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of both parties had begun to feel that | signified his willingness to resign the there must be peace at any cost. The archbishopric. The terms were soon prime difficulty was the question of the arranged. The cardinal received as a archbishopric. The court made it reward for his submission the rich abessential that De Retz should resign his bacies of St. Denis and Chaume, and see. He might then have his choice the accumulated revenue of the see of of the ecclesiastical prizes of the king- Paris from the death of Archbishop dom; but until then it must be war to Gondi to the date of his own resignathe knife. To resign his see was the tion. The article in the treaty upon one thing De Retz would not do so which De Retz insisted most strongly long as Mazarin lived. The negotia- was the one stipulating that the clergy tions therefore soon came to a dead-who had been expelled from their office lock.

on his account should be reinstated. While the negotiations were in progress, he established himself at Commercy, and when they were completed he was invited to court.

When Rome became intolerable on account of his debts, Cardinal de Retz went north and wandered about from town to town in Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Twice he visited En- He went, but he did not stay there gland, where he met with a warm wel- long; the atmosphere was too stifling come. Charles the Second and he had for his taste. The divinity that hedges many points in common, and, if tradi- a king had grown apace since he was tion speak truly, the king would have last at Fontainebleau, and Paul de been well pleased to keep the exiled Retz was too old a man to adapt himprelate at his court. De Retz, how-self to the new fashion. He went back ever, to whom popularity was as the to Commercy and set to work to pay breath of his nostrils, had no fancy for his debts. He lived in a very quiet, playing the part of a mere creature to unpretending fashion, doing little acts the Merry Monarch. He coquetted of friendly service to his neighbors, of with the Jansenistes and Molinistes at whom he was at once the adviser, lawthis time, and even professed to be maker, and judge. As in our own day touched by the beautiful simplicity of Count Tolstoi holds his rural parliathe Protestant faith. He was reduced ment, so Cardinal de Retz two hundred sometimes to living in wayside inns years ago used to gather round him in and poor cottages; his caves he used an evening the farmers and peasants to call them, in memory of the dwell- on his land, and tell them what was ings of the persecuted saints of old. passing in the far-off great world. He His life was a hard one, no doubt, for did not live to be a very old man; his he was constantly harried by Mazarin's life had been too riotous for that. At agents; but it had its pleasures, and he the age of sixty-six, in 1679, he passed was still the ladies' cardinal. Wher- quietly away. Was it a friend or an ever he went great ladies made much enemy who wrote on his grave. "He of him, and, as his taste was catholic, rests at last"? when they were not at hand, he could console himself with pretty seamstresses and serving - maids. His

friends did not approve of these proceedings, and they were upon the point of making a strong effort to induce him to adopt a more regular course of life, when the death of Mazarin put an end to his wanderings.

To have surrendered his rights to his old enemy, would have been dishonor; to surrender them to his king was a graceful act of loyalty. He at once

A

me.

From Temple Bar.

A SHEAF OF LETTERS. PACKET of old letters lies before The dates vary, but most of them were written half a century ago. Some of the signatures affixed have been already graven into the stonework of history; some are being gradually ef faced, or owe their precarious existence to the "chivalry of posterity"

alone; others have been blazoned else- | script papers - mostly the more unimwhere. portant correspondence of well-known men which lies before me a collection, as perhaps it might be termed, of uncharacteristics.

Looking back across the years, the day to which they belong seems perhaps more distant, more irretrievably lost, than a past yet further removed in point of time; just as yesterday, under certain conditions, may appear more remote than last year; and in the attempt to picture to ourselves the near past, to reconstruct the society of a generation or two ago, there is always something melancholy of which we are not conscious when it is a question of a remoter date.

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and ecclesiastical biographer. Such would be his description in the biographical dictionary; but here it is another Sir James Stephen that meets us, pious indeed, as becomes the author of his biographies, but light withal, and tender- —a Sir James Stephen who is brought home more than once as a friend to every mother rejoicing over the birth of her child.

