rop. Stronger expressions of praise were | lesser affections and inclinations, which had been filling up the time of his absence, disappear. Others might have had a chance if he had remained away, but his return, his neighborhood, rouses a feeling which sweeps all before it. This is the situation. We may imagine, if Miss Ferrier had had to deal with it, how she would have spun it out; with what raptures, what despairs, what appeals to heaven she would have embroidered it! But Jane Austen at once seizes upon the vital points of it, and puts them before us, at first with a sober truth, and then with a little rise into poetry, which is a triumph of style. used to her and about her than ever seem to have suggested themselves to any contemporary admirer of Miss Austen, and the author of "Marriage" was encouraged to believe that her work would rank with that of Scott as a representation of Scottish life and manners. But we who read Miss Ferrier with an interval of fifty years between us and her can judge the proportions of things more clearly. Miss Ferrier is scarcely read now, except for the sake of satisfying a literary curiosity, and will gradually drop more and more out of reading. And it is very easy to understand why, if one does but approach her books with these qualities of expansion and concentration which go to make up a classic in one's mind. She has little or no faculty of choice, nothing is refused that presents itself; reflections, love-making, incident, are all superabundant and second-rate. Everything is done to death, whether it is Miss Pratt's bustle, or Lady Juliana's finery, or Mr. McDow's brutality, and as for the sentiment - these re flections from the first volume of the "Inheritance" are a fair average specimen of it. 66 There was much regret," she says, in her analysis of Anne's feelings towards the man she had resolved to sacrifice to her old lover. How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case is not worth inquiring; for there was a Captain Wentworth, and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his forever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men than their final separation. Prettier musings of highwrought love and eternal constancy could never have passed along the streets of Bath than Anne was sporting with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way." How terse it is, how suggestive, how free from vulgarity and commonplace! "Ah,' thought Gertrude, how will ingly would I renounce all the pomp of greatness to dwell here in lowly affection with one who would love me and whom I could love in return. How strange that 1, who could cherish the very worm that crawls beneath my feet, have no one being to whom I could utter the thoughts of Another striking instance of this choosmy heart, no one on whom I could bestowing instinct of hers is the description of its best affections!' She raised her eyes, swimming in tears to heaven, but it was in the poetic enthusiasm of feeling, not in the calm spirit of devotion!" Darcey's place, Pemberley, in "Pride and Prejudice." There, although there is scarcely any description at all, every stroke of the pen is so managed that any There is no parlicular reason why writ-reader with ordinary attention may realize, ing of this kind should ever stop; there if he pleases, the whole lie of the park, the is nothing intimate and living in it, none look of the house, as Elizabeth surveyed of that wrestle of the artist with experi- it from the opposite side of the ravine ence which is the source of all the labors above which it stood, the relative posiand all the trials of art; it is all conven- tions of the lawns, stables, and woods. tional, traditional, hearsay in fact. The Anybody with a turn that way could sketch qualities of concentration are altogether it with ease, and yet there is no effort, no wanting. But now, put side by side with intention to describe, nothing but a clear Gertrude's sentiment or Mrs. Sinclair's and vivid imagination working with that remorse, some of the mental history of self-restraint, that concentration, which is Jane Austen's dramatis persona, and the the larger half of style. This self-restraint gulf which this marvellous choosing fac- indeed is her important, her determining ulty digs between one writer and another quality. In other ways she has great dewill be plain at once. Anne Eliot, in ficiencies. For fine instances of the qual "Persuasion," has arrived at the criticalities of expansion we must go elsewhere moment of her fate. The man whom she than to Jane Austen. Emotion, inspira had rejected seven years before has reap- tion, glow, and passion are not hers; she peared upon the scene, and as soon as is a small, thin classic. But classic she she is brought in contact with him all is; for her work is a typical