From Chambers's Journal.

KITCHEN AND PARLOR.

"On, that will do for the servants." "My dear," I observed, as the jagged half-raw remnant of the gigot went down stairs, "what may be the derivation of that word, servant?"

La! aunt, how can you ask such silly questions?"

"Servo, servavi, servatum, servare," mused my nephew-in-law, a young divine, with a turn for philology." Servans-literally, a person who serves."

"A definition referring simply to the occupation, and not necessarily extending to the species?"

"No-O no!"

isted always, is evidently right to exist, I do not recognize that unnatural system of antagonism which divides a household into two distinct species of humanity, organizes one set of interests for the kitchen and another for the parlor, one code of morals for the server and another for the served.

Let us look at the thing in its root, and consider the origin of "servitude." A household, not sufficient for its necessary work, accepts hired help, in which, as a natural consequence, the practised hand directs the unpractised, and rests from its own labors. Our first hint of this state of society is Abraham, with his "menservants, and maid-servants," his " young men," his" trained servants born in his house "-and probably born of his own kindred, certainly of

Nor indicating any a priori difference of his own Hebrew race. Doubtless he was a true

race?

66

Certainly not."

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patriarch, a "great father" among them all, and they were free "servants." Not a word find we of bondsmen or bondswomen, save in the case of Hagar the Egyptian.

My pretty niece opened her eyes-as she always did when her aunt was talking nonsense " with her husband. But at this minute A servant, then, is originally one who, from outMary-Ann brought in little Johnnie for his pud-ward circumstances or inward organization, finds ding; and of course it was the last thing to be himself incapable of ruling, and is therefore wished that the domestics should suppose our necessitated to obey; to become not the dictator, tsble-talk was about them. So we rushed hur- but the minister-not the head, but the hands. riedly to the subject of Master John's new frock, It may be, he will in time rise out of this infeand left the former question, apropos of the gi-rior position; if not, he gradually settles in its got, to be brought out at leisure.

I have since done so, rather deeply, for I go about a good deal from house to house, and see many people in their intimate domestic relations. And of all such relations, it seems to me there is none which in the present day so much wants remodifying, as that of master-or mistress-and servant. I wonder whether a plain woman may speak a few plain words on this subject?

his own

for honorable work. But it is my duty to see that the said grate-cleaner, be she who she may, is treated as if she and myself both came from the one blood of the great human family, and is allowed every possibility that fate likewise allows, to raise herself in the scale of society, or become as perfect as she can be in that position for which she is fitted, and to which she was born.

level, grows familiar with its cares, duties, and pleasures, and leaves the same to be inherited by his descendants. My niece Marianna, did it ever strike you that yourself and Mary-Ann might have been sisters', or at least cousins' children? Yet I have known a family, a highly respectable family too, where such was actually the case. One man sinks, another rises-cach by momentum of character. Am I to Among all matronhood, the universal moan is blame if, while my daughter plays the harp in servants-servants "Where shall I get a the drawing-room, my third or fourth cousin has good servant?"-"Oh, I have been in such to clean the kitchen-grate? Not a bit of it-if trouble about my servants!"- They are all fortune has reduced her to the position of my alike those servants!" There seems an un-hired maiden and I pay her honorable wages dying feud, or at the best a sort of armed neu trality, existing between above and below-stairs -the powers that be, and the powers that suffer. The "family" and "the servants are quite a different race-as different as the Helots and the Lacedæmonians. If I hinted to Mrs. Marianna, my niece, that Mary-Ann, her parlor-maid, was quite as pretty a woman as herself, and, with one-half her advantages of education, would probably have been twice as intelligent, I should But I am reasoning on special points or genbe scouted indignantly, and never asked to dineralities. I will come to the practical question ner any more. Yet such is the simple truth, of why it is that in one-half the families of though, luckily, neither party knows it. I am one's acquaintance, especially in large towns, no preacher of "equality;" there is not such a the grand burden and complaint is-servants. thing in the world. How should man make what Nature does not-not even in a lettuce bed? There will ever be varieties-the tallest, There is Mrs. Smith. You will never once the most delicate, or the earliest plant. When enter that lady's house, without hearing of a you can grow me a bed of vegetables all alike, change in its domestic arrangements; you will then I will grow you a human race whose first hardly knock at the door four successive weeks, principle is equality. To the world's end, there without its being opened by a strange damsel, must be high and low, rich and poor, masters To count the number of servants Mrs. Smith and servants-all must "meet together," and has had since her marriage, would puzzle her we know Who is the Maker of them all." But eldest boy, even though he is just going into his while I recognize this natural and immutable multiplication-table. Out of some scores, surely law of superior and inferior, which, having ex-all could not have been so bad; yet, to hear her,

