beyond them. . . The uncertainty which wavered in the prospects of his future life, found a mystical reflex in the swift and stormy wrack of the carry, that some unfelt wind was silently urging along the distant horizon."* And, once more, when his widowed mother is on her dubious way, to take counsel with auld Leddy Grippy (Byron's favourite character in all modern fiction): "The twilight of the evening having now almost faded into night, she caught gloomy presentiments from the time, and sighed that there was no end to her sorrows. . . . The darkness of the road, the silence of the fields," &c., might awaken associations of anxiety and misgiving; "but the serene magnificence of the starry heavens inspired hope, and the all-encompassing sky seemed to her the universal wings of Providence, vigilant and protecting with innumerable millions of eyes."+

Even Miss Austen-homely, common-sensical, unromantic Jane Austen -employs in a quiet way the machinery under present review. But then it is in the congenial tale of "Northanger Abbey." Does not Henry Tilney fairly forewarn Catherine of what she may expect on becoming a guest at the abbey? The first night, after surmounting her " unconquerable" horror of the bed, she will retire to rest, he predicts, and get a few hours' unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at furthest the third night after her arrival, she will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains; and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, she will probably think she discerns one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. And so on. That is all Mr. Tilney's fun. But sure enough the very night of her arrival was worthy of the abbey, and attuned the impressionable damsel's thoughts accordingly. "Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened to the tempest with sensations of awe; and when she heard it rage round a corner of the ancient building, and close with sudden fury a distant door, felt for the first time that she was really in an abbey. Yes, these were characteristic sounds: they brought to her recollection a countless variety of dreadful situations and horrid scenes, which such buildings had witnessed, and such storms had ushered in." Gradually she is prepared for the worst. To her bedroom she goes, but not to bed-to bed-to bed! That were too dreadful. "The wind roared down the chimney, the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and everything seemed to speak the awfulness of her situation." She is irresistibly tempted to examine that high, old-fashioned black cabinet-to unlock it-to make off with a mysterious manuscript. Then snuffs her candle-alas, out. Appalling position. "Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment. Catherine trembled from hand to foot.” In a cold sweat, she gropes her way to bed, though repose is impossible. "The storm, too, abroad so dreadful! She had not been used to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast seemed fraught with awful intelligence."

Here again is another style of example to the main purpose, from one of Banim's Irish tales. Terence Delany is about to slay the proctor, Peery Clancy, beside an open grave, but grants his victim a few minutes † Ibid., ch. xcviii.

* The Entail, ch. lxvi.

Northanger Abbey, ch. xx. xxi.

of grace to make his last prayer to Heaven. "He walked aside. By one of those singular coincidences which occur oftener than they are noticed, the face of night suddenly changed; the stars became extinguished, and the wind howled through the leafless branches."* All betokening a melodramatic crisis, ushered in accordingly. No sooner has Justice Rivers, in Hood's novel, announced to Grace her engagement with the obnoxious Ringwood, than "a startling crash of thunder, as if dashing in the roof of the house, seemed to ratify the sentence just pronounced. The father sat still as unmoved and imperturbable as usual, though the flash which belonged to the shock had shivered a poplar in sight of the window; but it made the terrified girl start to her feet with a smothered scream, as she saw the green tree, upon which she had been gazing, instantaneously stripped and whitened by the rending off of the bark."†

