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if I omitted to mention his extraordinary keenness as an observer of nature. Nothing seemed to escape him; the descriptions in his poems are accurate to the minutest detail; and he was no mere observer of natural phenomena, but meditated profoundly on their problems. I once heard him hold forth eloquently on the thesis that the apparent confusion of the starry heavens must be the most beautiful order if we could only see it, and not long afterwards read in the MS. of "Faithful for Ever:-"

The bright disorder of the stars
Is solved by music.

After we had become in a measure intimate, Patmore fell into a habit of showing me his newly written verses, and was always most indulgently ready to look at mine. His composition was rapid. 1 have frequently seen twenty or more lines which he had written, he said, in the last half-hour, and refashioning was rarely needful, though he was an unwearied corrector in minor details. In these minutiæ I was, I think, of some service to him; and I believe it was at my instance that the change of a note of exclamation into a note of interrogation was made which obliterated the unreason of the first version of "Tamerton Church Tower." It was natural that I should become a visitor at his house, and see the choicest of his possessions, his wife. This admirable lady, husband's apotheosis notwithstanding, never impressed me as an "Angel," but rather as a queen ruling by love and wisdom, "a creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food," wise, witty, frank, gracious, hospitable, without flaw or blemish that I could ever discover, but perfectly at home in this terrestrial sphere. Yet the advance of consumption, of which she must have been fully aware, seemed to throw shadow upon her spirit, and the care of her numerous young family appeared to cause no effort or uneasiness. Her appearance is well described by her husband, when he sings

her

no

Her Norman face,

Her large brown eyes, clear lakes of love. The expenses of her illness, and of a family of six children, were very trying to Patmore, but he fought them bravely by the help of reviewing work, which, from his unfortunate want of interest in contemporary literature, was singularly distasteful to him. Yet there was enough to give the house an air of distinction-velvet chairs, wellbound books, drawings by Rossetti, Hunt, and Millais. There was no ostentation, but just enough to bespeak refined taste and lofty self-respect, and a willingness to submit to some privation for their gratification-the same feeling which in later and more opulent years sent Patmore to the best portrait-painter south of the Tweed. The company was choice as well as the furniture. I do not remember having met an uninteresting person, and I have recollections of frequent encounters with Woolner and the two Rossettis. I remember discussions on Walt Whitman, anticipating much that has been said since; and on Madeline Smith, whom the young men of taste and genius of that day were disposed to regard as a modern Joan of Arc, inasmuch as she was thought to have poisoned her lover. Poor and proud, and always ready to deem himself undervalued, Patmore did not go much into society. I have heard him speak, however, of meetings with Carlyle and Ruskin, Browning and Palgrave. The three latter were numbered among his friends, and he was at one time intimate with Tennyson, the manuscript of whose "In Memoriam" he rescued from the kitchen of a lodging-house. I may give one anecdote illustrative at once of his humor and his sensitiveness. He had been asked to meet a popular novelist, with a clear hint that the latter was esteemed the bigger lion. "I suppose," he said to me, "that I ought to feel as proud as a cod's head and shoulders brought to the same table as a pheaseant." He was proud, though not exactly of that. But be it recorded to his honor that I never heard him ex

press so much satisfaction at anything but he was not and never could be as the thought that, notwithstanding anything but a Patmorean. Many a the strain upon his slender means, Mrs. Patmore had wanted for nothing in her illness. "She could not," he said, "have been better cared for if she had been an empress."

The crotchety side of Patmore's mind found ample development in his views on politics, where he was peculiarly unprofitable. He would dogmatize to any extent, but seemed unable to produce an argument; and, although painting what he deemed the evils of the time in the blackest colors, he would not take the least practical step to remedy them by so much as voting at an election. "Spiacente a Dio ed ai nemici suoi." Of his religious views I will only record that some years before he joined the Church of Rome, he told me that he believed the bulk of the nation would become Roman Catholic ere long. I said that I thought this improbable. He seemed surprised and added that he for his part would have no objection to profess himself a Roman Catholic but for the denial of the cup to the laity, which he could not digest. I am perfectly certain, however, that he would never have taken this step if the first Mrs. Patmore had lived. Au reste, he might call himself Roman Catholic or Protestant as he pleased,

man has been burned for less than his letter to the Omar Khayyam Club, written only a few days before his death.