Let me look around-for examples are necessary, and shall be made quite harmless.

no imps of Satan in female form could be worse womanhood, and would end in the same dust than those with which her house has been and ashes. She is well served, well obeyed; haunted-cooks who sold the dripping, and gave and justly, but-and that is justice too-she is the roast-meat to the policeman; housemaids neither sympathized with nor confided in. Perwho could only scrub and scour, and wait at ta- haps this truth may have struck home to her ble and clean plate, and keep tidy to answer the sometimes; as when her maid, who had been door, and who actually had never learned to sew ill unnoticed for months in waiting on her one neatly, or to get up fine linen! Nurses wickedly morning dropped down, and-died that night; pretty, or thinking themselves so, who had the or when, the day there came news of the battle she sat hour after hour with atrocious impudence to buy a bonnet "just like of InkermannPoor Mrs. the Times in her lap, in her gloomy, lonely dinmy straw one," with flowers inside! Smith! Her whole soul is engrossed in the ser- ing-room-and not a soul came nigh her, to ask "what of the vant question. Her whole life is a domestic or learn from her speechless looks battle of the mean, scratch-and-snap, spit-and-young master? In the Jones's highly respectable family, are snarl kind. She has a handsome house; she gives good wages-that is, her liberal husband most respectable servants, clever, quick, attentive, and fully conscious of their own value and does-but not a servant will stay with her. And why? Because she is not fitted to be a capabilities. They dress quite as finely as "the mistress. She cannot rule-she can only order family," go out with parasols on Sundays, and about; she cannot reprove-she can only scold. have their letters directed "Miss." They guard Possessing no real dignity, she is always trying with jealousy all their perquisites and privileg to assert its semblance; having little or no ed-es-from the tradesmen's Christmas-boxes, and ucation, she is the hardest of all judges upon the talk outside the nearly closed front-door ignorance. Though so tenacious of her prerog-wite unlimited "followers," to the dearly prized ative, that she dismissed Sally Bains for imitat-right of a pert answer to missis when she vening missis's bonnet-(Heaven forgive you Mrs. tures to complain. And missis-a kind easy Smith! but do you know where you might find soul-is rather afraid of so doing; and endures that poor pretty sixteen-year old child now ?)—many an annoyance, together with a few real still, the more intelligent of her servants soon wrongs, rather than sweep her house with the find out that she is not a lady;" that, in fact, if one stripped off her satin gowns, and sold her carriage, and made her inhabit the basement story instead of the drawing-room of her handsome house, Mrs. Smith would be not one whit superior to themselves. Her quick-witted parlormaid is fully aware of this, as you may see from the way in which, notwithstanding all occasional airs of authority, she contrives to wind missis round her little-finger, get her own way entirely, and rule the house arrangements from attic to cellar. This being not unprofitable, she will probably outstay many of the other servants-not because she is any better than the rest, but merely cleverer.

besom of righteous destruction, and annihilate, in their sprouting, evils that will soon grow up like rampant weeds. This is no slight regret to Mrs. Jones's friends, who see that a little judicious authority, steadily and unvaryingly asserted-a little quiet exercise of will, instead of fidgety or nervous faultfinding, and needless suspiciousness, would make matters all straight, and reduce this excellent and liberal establishment, from the butler down to the little kitchenmaid, to the safe level of a limited monarchy. Instead of which, there is a loose sway, which often borders upon that most dangerous of all governments-domestic republicanism.