English em bodiment of those drier and more bracing elements of style in which French literature has always been rich, and our own perhaps comparatively poor. M. A. W. THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. Daily Chronicle, Nov. 29. By the retirement of Dr. Trench from the archiepiscopal see of Dublin, a wellknown figure is withdrawn from active participation in the affairs and direction of the Irish Church. The letter announcing his intention to retire was read yesterday at a special meeting of the United Synods of Dublin, Glendalough, and Kildare, and as a mark of respect to the retiring prelate the whole assemblage rose and stood during the delivery of his message. While every one will regret that failing health and physical infirmity have prompted the archbishop to seek to be relieved of his public duties, the action he has taken is perhaps the wisest course for him to pursue, and in retirement he will be able to secure that rest and immunity from anxiety which are denied to the occupant of an episcopal throne. During the fortyfive years of his ministry in the Church the career of Dr. Trench has been somewhat chequered, and not wholly uneventful. While holding the small incumbency of Curdbridge Chapel he first attracted public attention by the publication of two volumes of poems which established his reputation as a poet. These so impressed Dr. Wilberforce, then rector of Alverstoke, that he requested Mr. Trench to become his curate. Thence on the preferment of his rector, Mr. Trench was presented to Itchenstoke, which he resigned on appointment to the deanery of Westminster. His tenure of this office was marked by great intellectual activity, and it was during this period that he published some of his best works. In 1864, he was selected to succeed Dr. Whateley in the archbishopric of Dublin, from which he now desires to retire. During his resinence in Dublin, he has proved himself a true benefactor to Ireland, and his admin. istration of the diocese during a difficult and trying period of twenty-one years has been conducted on principles the most just and wise. His administrative powers were amply proved by the tact he displayed at the time of the disestablishment, and he leaves his diocese in a peaceful and flourishing condition. His last act in the refusal to accept the provision of a retiring allowance confirms the disinterestedness and self-denial which have marked his public career, and he retires into private life with the good wishes and sympathy of all who have known him, either directly as an archbishop, or indirectly through the books he has published. Times, Dec. 1. WITH all the dignity of high desert, and all the warmth of mutual appreciation, the Archbishop of Dublin has placed his resig nation in the hands of his Synod of a load of office which, after twenty-one years of continued strain, he is no longer able to bear. There have been several such resignations in this country since Parliament consented to give the requisite facilities, but they seem to have come in the ordinary course of nature, and they only remind one that after three score and ten the strength of man is apt to be labor and sorrow. Dr. Trench has exhausted his life and his forces in the discharge of one of the most painful tasks that ever fell to the lot of a bishop, or any ruler of men. He has had to lead a losing and divided cause; to command in a campaign foredoomed to defeat; to conduct a harassed retreat; to submit to hostile terms and make the best of a diminished position; to sacrifice in a sense all, with the saving of honor, and to leave his work so far incomplete as not even to know in what form to make his resignation real and effectual. The knot which death usually cuts has in this case to be untied. It is to be feared, however, that this is but a small part of the legacy of difficulties Dr. Trench leaves to the Church of Ireland and his successors. Between the charac ter of the man and the part he has had to perform on the great stage of public life there is a certain disparity which adds to the pathetic interest of the event. There are men who might be thought made for such a crisis; there are men who might be thought to have even provoked it, and who only hand over to others the work they had spontaneously initiated. In this case we seem to see only misfits and cross purposes. It is impossible, indeed, to say what better terms could have been made for the doomed Establishment, or what manner of man would have been fitter for work to be done. Nevertheless, the man and the office and the period forcibly illustrate the mixed fortunes and conflicting conditions which fortune, with a certain playfulness, is often found to combine in one personal career. COMPROMISE. BY LORD TENNYSON. IN the following epigrammatic lines we have Lord Tennyson's mind on the present posture of our political affairs. It is uncertain to which "steersman" of the political ships the epigram is addressed, since it would be applicable to either Lord Salisbury or to Mr. Gladstone; but it is quite clear that Lord Tennyson is, like the Duke of Argyll, strongly in favor of a compromise: Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act How often have I now out watched the night The islands that were blots of purple bloom, A score of sails now stud the waterways, Ruffling like swans afloat from paradise. J. A. SYMONDS. From The Fortnightly Review. MEN OF LETTERS ON THEMSELVES.