Patmore's retirement from the museum and residence in the country drew us apart, and although there was no interruption of mutual regard, our meetings were comparatively infrequent. I have confined these reminiscences to the period when I knew him intimately. In endeavoring to sketch the man I have in a measure conveyed my opinion of his writings. Neither "The Angel in the House" nor the "Odes" are quite satisfactory as wholes; the foundations of the former are sandy, its view of domestic relations is open to grave exception, and it remains incomplete because it could not be completed. The "Odes" are enveloped in a cloud of mysticism. But these imperfections are more than redeemed by exquisite and surprising beauties of detail; and if the writer had possessed a more equable and symmetrical genius, he would hardly have exhibited the depth of insight, the energy of thought, or the intensity of descriptive power in which, among his contemporaries, he is rivalled only by Browning.

R. GARNETT.

The story of the late Sir John Millais, which follows, is told by a correspondent of the Chronicle in the painter's own words:

"I found myself seated one evening at a rather grand dinner next to a very pretty gushing girl to whom I had not been introduced. She fired into conversation directly she had finished her soup, and as it was May, began with the inevitable question, I suppose you've been to the Academy?' I replied that I had. 'And did you notice the Millais'? Didn't you think they were awful daubs? I can't imagine how such things ever get hung! She was going on gaily in the same strain, while I sat silent, when suddenly the amused smiles

of those around her, and the significant hush, brought her to a sudden stop. She colored rather painfully, and whispered to me in a frightened voice, 'For heaven's sake what have I done? Have I said anything dreadful? Do tell me.' 'Not now,' I replied; 'eat your dinner in peace, and I'll tell you by and by.' She did so rather miserably, vainly trying to extract from me at intervals what the matter was, and when dessert came I filled up her glass with champagne and told her to gulp it down very quickly when I counted three. She obeyed without protest, and I took the opportunity when she couldn't speak to say, 'Well, I am Millias. But let's be friends!"" Academy.

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From The Revue des Deux Mondes.

AS OTHERS SEE US.

The judgment of neighboring, and especially of rival nations is a needful check to that which we pass upon ourselves. It has the advantage, moreover, of enlightening us about the improvement or deterioration which may have taken place in our own character; although we have to make allowance of course-and often a big allowance-for national prejudices, jealousies, and passions. "The French," says Machiavelli in his life of Castracani, a work now easily accessible to all Italian youth, "The French are intrepid, rather than robust or able. If you can but resist the impetuosity of their first attacks they soon weaken, and lose courage, up to the point of becoming as timorous as women."

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(This seems rather strong)! "Moreover," he says, "they are extremely impatient of toil and hardship, and once disheartened they are easily surprised and overcome." He gives as an example the battle of the Garigliano, and proceeds on this wise: "If, therefore, you would get the better of the French, you must beware of that first impetuosity of theirs. If you can but protract matters, you are sure of success.' Machiavelli also charges the French soldier with a thievish disposition and with spending the money of others as lavishly as his own. "He will steal to eat, to squander and for the mere fun of entertaining the man whom he has robbed." This last observation is rather acute; but does it not illustrate the sociable nature of the Frenchman and his pressing need of sympathy? He would sooner fraternize with the man whose head he had just broken, than with nobody. "He is exactly the reverse of the Spaniard who hides forever out of sight what he has pilfered from you." Again he hits off the nerVous-sanguine temperament of the French: "They are so pre-occupied with present good or ill, that they forget both the insults and the benefits which they have previously received, and coming good or evil is nothing to

them. I am not so sure about our readiness to forget benefits-though the benefits which we have received from other nations are easy to enumerate; but I should not question the promptitude with which we forget an outrage, unless it be kept constantly before our minds by some question of right or of humanity. It is not our custom to go back to Couradin and Brennus in order to explain the principle of our antipathies. If the Germans had only beaten us, without trampling on the law of nations by mutilating our country, the FrancoGerman war would have been as completely forgotten to-day, as the Crimean war against Russia, or even the great wars with England. We acknowledge the resemblance-the physiognomy at once French and gauloise-in an servation like this of Machiavelli's. "They recount their defeats, as though they had been victories!" There you have the true, buoyant French imagination, expansive, eager to attract attention; and the writer proceeds emphasize yet further our tendency to optimism by the remark: "They have an exaggerated idea of their own prosperity, and quite look down on that of other nations." Finally he reproaches us with fickleness and levity. "They keep their word after the fashion of conquerors. The first engagement one makes with them is always the safest." Besides not being altogether deserved, this accusation seems an odd one on the part of an Italian, and particularly of Machiavelli!

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All foreigners unite in remarking upon our traditional readiness to take it out in fine talk rather than in action or in reasoning. "The Italian," says the Abbé Galioni, "plays with words, but the Frenchman is their dupe." A German psychologist has said of us that rhetoric which is merely an ornament for an Italian is an argument with a Frenchman.

"

One of the most scathing critics we ever had was Gioberti. In his famous

book on the "Primato," he charges the French nation with levity, frivolity, vanity and boastfulness. Our books,

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