as deeply rooted in human nature

"I think, doctor," says Mrs. Opimian, "you would not maintain any opinion if you had not an authority two thousand years old for it."

Things dear to the hearts of the Tories all, the petty business and petty tyranny - such as game-preserving, and, above of the country magistrate he regarded On the other hand, he

with detestation.

has no sympathy with some of the Liberals, with the set of the Edinburgh Review, of steam-intellect, as he would have called or the Westminster Review, or any form it. He was far too clever to be reasoned out of his common sense by arguments, or ars and men of the world. Often we seem to hear Peacock himself speaking through theories, of a certain Liberal type. He their lips. Dr. Opimian's tastes were four: yielded to no one in his love of truth and "a good library, a good dinner, a pleasant liberty, but he had no faith in the efficacy of nostrums which leave untouched the garden, and rural walks " - in all of which Peacock himself delighted. The soliloquy That no one held education in higher real difficulties of society or government. on hair, in which the doctor indulges on estimation than he did may be seen from leaving the Folly and its vestals, is pre- his novels, in which his heroes are always cisely such a train of thought as might scholars, his heroines are women of more have passed through Peacock's own mind. than usual culture. His own experience Dr. Folliott is the unsparing critic of political economy, of Scotchmen, of the uni- was such that he would say that he owed versities, and the march of mind, in which everything to his knowledge of Greek. But this did not prevent him from satiriz. he expresses Peacock's own views. Of all the innovations of his later life coming the Conservative universities on the one hand, in which education was "finpetitive examinations were the most distasteful to him. Writing in his seventy-tion on the other. Both were far removed ished," ," and the Liberal improvers of educa fifth year, he tells us through this same mouthpiece Dr. Opimian that

from education, which to him was a love of ideas rather than a contest about words, if all the nonsense which, in the last quarter implying a pursuit of knowledge for its of a century, has been talked on all other subjects, were thrown into one scale, and all that own sake rather than the results of place has been talked on the subject of education or pay which attend success in an examialone were thrown into the other, I think the nation. And perhaps there may still linlatter would preponderate. Competitive ex-ger among us some who share his views, amination takes for its norma: It is better and believe that the love of fine literature to learn many things ill than one thing well, is a great possession, without which edu. or rather: It is better to learn to gabble about everything than to understand anything.

These are not the utterances of a Tory - for at this very time, as we learn from a letter to Mr. L'Estrange, he considered "the Tories to be as completely extinct as the Mammoth," and their successors the Conservatives were "neither fish nor flesh." "I could not in a dialogue put into the mouth of one of them the affirmation of any principle which I should expect him to adhere to for five minutes."

cation is a poor, mechanical affair, as valueless for mental or moral good as any other purely professional study, openly pursued for the sake of its gains. The most bril liant success in examinations will not "educate" the mind, as it may be edu cated by lingering among the heroes of Homeric song; by musing with Sophocles over the sorrows of humanity, or tracing with Euripides the vagaries of passion; by meditating on Shakespeare and Dante, and others of those that knew. It may be

We And

said that there was never a time when "You see how it is, Squire Crotchet the
these authors were studied more than younger; you can scarcely find two to agree
they are at present. We have our Shake-on a scheme, and no two of those can agree
spearean societies old and
in the details. Keep your money in your
new, and
And so ends the fund for regen-
Wordsworth societies, and many others. Pocket."
But these are are merely attempts to dress
erating the world.
up husks in the place of wholesome food.
All the information which they supply,
even if it were ten times as much as it is,
will carry us but a little way towards the
understanding of the authors who wrote
with quite another knowledge than that in
which these societies deal.

are all agreed on deliberative dinners."
Mr. MacQuedy. "Nay, by no means.
the company join in a chorus:

We'll dine and drink, and say if we think
That anything better can be;

And when we have dined, wish all mankind
May dine as well as we.

