ters. A vedro of vodka appearing on and play for an hour or so over the tops

the scene, however, the thoughts of of the trees whereon they intended to keepers and beaters alike took a new lodge, probably by way of laying in a direction, and we left the field of battle, supply of caloric with the exercise suffinow converted into a banqueting hall, cient to last them through the long, to the merrymakers. It was nearly cruel hours of the bitter February night. two o'clock, and the hunger which pos- Blackcock were to be seen here and sessed us was wolfish. It was as though there sitting by scores on the tops of the departed spirits of our fallen victims the highest trees. They would have had passed into us, the result of this preferred to be comfortably housed metempsychosis being that the Irish under the surface of the snow, more stew which we had brought with us in suo; but the surface was far too hard the very stewpan wherein it was en- to admit of the headlong plunge into it gendered, and which had been heated which these beautiful birds make when up for us during the battue, tasted as the snow is soft enough. Gradually no other Irish stew has ever tasted be- the sun sinks and disappears; fore or since, and disappeared so rapidly ponies are getting a little fagged now, that the transmigrated spirits had clearly and the pace is not so good; yet with lost nothing by their change of abode. sledge-bells ringing merrily and the Then came the paying of the beaters, little ponies steaming, A. and I glided now returned happy and noisy from gaily into the town, each of us richer their bacchanalian orgy. Three or four by a wolfskin, and one of us also richer rows of ten beaters in each were placed by a far more valuable acquisition — an in line to receive the small packets experience, the memory of which, like containing the stipulated sum, with a thing of beauty, is a joy forever.

fifteen copecks extra added for three wolves killed, at five copecks each wolf.

I noticed that in spite of their excitement and happiness each person man, woman, or boy-carefully counted his little pile of silver before tendering his "God give you health," which

the

FRED WHISHAW.

From The Gentleman's Magazine. THE SWAN-SONGS OF THE POETS. NOTHING was more remarkable in

stands for thanks in the moujik's vocab-connection with the press notices of the ulary. This fact led me to the conclusion that the Russian peasant is a cannier person than I had previously supposed.

Then came the delightful drive home, with the added joy which the feeling of success gave us. The ponies were as fresh as ever, having been treated to an unaccustomed banquet of oats, and we flew along homewards no whit slower than we had come. The sun was still bright, but the shadows were longer, the short day was closing in, and the cold was intenser than ever. Not a soul was stirring in the villages as we galloped through them, only the usual uproarious shouts came from the direction of the village kabák - that blot upon Russian progress and prosperity; the crows, grey-hooded fellows as well as their black brethren, were already winging slowly homewards, to circle

death of the late laureate, than the unanimity with which the critics seized upon his last published poem as an appropriate expression of the thoughts and feelings which animated the great singer in view of his approaching end.

66

Crossing the Bar" seems, indeed, written in view of eternity; and what could more fitly express that Christian faith and hope, which it has been the laureate's life-work to clothe with beautiful forms, than these lines ?

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark;
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and

Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Last things are proverbially precious. | To quote the words of Moore: "Taking They are often cherished merely on into consideration everything connected account of their associations, and in- with these verses, the last tender aspiravested with a charm which bears no tions of a loving spirit which they relation to their intrinsic value. But breathe, the self-devotion to a noble the last messages of the poets are cause which they so nobly express, and surely worthy of being cherished, for that consciousness of a near grave the poets are seers as well as singers; gleaming sadly through the whole, there and it is surely no mere fancy to sup- is perhaps no production within the pose that, when approaching the close range of mere human composition of their earthly career, and consciously round which the circumstances and or unconsciously drawing near to the feelings in which it was written cast so realities of Eternity, they became the touching an interest." subjects of some special inspiration, so that in their last utterances they breathed forth in deathless strains the very essence of their creed, of the spirit that had animated their lives, and of the message they had to give to the world.

Shelley's last great poem, "The Triumph of Life," written as he drifted in his boat near Casa Magni, over the blue waters of that bay in which he was so soon to find a grave, was left unfinished, the fragment closing abruptly with these words: "Then what is life? I cried; a sentence which has been well said to be of profound significance when we remember that the questioner was about to seek its answer in the halls of death. The whole poem may be taken as symbolical of Shelley's own short and troubled life - an unanswered question, an unsolved riddle of the uni

verse.