Lest we should be overdoing the melodramatic section, take an illustration from that of farce-in the case of Mr. Winkle on his way, by sunset, to become a duellist, malgré lui. "The evening grew more dull every moment, and a melancholy wind sounded through the deserted fields, like a distant giant, whistling for his house-dog. The sadness of the scene imparted a sombre tinge to the feelings of Mr. Winkle."‡ Mr. Dickens is profuse in examples of our theme, melodramatic as well as burlesque. The night was dark, and a cold wind blew, driving the clouds fast and furiously, before it, when Ralph Nickleby went his way to keep his last appointment. Ere long, he hangs, a dead man, in a deserted lumber-room-his last look from the window having lighted on "the same black cloud that had seemed to follow him home, and which now appeared to hover directly above the house."§ Note the weather, too, and its associations, when Ada and Esther Summerson go to cousin Richard's, neither of them in hopeful or lively mood. "It was a sombre day, and drops of chill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days when everything looks heavy and harsh."|| Even more profuse, perhaps, is Sir E. B. Lytton, in little sympathetic details of this sort. As Aram strides homewards to his solitary valley, one autumnal evening, Nature is described as seeming restless and instinct with change-there being those signs in the atmosphere which leave the most experienced in doubt whether the morning may rise in storm or sunshine-while in this particular period, the skyey influences seem to tincture the animal life with their own mysterious and wayward spirit of change. It is the night of Aram's interview with the Stranger. So with the day on which the latter tempts Eugene to his crime. "It was a gloomy winter's day, the waters rolled on black and sullen, and the dry leaves rustled desolately beneath my feet. Who shall tell us that outward nature has no effect upon our mood? All around seemed to frown upon my lot."** travers is talking with Florence, when, raising his eyes, he sees the form of Lumley Ferrers approaching them from the opposite end of the terrace: "at the same instant a dark cloud crept over the sky, the waters seemed overcast, and the breeze fell."++ When Robin Hilyard warns

* Crohoore of the Billhook, ch. x. Tylney Hall, vol. iii. ch. ii.

§ Nicholas Nickleby, ch. lxii. Eugene Aram, book iii. ch. ii.

tt Ernest Maltravers, book viii. ch. iii.

Pickwick Papers, ch. ii. || Bleak House, ch. li. ** Ibid., book v. ch. vii.

Mal

the Earl of Warwick against Edward's false smile, and Clarence's fickle faith, and Richard's inscrutable craft, he takes his leave with these foreboding words: "Mark, the sun sets!-and while we speak, yon dark cloud gathers over your plumed head.' He pointed to the heavens as he ceased, and a low roll of gathering thunder seemed to answer his ominous warning."* Aspiring Glyndon, Zanoni's neophyte, retires to gaze on the stars: "But the solemn stars, that are mysteries in themselves, seemed, by a kindred sympathy, to agitate the wings of the spirit no longer contented with its cage. As he gazed, a Star shot from its brethren, and vanished from the depths of space!"+ Godolphin speeds to his interview with Constance that crisis in his life. As the event is unhappy, naturally we read that "The day was sad and heavy. A low, drizzling rain, and labouring yet settled clouds, which denied all glimpse of the sky, and seemed cursed into stagnancy by the absence of all wind or even breeze, increased by those associations we endeavour in vain to resist, the dark and oppressive sadness of his thoughts." And, to give one more Lyttonian example, this little paragraph from the later history of Lucretia speaks for itself: "The following morning was indeed eventful to the family at Laughton; and, as if conscious of what it brought forth, it rose dreary and sunless; one heavy mist covered all the landscape, and a raw drizzling rain fell pattering through the yellow leaves."§ So commences significantly a chapter whose significant title is The Shades on the Dial.

Mark the opening paragraphs of "The Woman in White"-relative to Walter Hartright's expedition to Hampstead, on the memorable night of his roadside adventure with Anne Catherick. "The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its faintest; the small pulse of the life within me and the great heart of the city around me seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly with the sinking sun.”|| Mr. Wilkie Collins is an artist-and artist-like is the striking of the keynote in passages of running accompaniment, such as these. So again on the night of Walter Hartright's visit to the Limmeridge churchyard, to keep watch for the white woman he erst encountered on the Finchleyroad: "The clouds were wild in the western heaven, and the wind blew chill from the sea. Far as the shore was, the sound of the surf swept over the intervening moorland, and beat drearily in my ears, when I entered the churchyard. Not a living creature was in sight. The place looked lonelier than ever, as I chose my position, and waited and watched with my eyes on the white cross that rose over Mrs. Fairlie's grave."¶ Similarly, on the night of the lawyer's arrival at Limmeridge House, to arrange the marriage settlements: "The wind howled dismally all night, and strange cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there, and everywhere in the empty house."** And, as stands to reason, it is on "a wild unsettled morning"+t that the marriage ceremony comes off, between illstarred Laura Fairlie and Sir Percival Glyde.