This last is the government at Mrs. RobinMrs. Brown's household is on quite a different son's. She long let the reins go-leaned back, plan. You will never hear the small domestic and slumbered. Where her household will drive "rows"-the petty squabbles between mistress to, Heaven only knows! The house altogether and maid, injustice on one side and impertinence takes care of itself. The mistress is too gentle on the other. Mrs. Brown would never dream to blame anybody for anything-too lazy to do of quarrelling with "a servant," any more than anything herself, or show anybody else how to with her dog or cat, or some other inferior ani- do it. I suppose she has eyes, yet you might mal. She strictly fulfils her duty as mistress; write your name in dust-tracks on every bit of gives regular wages, very moderate certainly, furniture in her house. She doubtless likes to for her income is much below both her birth and wear a clean face and a decent gown, for she has her breeding; exacts no extra service; and is tastes not unrefined; yet in Betty, her maid-ofrigidly particular in allowing her servants the all-work. both these advantages are apparently Mrs. Robinson can't, or due holidays-namely, to church every other impossible luxuries. Sunday, and a day out once a month. Her believes she can't, afford what is called a "good" house-keeping is economical without being servant-that is, an efficient, conscientious, restingy; everything is expected to go on like sponsible woman, who requires equivalent waclock-work; if otherwise, dismissal follows, for ges for valuable services-therefore she does Mrs. Brown dislikes to have to find fault, even with poor Betty, but it never seems to strike Betty, in her lofty and distant way. She is a conscien- or her mistress either, that though poverty may tious, honorable lady, who exacts no more than be inevitable, dirt and tatters never are-that a she performs; and her servants respect her. girl, if ever so ignorant, can generally be taught But they stand in awe of her; they do not love a house, if ever so small and ill furnished, her. There is a wide gulf between their hu- can at least be clean-a dinner, if ever so plain, manity and hers-you never would believe that nay, scanty, may be well cooked and well arthey and she shared the same flesh and blood of ranged; and however the servants fall short,

go on to defy them to the last. To suggest to besides, I've seen a great deal of Upton, and

him that his malady had any affinity to any known affection was to outrage him, since the mere supposition would reduce him to a species of equality with some one else-a thought infinitely worse than any mere physical suffering; and, indeed, to avoid this shocking possibility, he vacillated as to the locality of his disorder, making it now in the lung, now in the heart at one time in the bronchial tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It was his pleasure to consult for this complaint every great physician of Europe, and not alone consult, but commit himself to their direction, and this with a credulty which he could scarcely have summoned in any other

cause.

with all his fastidiousness and refinement, he's a thorough good fellow at taking things for the best. Invite him to Chatsworth, and the chances are he'll find twenty things to faultwith the place, the cookery, and the servants; but take him down to the Highlands, lodge him in a shieling, with bannocks for breakfast and a Fyne herring for supper, and I'll wager my life you'll not see a ruffle in his temper, nor hear a word of impatience out of his mouth."

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I know that he is a well-bred gentleman," said Glencore, half pettishly; "but I have no fancy for putting his good manners to a severe test, particularly at the cost of my own feelings."

It was difficult to say how far he himself be- "I tell you again he shall be admirably lieved in this disorder-the pressure of any treated; he shall have my room; and, as for momentous event, the necessity of action, his dinner, Master Billy and I are going to never finding him unequal to any effort, no make a raid amongst the lobster-pots. And matter how onerous. Give him a difficulty, a what with turbot, oysters, grouse-pie, and minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, mountain mutton, I'll make the diplomatist a false move to profit by, and he rose above sorrow that he is not accredited to some native all his pulmonary symptoms, and could exert sovereign in the Arran islands, instead of himself with a degree of power and perseve-some 'mere German Hertzog.' He can only rance that very few men could equal, none stay one day." surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept this malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a novel or a newspaper, but would never permit it to interfere with the graver business of life.

We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description, but we have felt it the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since the studious simplicity which marked all his manner might have deceived our reader, and which the impression of his mere words have failed to convey.

"You will be glad to hear Upton is in Enggland, Glencore," said Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his seat in the library, "and, what is more, intends to pay you a visit."

"One day!"

"That's all; he is over head-and-ears in business, and he goes down to Windsor on Thursday, so that there is no help for it."

"I wish I may be strong enough; I hope to heaven that I may rally-" Glencore stopped suddenly as he got thus far, but the agitation the words cost him seemed most painful.

"I say again, don't distress yourself about Upton-leave the care of entertaining him to me. I'll vouch for it that he leaves us well satisfied with his welcome."

"It was not of that I was thinking," said he, impatiently; "I have much to say to him things of great importance. It may be that I shall be unequal to the effort; I cannot "Upton coming here!" exclaimed Glencore, answer for my strength for a day—not for an with an expression of mingled astonishment hour. Could you not write to him, and ask and confusion-" how do you know that?" him to defer his coming till such time as he "He writes me from Long's to say that can spare me a week, or at least some he'll be with us by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday."

"What a miserable place to receive him," exclaimed Glencore. "As for you, Harcourt, you know how to rough it, and have bivouacked too often under the stars to care much for satin curtains. But think of Upton here! How is he to eat?-where is he to sleep?"

"By Jove, we'll treat him handsomely. Don't you fret yourself about his comforts;

days?"

My dear Glencore, you know the man well, and that we are lucky if we can have him here on his own terms, not to think of imposing ours; he is sure to have a number of engagements while he is in England."