If we turn to Shelley's great contem-
porary, Byron, we find his last poem no
less significant. It was written on the
morning of January 22, 1824 — his last
birthday at the fever-haunted Misso-
longhi, whither he had gone to take up
the forlorn hope of liberty in Greece,
with a presentiment that he would
never return. The poem is too well
known to need quotation; its most
characteristic lines are these:
My days are in the yellow leaf,

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,

The exalted portion of the pain, And power of love I cannot share, But wear the chain.

66

Not less remarkable in its way is the swan-song" of a minor poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, written in November, 1861, as he lay in his last illness at Florence, where he was so soon to find a grave beside the last resting-place of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Life was for him a struggle; his early faith was clouded by doubt; but his last words are full of faith in the victory of truth. The poem is so little known that we may be pardoned for quoting it in full. Say not the struggle nought availeth,

The labor and the wounds are vain,
'The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ;
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
It may be in yon smoke concealed
And but for you possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front the sun climbs slow-how slowly; But westward, look! the land is bright.

It is a sentiment very similar to this that Longfellow has given expression to in his last poem, "The Bells of San Blas," written on March 15, 1882. The bells are supposed to be saying in the ear of the poet "the dreamer of dreams: "

Oh, bring us back once more
The vanished days of yore,

When the world with faith was filled;
Bring back the fervid zeal,

The hearts of fire and steel,

The hands that believe and build.

Oh, bells of San Blas, in vain
Ye call back the past again;

The past is deaf to your prayer.
Out of the shadows of night
The world rolls into light;

Last of all we come to one who was the contemporary of our laureate, and the only name that was worthy to be put beside his-the heroic-souled Robert Browning. "Never say of me that I am dead," were his own words to a friend before he breathed his last in Venice. The epilogue to "Asolando," which forms his last published message

It is daybreak everywhere. After Longfellow one naturally thinks of his countryman Whittier, the Quaker Poet, who so lately entered into rest. His last published poem was the touch-to the world, breathes the same spirit. ing tribute to Oliver Wendell Holmes on his last birthday, August 29 of this year. Written by one venerable poet to another, the last survivors of America's great literary men, these verses are very notable, and surely breathe a spirit worthy of one who was even then standing so near to the opening gates of Eternity.

Life is indeed no holiday: therein

Are want, and woe, and sin,
Death and its nameless fears; and over all
Our pitying tears must fall.

The hour draws near, howe'er delayed or
late,

When at the Eternal Gate

We leave the words and works we call our

own,

And lift void hands alone

For love to fill. Our nakedness of soul
Brings to that gate no toll;

Giftless we come to Him who all things
gives,

And live because He lives.

Did ever verses more vividly express the consciousness of a great mission, or more fitly embody a sublime faith in the continuance of the soul's existence?

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted,
wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise again; are baffled, to
fight better,
Sleep, to wake!

No! At noonday, in the bustle of men's
worktime,

Greet the unseen with a cheer;

Bid him forward, breast and back, as either should be,

Strive and thrive, cry "Speed; fight on;

fare ever

There, as here.

It reads as if the poet had written his own epitaph.

ALEX SMALL.

THE drawback to enlistment is not that a man has a bad time when he enters the army, but that he has a bad time when he leaves it. At the present moment we are glad to believe that recruits are coming in in sufficient numbers to supply the season's foreign reliefs, and to provide for current wants at home. But even supposing the improvement in the supply to be permanent, we are still as far as ever from tempting the right class of men-that is to say, older men-into the ranks. It would not seem to have required the mass of evidence the recruiting committee has already collected to arrive at this. But there is no hurry for the report. If it is presented be

fore the preparation of the coming estimates, it is not likely to be acted upon this year, and this having happened, it would probably follow that it would be pigeonholed permanently. The report therefore had better be put into the hands of a minister who has not the vision of a general election before him. The recruiting question is not so pressing as it was six months ago, for, as we have said, recruits are coming in briskly. This had better be taken to suffice until the subject can be dealt with dispassionately-or as near to dispassionately as may be-a year hence, by Mr. Stanhope or Mr. Stanhope's successor.

Broad Arrow.

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THE music flows beneath Beethoven's I LOVE thee, Bernardine, nor more nor less

Next, in a heart grown somewhat hard and That heart inwoven, love-word Bernardine. cold,

And one, who dreamed good dreams and Of arm that none but him might draw his