* -- press affords, was never submitted to by Mr. Payn, between whom, however, and Mr. Yates there exist, in spite of marked dissimilarities, some resemblances or THE two entertaining and instructive volumes in which Mr. Edmund Yates has recorded the experiences and reminis- coincidences. Both may be said to have cences of a varied, animated, and success- been brought up in the school, and at the ful career, had as their predecessors some feet, of Dickens; both enjoyed in varying interesting recollections by a popular nov- degrees his friendship; both formed his elist, and have been followed by the narra- acquaintance about the same time, Mr. tive of "Episodes in the Second Life" of Yates in 1854, Mr. Payn two years later; a distinguished journalist, told by himself. both made their real literary début in Certain characteristics are possessed by Household Words. The first appearance each of these autobiographies in common. of each in print was poetical Mr. Yates, Mr. Yates combines, or has combined, in when a mere boy, sending to Mr. Harrihis own person the function of Mr. James son Ainsworth some stanzas which were Payn and Mr. Antonio Gallenga. Like inspired by Thackeray's "At the Church the former he is a novelist; like the latter Gate;" and Mr. Payn at the same tenhe is, or has been, a writer of newspaper der age contributing a composition enarticles, and among the most locomotive titled "The Poet's Death" to Leigh and picturesque of newspaper special cor- Hunt's journal. Both have, or have had, respondents. With Mr. Yates, as with many common friends, and many of the the two other literary autobiographers, same famous or familiar characters appear existence has been a strenuous and a and reappear in the pages of the books of prosperous affair, full of labor and each. The education, like the natural effort, but of effort ending in fruition, and tastes and aptitudes, of Mr. Payn and Mr. of labor sweetened by fame. Mr. Yates Yates was widely different. The former, tells us how first, at the bidding of the who went from Eton to Woolwich, and post-office authorities, he performed rapid from Woolwich to Cambridge, was withjourneys between London and foreign out any turn whatever for languages. capitals, and how when the government" Languages," he writes, "have been al was taking over the telegraphs, he visited nearly every portion of the United Kingdom; how, next, at the bidding of the editor of the New York Herald, he had no sooner returned to England from Amer-facility." ica, than he was summoned to Paris, and then instructed to proceed without a moment's delay to Vienna or Madrid, to St. Petersburg or Berlin. The correspondence of Mr. Gallenga was for the most part in a more serious vein than that of Mr. Yates. He was present at scenes of greater historic significance, and he chronicled the decision of more momentous issues. But both men were in their separate departments of journalism equally in the first rank; equally prompt, accurate, persevering, graphic. This discipline, perhaps the most trying of any that the • Edmund Yates: his Recollections and Experiences. 2 vols. (Bentley). Episodes of my Second Life, by A. Gallenga. 2 vols. (Chapman & Hall). Some Literary Recollections, by James Payn. 1 vol. (Smith, Eider, & Co.). ways as unattainable to me as the science of music. I spent many years over French and German, but could never read, far less converse in, either tongue with Mr. Yates received the rudi. ments of a sound classical and general training at Highgate School, was transferred to Dusseldörf and Bonn, whence in nine months' time he returned to England with a perfect command of the German vocabulary and accent. It is to his knowl edge of French and German that Mr. Yates attributes much of his success in life, and notably the opportunities of studying men, manners, and cities, which his Continental missions for the postoffice supplied. One admirable quality pervades, in a conspicuous degree, each of these works. "I do not think," writes Mr. Yates in his preface, "I have said any harsh thing of any person, alive or dead. I am certain that I have not said such a thing consciously." As a matter of fact, Mr. Yates |