"Well, be it so," said Glencore, sighing, with the air of a man resigning himself to an inevitable necessity.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
MAUD.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.*

the primest quality, men have grown shy through frequent disappointment, and will not allow themselves to be seduced into anticipa tory ecstasies even by the most tempting bill WE are old enough to remember the time of fare. When every possible kind of publiwhen the bare announcement of a new poem cation-from the lumbering journals and salafrom the pen of Byron, or of a new romance cious court-gossip of some antiquated patrician from that of Scott, was sufficient to send a pantaloon, edited by his senseless son, down to thrill of curiosity and expectation through the the last History of the Highway, with sketches whole body of the public. No ingenious news- of eminent burglars-from the play after the paper puffs, containing hints as to the nature perusal of which in manuscript Mr. Macready and tone of the forthcoming production, were was attacked by British cholera, down to the then required to stimulate the jaded appetite, poem so very spasmodic that it reminds you and prepare it for the enjoyment of the pro- of the writhing of a knot of worms-from aumised feast. Gluttons all of us, we had hard-dacious, though most contemptible forgeries on ly devoured one dish fit for a banquet of the the dead, down to the autobiography of a gods, before we were ready for another; and rogue and a swindler is represented as "a it needed not the note of lute or psaltery, work of surpassing interest, full of genius, calsackbut or dulcimer, to induce us to pounce, culated to make a lasting impression on the ravenous as eagles, upon the coming prey. public mind," and so forth, can it be wonderSome selfishness undoubtedly there was; for ed at if the public has long ago lost faith in we have known desperate, and even demoni- such announcements? It would be as easy to acal struggles take place for the possession of induce a pack of fox-hounds to follow a trail an early copy. The mail-coach which was through the town of Wick in the herring seasupposed to carry one or more of these pre-son, as to allure purchasers by dint of this incious parcels a week or so before the general discriminate system of laudation. delivery, was in much greater danger of being Yet we deny not that at times we feel a restopped and plundered than if the boot had currence of the old fever-fit of expectation. been stuffed with boxes containing the laminous The advertisement of a forth-coming novel by issue of the Bank of England. One ancient Sir E. B. Lytton would excite in the bosoms guard, well known to travellers on the north of many of us sensations similar to those which road for his civility to passengers and his ad- agitate a Junior Lord of the Treasury at the miration of rum and milk, used to exhibit a near approach of quarter-day. If we could lump behind his ear, about the size of a only be assured of the exact time when Mr. magnum bonum plum, arising from an injury Macaulay's new volumes are to appear, we caused by the pistol of a literary footpad, who might, even now, forgive him for having kept attacked the mail near Alnwick for the pur- us so long upon the tenter-hooks. Let Lord pose of obtaining forcible possession of a Palmerston fix a precise day for the issue of proof copy of Rob Roy. Judges were known his Life and Political Reminiscences, and we to have absented themselves from the bench gage our credit that, before dawn, the doors of for the undisturbed engorgement, and for his publisher will be besieged; and, to come weeks afterwards the legal opinions which they to the immediate subject of this article, we delivered were strangely studded with media- have been waiting for a long time, with deep val ternis. As for the poetical apprentices, anxiety, for the promised new volume of poByron was, indeed, the very prince of the ems by Alfred Tennyson. The young cormoflat-caps. No sooner was a fresh work of his rant, whom from our study window we see announced, than opium and prussic acid rose sitting upon a rock in the voe, was an egg on rapidly in the market; and the joyous tidings a ledge of the cliff when we first heard whisof some new harlotry by Mr. Thomas Moore per that the Laureate was again preparing to created a fluttering as of besmirched doves sing. The early daisies were then starring among the delicate damsels of Drury Lane. the sward, and the primroses blooming on the All that, however, is matter of history, for bank; and now the poppies are red amongst the world since then has become, if not wiser, the corn, and the corn itself yellowing into much more callous and indifferent. We have harvest. Post after post arrived, and yet they been fed for a long time upon adulterated vi- brought not Maud-a sore disappointment to ands, and have grown mightily suspicious of us, for we are dwelling in the land of the Niethe sauce. Since the literary caterers, with belungen, where, Providence be praised, there very few exceptions, betook themselves to are no railways, and cheap literature is depuffing, and to the dubious task of represent-liciously scarce-so we fell back upon Tening garbage only fit for cat's-meat, as pieces of nyson's earlier poems, solaced ourselves with the glorious rhythm of Locksley Hall and the