Common sense and human nature, never The plots of Peacock's novels are mostly rising into enthusiasm, never degenerating devices for bringing the persons together, into the commonplace these were the and the persons are merely the embodi- characteristics of Peacock, and wherever ment of whims and theories, or types of a we find them in his novels, we may assume class. It is what the characters say, not that the author is giving us his own views what they do, that interests us. Some and opinions. He lived a life of indepenpopular project is brought forward as a dence; he would not sacrifice his freedom subject of discussion; rival projectors put for profit or prospects. When it became forward their favorite ideas, and common necessary for him to settle down in life, sense makes short work of all. It is after- he obtained a clerkship in the East India dinner conversation, of an extremely Company's office, and showed himself to clever kind, which seldom or never strays be an excellent man of business. To his into the darker and deeper recesses of mother he was the best of sons; to Shellife or society. The black sheep of the ley the best of friends. When he proposed party are the reviewers, whom Peacock to the lady who became his wife, he had regarded as vendors of panegyric or de- not seen her for eight years, and this is preciation, and men of the eavesdrop perhaps as significant a fact as any when class, who make it their business to print we wish to see what manner of man he under a thin disguise the intimacies of really was. His affection had not been private life. For these he had no mercy, sufficiently ardent to induce him to make a regarding them as a bane of all society, home for Miss Griffiths, but when he had whom it would be well to convince of a home he at once gave her a place in it. their baseness by the argumentum bacu- Writing to Shelley about the time of his linum. Indeed in his honorable respect marriage, he seems to have merely menfor private life, Peacock formed a strong tioned the fact, without dwelling, as a contrast to some writers who have lately lover might to his friend, on the beauty of posed as the satirists of society. He did the lady, or the pleasure which he anticinot attempt to gain popularity by a carica-pated from her society, so that Shelley ture of the men whose hospitality he had was in doubt whether he was married or enjoyed; his characters were public prop-not. Not long after his marriage his wife erty, and from that point of view he treats them. Even in the instance of Scythrop, when he may be thought to transgress the bounds of privacy, he treats his subject in such a manner that Shelley himself was amused at the representation.

If we ask, what do we gather from the novels about Peacock's own views and character, the answer is that we must not question a satirist too narrowly. He is not called upon to stand and deliver, because he points out the weakness and absurdity of others. When Mr. Crotchet, junior, proposes at a large dinner-table to put a considerable sum of money in the hands of the company for the regeneration of the world, each of the guests has a different hobby, and the discussion is concluded by Dr. Folliott:

became such a confirmed invalid, that she was unable to take the charge of his house or family. This was no doubt a blow to him, though the affection of his mother softened the severity of it for a time. When his mother also died, he was left in the charge of a family too young to help themselves, and requiring constant attention. Other domestic bereavements followed, but his serenity never gave way. To the end of his life he remained cheerful, clever, witty, and agreeable, detesting impostors, loving to see all around him bright and happy. No man ever lived who was more convinced that life was worth living, and anything but a vale of misery for those who will accept the delight that comes of reasonable desires and sober pleasures.

694

A man of such a nature was not and
could not be a poet. Peacock wrote a
good deal of verse, some of which is witty
and amusing, but the greater part is verse
and no more. The war-song of Dinas
Vawr is perhaps the best known:
The mountain sheep are sweeter,

But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;

We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,

And killed the men who held it.

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,

But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;

And, ere our force we led off, Some sacked his house and cellars, While others cut his head off.

This is not poetry, but we read it with amusement. A similar judgment may be passed on the "Paper-Money Lyrics," and on the ballads and drinking-songs scat"The Genius tered through the novels. of the Thames " and "Rhododaphne " are more ambitious, but in spite of care in the composition and harmony in the numbers, they fail to interest. In truth, Peacock had neither descriptive power, nor depth of passion, nor enthusiasm; and where these are absent there can be no real poetic merit.

with

What Peacock's ideas about poetry were, and whether he thought serious poetry possible in his own day, it is diffiRhododaphne cult to determine. the longest and best of his productions was published in 1820; it is a story of witchery and love, written in the measure of "Christabel." It does not seem to have attracted attention, the world being then occupied with other things"Childe Harold" and "Don Juan" on the one hand, and the Lake school on the other. Some disappointment at such a reception may have prompted the essay on the "Four Ages of Poetry," which appeared in Ollier's Magazine in 1820. In this Peacock maintains that there are four ages of poetry as there are four ages of man, though the order is not the same: an iron age, a golden age, a silver age, and an age of brass. Among much that is very amusing in this essay, if not very true, we may read the following account of poetry in his own times, which he considered to be the age of brass, in modern, as Nonnus marked the age of brass in classical times.

A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the days that are past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs and exploded superstitions. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backwards. The brighter the light diffused around him by the progress of reason, the thicker is the darkness of antiquated barbarism in which he buries himself like a mole, to throw up the barren hillocks of his Cimmerian labors. The philosophic mental tranquillity which looks round with an equal eye on all external things, collects a store of ideas, discriminates their relative value, assigns to all their proper place, and from the materials of useful knowledge thus collected, appreciated, and arranged, forms new combinations that impress the stamp of their power and utility on the real business of life, is diametrically the reverse of that frame of mind which poetry inspires, or from which poetry can emanate. The highest aspirations of poetry are resolvable into three ingredients: the rant of unregulated passion, the whining of exaggerated feeling, and the cant of factitious sentiment: and can therefore serve only to ripen a splendid lunatic like Alexander, a puling driveller like Werther, or a morbid dreamer like Wordsworth. It can never make a philosopher nor a statesman, nor in any class of life an useful or rational man. claim the slightest share in any one of the comforts and utilities of life of which we have witnessed so many and so rapid advances. But though not useful, it may be said it is highly ornamental, and deserves to be culti vated for the pleasure it yields. Even if this be granted, it does not follow that a writer of poetry in the present state of society is not a waster of his own time and a robber of that of others. Poetry is not one of those arts which, like painting, require repetition and multiplication, in order to be diffused among society. There are more good poems already existing than are sufficient to employ that portion of life which any mere reader and recipient of poetical impressions should devote to them, and these having been produced in poetical times are far superior in all the characteristics of poetry to the artificial reconstructions of a few morbid ascetics in unpoetical times. read the promiscuous rubbish of the present time to the exclusion of the select treasures of the past is to substitute the worse for the better variety of the same mode of enjoyment.