When it is a matter of a few years only, when we set ourselves to note and to register the changes that four or five decades have wrought, when we observe the alteration, probably evident above all in the atmosphere, which It is an occasion upon which, if each has insensibly taken place, we are filled man were to speak his mind, condowith an uneasy consciousness of loss lences might possibly be found to mina loss probably intangible, but not the gle freely with congratulations; but in less real. And this is especially the the case of the present correspondent, case when we compare our own day, no doubt exists as to the cause for the hurry of life, the restless and self- legitimate rejoicing. The fears that conscious activity which is character- are apt to, gather round the possession istic of it, with the deliberate pace, the of children are, in his opinion, morquiet and speculative temper of mind, bid and dastardly anticipations," while the dignity, and not least the reti- the description of a baby with whom cence, which belonged to an earlier he had been brought into close contact generation, and of which our own looking about her with an expressometimes seems to have been disin- sion like that of an inquisitive but not herited. sphere of only

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ole to realize the atmo- surprised visitor of a new world, with

day, to appropriate it, if a moment, confers upon us a sense of leisure and repose. a realization of the past is one of those achievements with which effort and industry have less to do than chance and accident; but the sight of letters such as these which lie before us, the touch of the worn paper and frayed edges, sometimes the very trivial and ephemeral import of the letters themselves, all help towards it.

It is the unimportant documents which often throw the freshest light character, just as it is the trivial | traits of a man's conduct by which he most frequently betrays himself.

upon a

This is a reflection which is specially suggested by the collection of nonde

which she has other worlds to compare," is that of a true child lover. Accordingly, there is no uncertain or equivocal note in the felicitations he sends on the birth of a son.

'The fourth of July [he goes on- - the date of the birth] is, I think, the date of the American Independence. But don't on that account call the poor lad George Washington. One would not have one's child pass through life on a tempest, even though the applause of the world accompanied it. George Herbert would be better.. But take the Herbert alone. It will serve as an augury of a country parsonage in which, somewhere about the year 1900, the youngster (then in his fortieth year) may be pleasantly travelling heavenwards with a goodly company of rustics for his fellow travellers, with a store of books

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in his study, and of boys and girls in his nursery. All hail to the reverend Herbert and to his future congregation!

So ran the gay and kindly forecast. But we, who look back, know that only a few months later, the little lad for whom it was made, having perhaps found this world unsatisfactory, had taken his way, somewhat in haste, to

vigorous, my next appearance would be
in the character of the strong, wicked
man carried off to judgment' -a pic-
ture of which strong, wicked man I
recollect to have seen among the works
of a mad artist, called Blake — and it
might serve for a picture of me in the
last stage of convalescence. Blake is
dead "
his correspondent was under-
going some cure — or he might paint
picture, too, perhaps. Let us

compare it with another. Possibly, your

were the letter no doubt written on this second occasion forthcoming, it would be found no less full of congratulation, though of a different kind, than the first.

There is generally enough and to spare in these old papers to suggest melancholy thoughts; even the laughter has a trick of becoming tinged with sadness as it filters through the years, and, read in the light of after events, the congratulations are perhaps not the least mournful. We, looking back, see too much to be altogether glad; "the near and the far for us come together in sight," and give its significance to the poet's question, "What so sad as the dayspring of joy?" The bridal wreath, to those who look back far enough, is always entwined with a shroud.

Here is a congratulation which, coming across the Atlantic from the wellknown American, Edward Everett, enumerates his correspondent's causes for rejoicing, adding, You will soon

be obliged to borrow the prayer of St. Bernard, and ask for some affliction." It is a prayer more often prescribed for another than kept for personal use. And a little further on, as if deprecating any counter congratulations, Everett observes a little grimly that in his own case he does not find it necessary to go to St. Bernard "to help out my liturgy." Few, we imagine, do find it necessary. To recognize the uses of misfortune, when it comes, is another matter.