Maud and other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson, Morte D'Arthur, lay among the purple heather, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. London, 1855. and read Ulysses and the Lotus-eaters, and

dreamed luxuriously of the Sleeping Beauty. protested that they had wept over portions of These, and one or two others, such as Dora, In Memoriam, and that they were able to exand the Gardener's Daughter, are poems of tract deep lessons of philosophy from divers which we never tire, so exquisite is their ex- dark sayings in The Princess, which to uninipression, and so delicate their music; and for tiated eyes, seemed rather devoid of meaning— their sake we are content to pass over a good even they were constrained to admit that soinedeal that is indifferent in quality, and much thing better might have been expected from that is affected in manner. For the truth Alfred. And now, when, after a breathingmust be said, notwithstanding the chirping of time, he had taken the field afresh, we enternumerous indiscreet admirers who are incapa-tained a sincere and earnest hope that his new

poem would be equal, if not superior, to any of his former productions.

ble of distinguishing one note from another Alfred Tennyson is singularly unequal in composition. Some of the poems upon which he We have at last received Maud, and we appears to have bestowed the greatest amount have risen from its perusal dispirited and sorof labor, and on which we suspect he particu- rowful. It is not a light thing nor a trivial larly plumes himself, are his worst; and we annoyance to a sincere lover of literature to never could join in the admiration which we have it forced upon his conviction that the have heard expressed for In Memoriam. It is man, who has unquestionably occupied for simply a dirge, with countless variations, cal-years the first place among the living British culated, no doubt, to show the skill of the mu- poets, is losing ground with each successive sician, but conveying no impression of reality effort. During the earlier part of the present or truthfulness to the mind. Grief may be so century, when poetry as an especial art was drawled out and protracted as to lose its pri- more cultivated if not more prized than now, mary character, and to assume that very mo- there were many competitors for the laurels ; dified form which the older poets used to de- and when the song of one minstrel ceased or nominate the luxury of woe. One epitaph, grew faint, another was emulous with his in prose or verse, is enough for even the best strain. It is not so now. We have, indeed,

of our race, and the briefer it can be made, much piping, but little real melody; and knowthe better. To sit down deliberately and elab-ing that we have but a very slight poetical orate several scores in memory of the same in- reserve to fall back upon, we watch with more dividual, is a waste of ingenuity on the part than ordinary vigilance and anxiety the career of the writer, and a sore trial of temper to of those who have already won a reputation. the reader. Nor can we aver that we are at It is singular, but true, that the high burst of all partial to this kind of funereal commemo- poetry which many years ago was simultaration when carried to an extreme. Poets neously exhibited both in Germany and Great may be excused for fabricating, in their hours Britain has suddenly declined in either counof melancholy, an occasional dirge or so, which try-that no adequate successors should be may serve as a safety-valve to their excited found to Schiller, Goethe, Tieck, and Uhland, feelings; but their voices were given them for in the one-or to Scott, Byron, Campbell, and something better than to keep wheezing all Coleridge, in the other. Many more names, day long like a chorus of consumptive sextons. both German and British, we might have cited Therefore we have never included In Memo- as belonging to the last poetic era, but these are riam in the list of our travelling library, but enough to show, by comparison, how much we have left it at home on the same shelf with have dwarfed in poetry. It may be that this Blair's Grave, and the Oraisons Funebres. is partly owing to the wider range of modern We confess to have been disappointed with literature, and the greatly increased demand The Princess. The idea of the poem, though for ready literary ability, but the fact remains somewhat bizarre, was novel and ingenious, as we have stated it; and certainly there are and allowed scope for great variety, but it ne- now few among us who devote themselves excessarily implied the possession of more humor- clusively to the poetic art, and fewer still who ous power than Mr. Tennyson has yet display-have cultivated it with anything approaching ed. In it, however, are to be found some most to success. First among the latter class we beautiful lines and passages-so beautiful, in- have ranked, and still do rank, Tennyson.— deed, that they almost seem out of place in a He has resisted all literary temptations which poem which, as a whole, leaves so faint and might have interfered with his craft; like vague an impression on the mind of the read-Wordsworth, he has refused to become a littérWe ought, however, to accept The Prin-ateur, and has taken his lofty stand upon mincess, a Medley, for what it probably was in- strelsy alone. And upon that one account if no tended to be-a freak of fancy; and in that view it would be unfair to apply it to any stringent rules of criticism.

er.

Even those who esteemed his later volumes more highly than we were able to do-who

other, we should deeply regret to see him fail. Occasional failure, or what the world will term as such, is no more than every poet who has early developed his powers, and whose genius has met with ready recognition, must