It cannot

To

Among the best things which Shelley wrote was his "Defence. of Poetry," the first part of an answer to Peacock's attack. As he wrote it, it contained many allusions to the article, but these were struck out by John Hunt when preparing the paper for the Liberal, and have never been replaced. Every reader of Shelley knows that beautiful piece of impassioned prose, in which he pours out of his poet's

soul his ideals of what poetry can be and do. To have produced such an answer is in itself a justifiable cause of existence, but the point which Peacock raises in his vigorous paper is a real one. Does the growth of science tend to destroy poetical feeling and power?-or, to put it more widely: Is a critical age a poetical one? He maintained that the intellectual powers are drawn off in other directions, and that by the very nature of things the poetry of a civilized age must be unreal. This

cannot fail to recognize the same powers of satire, but softened and mellowed with the touch of age. Then he passed away, leaving in the minds of those who read his works the feeling that in few men has wit been found so wise, or wisdom so witty.

From The Gentleman's Magazine.
AT BOSIG.

How much of Europe is still unknown ground to English travellers! Even as in the days of Goethe and Schiller the region of Saxon Switzerland was utterly unknown to the then travelling public, and travelled Goethe seems never to have penetrated into the inner depths of that marvellous district, - -so now there are lovely scenes and wondrous localities that are unknown ground to the thousands of English tourists who but slowly break away from the round of travel of their fathers.

is an exaggeration. Whether a poet takes his story from his own age or from a thousand years back, he deals with men and women who are in the eye of the poet much the same in all ages. He may choose his subjects wrongly, or treat them wrongly when chosen; he may be affected and unreal, because he is not a poet; but the failure is due to the artist, not to the art. If we find the man, the difficulties which stand in his way disappear. It would be interesting to know whether Peacock saw reason to change his opinion An exaggerated example of this treadat a later period when a new generation of ing in others' steps, and ignoring all poets rose around him. Tennyson and ground that has not been well trodden, Browning must have seemed to be free was that of the party of Americans met at from many of the faults which he censures. Dresden. They had arrived in Europe But, as has been already remarked, he was at Brindisi; visited Naples, Rome, Florwilfully blind to the merits of his contem-ence, Milan; gone right away from Milan poraries. Wordsworth is not unreal; the to Munich, and, as though shot from a most thoughtful minds of the age are turn- mortar, from Munich to Dresden; but, ing to him in their search for truth and arrived at Dresden, they heard of Prague, reality; he saw quite as much of life in and they had not seen it. How to do it? his house at Rydal as Peacock saw in the Head waiter explained there was an early India Office. He resolutely set himself train; they could leave Dresden in early to live a life which should be true and real, morning, and be back again in the evening and to give to his thoughts the best and and see Prague. The very thing! It simplest expression possible. To him was but one hundred and fifty miles there, therefore, more than to any other poet, and they could easily travel three hundred men are now turning in the reaction miles in the day, and see Prague, and they against artificiality in life and society. did it; one of their number, a lady, refusEven if we learned no more from Words-ing the task, and preferring a calm day's worth's works than can be learned by any man of sense and feeling from a walk in a lovely country on a summer's day, we should learn a good deal. But we do learn more; we learn what a painter adds to a beautiful landscape which we have often

seen.

run up to Schandau and back on the pleasant Elbe steamers.

To the town-loving tourist, who wants but to see what others have seen, these Americans were right. There is nothing between Dresden and Prague; but to the traveller who loves nature in her most fantastic and capricious moods, and to one who can linger with delight amidst mighty relics of a terrible, momentous past, these Americans rushed blindfold through one of the most deeply interesting districts of

No! Peacock was not a poet; and we may pass by his poems and criticisms of poetry without much attention. It is as the clever satirist of the theories and projects of his day that he keeps a place in literature. In“ Melincourt" and "Crotch-all Europe. et Castle we see him at the height of his power, and we may say at the height of his animosities. Then followed years of silence, of labor and suffering, till the appearance of "Gryll Grange," in which we

The line upon which they travelled skirts one of the most charming mountain districts of Bohemia, where art and history combine with nature to give pleasure to the traveller. Old ruins cap the peaked