"I am sure," writes Henry Taylor, half in jest, yet not altogether, "that I could not dispense with the discipline of weak health, and were I by some miracle to become suddenly robust and

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hope, however, that the doctor will leave you some remnant of disease."

Turning over the pages, we come upon the portrait of a young girl, then scarcely emerged from childhood, who has since become well known to the reading public as the late Lady Duff Gordon, and in whose society, even at the age of fourteen, Henry Taylor could find interest and pleasure.

She is rather handsome [he writes, describing her to his mother] and very striking, with a stern, determined expression of for the picture of Cassandra or Clytemcountenance which might qualify her to sit

nestra.

She would seem to wish to

invest herself with the character of a wild and gay childishness. But a different story is written upon her brow, and I collect from that that life is a serious thing to her and childishness a thing gone by. I have mounted her upon the outside of a horse, and she is the companion of all my rides. I regarded her at first as a subject for curious consideration, and after a few rides with her I have begun to think that I could take some interest in her. She is pleasant when she is pleased, but I cannot help thinking that if any one were to inconvenience her, and there were to be at hand a dagger, a pair of scissors, or any other sharp-pointed instrument, she would be hasty and inconsiderate in her manner of showing her resentment or in other words, and mixing the language of law with that of philosophy in the description of the daughter of a philosophical jurist, I regard her as a potential homicide.

And side by side with this description we may place another portrait, not inconsistent with it, unconsciously traced by her own hand a year later, in a letter extending over many sheets and continued from day to day as time and opportunity permitted, and which,

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addressed from Boulogne, to a girl beneath their shoulders' before you friend a year or two older than herself, find that person." And then, with a seems alone of the correspondence to laugh which we can almost hear, and have escaped destruction. A portrait, quitting her heroics: "Oh candle, dear or rather a finished picture, with back-candle," ," she implores, "let me bid ground and accessories complete, all good-night before you go out. (Canvividly sketched the pilot and fisher dle): Yes, but make haste. (I): Very population of the old sea-town; Mr. well. Good-night, dearest." Jones, the good-natured and handsome And so, as the light flickers down, mate of the London steam-packet, to the slide of the magic lantern is withwhom the precious letter, when fin-drawn, and the bedroom where, on ished, is to be entrusted; Fluret, "the that September night of the year 1835, handsomest matelot and the best-bred the writer, with her Cassandra face, and most gentlemanly man in Bou- half child, half woman, sits iuditing logne," his wife, and the baby just her letter "in full déshabille, pieds born, who is to be christened on Sun-nus,' "a cotton handkerchief tied day, and to whom it has evidently been round my head in the most coquette the disappointed ambition of the writer fashion," falls back once more into to act marraine- they are all sketched darkness, and the glimpse of the past in with clear and distinctive touches. is gone. Written on paper carefully ruled in pencil, and with occasional lapses in The gravest of men may sometimes the spelling which serve to remind us be caught fooling. As Dr. Donne that the writer has not left childhood (who, as Dean of St. Paul's, should be far behind, it is a curious and signifi- an authority on the subject) has told cant production for a girl of fifteen, us, "who are a little wise the best and one which shows, already fully fools be." All along the years, from developed, that accomplishment of let-the 9th of March, 1849, a laugh reaches ter-writing in which she afterwards us, and the jester is Sir Arthur Helps, excelled. Whatever might have been the case a year carlier, when, at St. Leonards, she was taking those lessons in riding from Henry Taylor, it is clear that she has now put away childish things. In the ten days, which is the period covered by the fragmentary letter, we find her passing from mood to mood, now grave, now gay, serious, and light-hearted by turns; on one page, giving her opinion-and that a severe one of the characteristics of the Parisian stage; a little further on, entering into a detailed and exhaustive analysis of her own religious convictions; then breaking out with impassioned fervor into assurances of her enthusiastic attachment to her correspondent and her sense of her own un-specimen of mankind. worthiness of the affection of the latter

unworthiness, that is, in all respects but one: "Look round the world and find one who will love you more and then cast of (sic) Lucy. I am without fear then. You will find Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow

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author of "Friends in Council." Was it a day, one wonders, such as March sometimes brings, when a foretaste of spring defies the most sedate altogether to resist its influence when the east wind has intermitted and the sun is shining? At all events, it is clear that Sir Arthur is in good spirits.