Nor can any attentive reader of Mr. Hawthorne's romances have

*The Last of the Barons, book vii. ch. iv.

Godolphin, ch. xviii.

The Woman in White, vol. i. p. 5.

** Ibid., p. 253.

† Zanoni, book iii. ch. xii. § Lucretia, part ii. ch. xxiii.

¶ Ibid., p. 144.

tt Ibid., p. 315.

missed the frequency of these and kindred phenomena, so closely interwoven with the progress and destiny of his characters. Here is consciencestricken Arthur Dimmesdale speaking, as becomes his office, of judg ment to come-at which little Pearl gives an elfish laugh; but "before he had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky.... The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with an awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. . . . And there stood the minister with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered [Scarlet] letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between these two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another."* The stress laid on this meteoric appearance is thus far in keeping with the time and place of the story, that in those days the New Englanders interpreted all such phenomena (indeed whatever occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon) as so many revelations from a supernatural source. The author doubts even whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befel New England, from its settlement down to revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of this nature. His employment of them, we need not say, takes a wider range, and involves a subtler meaning.

Here again are Hester and little Pearl taking a forest walk-along a footpath that straggles onward into the mystery of the primeval forestwhich hems it in so narrowly, and stands so black and dense on either side, and discloses such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it images not amiss the moral wilderness in which she has so long been wandering. "The day was chill and sombre. Overhead was a gay expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the further extremity of some long vista through the forest. The sporting sunlight-feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene-withdrew itself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier, because they had hoped to find them bright." Sunshine on her pathway, is not for such as Hester Prynne.

Or shall we glance at the pastor and his parishioner sitting down, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree? "The forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it. The boughs were tossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forebode evil to come."+

Hester

One glimpse more of them, and it shall be a cheerier one. has doffed, once and for all, the scarlet letter, as an outward and visible sign at least. And she finds exquisite relief, that stigma gone, and the pastor enters into her joy. The day has been gloomy; but now, as if * The Scarlet Letter, ch. xii. † Ibid., ch. xvi.

Ibid., ch. xvii.

the gloom of the earth and the sky had been but the effluence of these two mortal hearts, it vanishes with their sorrow. "All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, burst forth the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the grey trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy.

"Such was the sympathy of Nature-that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truthwith the bliss of these two spirits."

Is then the author of "Transformation" so objective a philosopher as to imply reality and self-existence in this flood of sunshine? Not at all. His doctrine it explicitly is, that love, whether newly-born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. Had the forest still kept its gloom, it would, he says, have been bright in Hester's eyes, and bright in Arthur Dimmesdale's. Assuredly, in delicate symbolism of this peculiar kind, Mr. Hawthorne's tact is sui generis -so ingeniously fanciful is he, so quaintly suggestive, so profoundly humane.

MACMAHON, DUKE OF MAGENTA.

CAN we justly blame the laudator temporis acti if, during the last ten years, he has insisted on the truth of his theory more pertinaciously than ever? This appears more especially true with respect to the modern celebrities of France, and we are tempted to ask whether the heroes of the first Gallic Empire wore stilts, or the generals of the second have had their feet lopped off. When the panegyrists of the last French campaigns placed the tactics and genius of the generals of the day above those of General Bonaparte, we could not refrain from remembering the old fable of the monkey on the camel's back, which fancied itself taller than the ship of the desert. With time, honest-minded people have grown reconciled to the first Empire, for the blows it dealt us it dealt, at any rate, fairly, and if it boasted, that was in a measure justified by the grandeur of its exploits; but at the present day parasites poison the sources of history, and smuggle pigmies into the Gallery of Giants. The real Napoleon, with his paladins, stands as high above the pasticcio of the present day as Thiers the historian does above M. de Bazancourt.

Any one who had a reticent dislike for France could not satisfy it better than by comparing the two generations of marshals in their good and bad points: Massena, Prince of Essling, with Leroy de St. Arnaud, who raked his marshal's staff out of the blood of his fellow-citizens;

*The Scarlet Letter, ch. xviii.