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You know [he says] I have always abstained from notoriety, and therefore I have never let you know that I am, as the Americans would say,

66 one of the most remarkable men in the country." Even you and your wife, who are amongst the most accomplished hosts I have ever met with, even you two might have been slightly fussy and over-gracious had you known you were entertaining an almost unique

We should have

had none of those pleasant cake and marmalade, mutton-chops and cocoa, perambulatory tea-dinners which are so much to my taste. And here am I, like a foolish man, going to put on my state and never be comfortable any more.

Be it known to you that I am the man who once read a review of a book. Yes:

not an essay; not a diatribe of any kind; a | beauty of diction of which he is a masreview in which the writer really wished to ter; while when dealing with the cause represent to the reader not himself or his of which, with a chivalry which recalls own especial theories, but the book in that of an earlier day, he had constiquestion. This review was written by a tuted himself the champion, and the young man of great promise who died early. dead man whose fame he had made it We cannot but feel sorry that "our his life's work to vindicate, there is only reviewer" ran so short a career. often apparent a restrained passion Is it possible that he died of too much which is more effective than the violence of other men.

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One figure there is which, among "I hear," some one writes, drawing these letters, reappears again and again the illustration probably from Spedupon the scene, now in one character, ding's own favorite recreation of archnow in another, but throughout so dis-ery "I hear that the passive and tinctive that even those who did not peaceful James Spedding is getting enjoy the privilege of his friendship ready his bow and arrow." And none might in this matter alone be enabled knew better how to take aim and to to form some conception of what James send the shaft home. Spedding was to those who knew and loved him. Doubtless, when those who were his contemporaries, and who remember the man in his individual and most characteristic aspect, have taken their way behind the scenes, it will be as the biographer and the champion of Bacon that he will be remembered by the world and catalogued in its history. He was not, indeed, careful to leave behind him any other monument. But how insufficiently is he described by such a title! There is a quality distinct from any other a quality which has to be felt rather than reasoned about, and which for want of a better name we call charm. As in books, so in persons, it may exist in conjunction with merits of a more solid and substantial order, or without them. It is indefinable, escaping us like a ghost when we attempt in our clumsy, human fashion to resolve it into its elements and to account for it. But, subtle and intangible as it is, it is none the less unmistakable. We know where it is found-in books.and men; we know—perhaps better still-where it is not found. And no one could read James Spedding's letters or notes, just as no one could have known him In one thing only failing of the best, personally, without recognizing this That he was not so happy as the rest. quality as one of his marked possessions. It communicates itself even to Here, too, is a letter which gives us his handwriting, as delicate, if stronger a little shock of surprise. In this case than that of a woman, and harmoniz- it is a question of a shaft, not directed ing well with the grace of language and by himself against the detractors of his

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But as champion and vindicator of Bacon he is well known. A more uncharacteristic view of him, and one therefore more relevant to our present purpose, is afforded by some of these letters. Here, for instance, the grave biographer is found turning from his labors to consider the fitting termination to a comedy. He fears that in the manuscript which has been sent him for criticism, a mistake has been committed, and that the happiness which prevails at the end of the play is " thing of the sad and tragic order," that happiness with which we are most of us so well acquainted in books and out of them. "You are in danger," he writes, "of dismissing your reader with the uncomfortable sensation that they are going to be good and grave for the rest of their lives," a conclusion which, eminently satisfactory as it might seem likely to be to the serious historian known to the world, does not evidently commend itself to the Spedding of these letters-the Spedding who, quiet as was his humor, knew well what laughter was worth, and who would have endorsed the judgment implied in Spenser's gentle criticism :—

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