Europe. We are not likely to have too powerful an advocacy of peace. The last public service to which Cobden devoted his energies was the negotiation of the French treaty. The ability displayed on this occasion has been acknowledged on all hands; and it seems not improbable that the conclusion of the treaty may prove the first step towards the comprehensive adoption of Free-trade principles in France. On completing this work he was offered by Lord Palmerston a baronetcy and a place in the Privy Council. He declined both. Neither before nor after could he be induced to take office, or to accept of any boon from Government. Having sacrificed his private prospects in the Anti-Corn Law agitation, he accepted the compensation to which justice entitled him; but beyond what his duty to himself and his family imperatively required him to take, he would take nothing, and to this resolution he scrupulously adhered. Had he been alive and in vigor at the time when Mr. Bright accepted office under Mr. Gladstone, it is probable that he would have done likewise; but he felt that there was too great discrepancy between his political views and those of the old Whig cabinets, whether under the Russell or the Palmerston leadership, to permit him to take office with them. He died in the spring of 1865. In the House of Commons, in every part of England, throughout Europe and America, the amount of feeling displayed on the occasion was exceptional and striking. Statesmen at the head of rival parties,-statesmen with whom his public life had been an almost continuous conflict,-vied with each other in expressing their sense of the services he had rendered to his country. The Emperor of France, speaking through the lips of his minister, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, paid the tribute of an extraordinary dispatch to his memory. Eminent foreign writers extolled him as the reconciler of nations, the citizen of the world, the worker out, on the basis of common sense and common interest, of the brotherhood of mankind. Not inconsistently with this view was the stress which both they and writers at home laid upon his thorough nationality, upon his typical character as an Englishman. The quiet resolution, the moral courage, the unflagging energy, the perseverance, the solid ability, which have made the middle class in England what it is, were declared on all hands to have been illustriously represented by Cobden. His personal friends, and they were many, spoke of him as the "gentlest and manliest of human beings," one in whom, under an unimpassioned exterior, lay all delicacy, chivalry, magnanimity. There was nothing in Cobden's personal appearance to distinguish him from an ordinary English gentleman. Throughout his whole career he retained that quietness of demeanor which surprised his early associates in the Anti-Corn-Law League. When you saw him, the suggestion of your mind was, whatever that man may be, he cannot be a popular agitator. Perfect simplicity clothed his greatness, and as some, according to the poet, must be known before they seem worthy of love, so it was only when he was rightly known that his intellectual power was recognized and his moral majesty apprehended. It was not easy to realize that, under that pensive mildness, there lay a strengh as of adamant, a keenness as of flame. Yet so it was. Never, either intellectually or morally, was man more inflexible. Convinced that the Corn Laws were a source of calamity to England, he concentrated the energies of his soul into one burning passion of opposition to them, and rested not until they were destroyed. Convinced that the foreign policy of Great Britain, as represented by Lord Palmerston, was unworthy of a great nation,—proud to the weak, and word-valiant to the strong; degrading when it dealt with Greek or Chinese authorities, dangerous or ridiculous when it sent hectoring dispatches to Russia or France; frivolous in its vauntings of sympathy for constitutional freedom, halfhearted, if not false, to genuine patriots, Hungarian or other, with swords in their hands, he repelled every advance made by Palmerston with implacable persistence. If he seemed churlish, he cared not; he obeyed his conscience. We do not say that in this he was without error. We are mindful that much, very much, is to be said on the side of Lord Palmerston, and that Cobden acknowledged that Palmerston had been a noble antagonist. We are merely pointing out that moral inflexibility equal to that of an old Roman or of a Puritan soldier, dwelt in the breast of Cobden. There was also a flash of fierce indignation in him, which injustice to a friend called in a moment from beneath its snow-calm envelope. It was in actual fury that he rushed at Mr. Delane, when the "Times" charged Mr. Bright with preaching spoliation. Gentleness was the habit of his mind, but it was justly said that for him apathy was sin. One thinks with pleasure of the comparative repose of his last days, of his cordial relations with the inhabitants of his native parish, of the dutiful attention which he paid to parish affairs, and of the delight he took in being kind to the animals on his farm. Deep sadness for the loss of his son clouded the evening of his life; but nothing could destroy the serenity of his courage, or the piety and patience and priest-like elevation of his character. Fraser's Magazine. THE POEMS OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. BY SHIRLEY. THE name of Dante Gabriel Rossetti has been long familiar to a select minority of the public as that of a remarkable painter, critic, and translator, who from one of the quaintly built and quaintly furnished old brick houses at Chelsea which overlook the river, and date from the days of Queen Anne, has sent out a series of works which in certain respects have hardly been rivalled in our generation. The paintings of Mr. Rossetti are not known at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. The sort of fame that is acquired upon that fashionable promenade is not apparently the fame to which this artist aspires. But above the altars of country churches, in the magnificent galleries of the Lancashire merchants, on the walls of Oxford debating-rooms, one occasionally encounters a rare piece of delicate work in which the intensity of the color is only equalled by the intensity of the expression, and which bears upon it the unmistakable imprint of a master's hand. Of the merits of these paintings a foreign critic, writing some years ago, thus delivers himself: exquisite feeling, that vision of Queen Guinevere, which arrests Launcelot as he seeks the San Greal. The sad woman comes between the knight and the mystic guest. The head is not averted; the look is still and passionless, though sad. Passion is buried and dead, and it is only a sad spectre who warns the warrior back. It would be difficult to express in words all that that visioned face expresses. There is none of the old love and tenderness (that was over when she turned away from his caress at Arthur's grave); there is the sense of the inevitable through it all, in those calm pitiful eyes, a sorrow, of the incurable shame; and yet, profound and womanly compassion for the man who had shared her guilt, and partakes her punishment. Such a look-straight from the inmost soul as that-is greater than any victory of color. this man can turn from his Hebrew kings, I have sometimes deemed it strange that and his old romance, and his prostrate angels, and his golden skies, to the commonest and most simple aspect of this mean, modern life. It startles at first, as though we were to find Angelico and Hogarth working together. Here, David, the kingly minstrel, amid orange and golden blossoms, strings his harp, and Arthur sleeps beneath the yellow leaves; there, between the sun and shade, the wounded woman revels in a ghastly festival, or on the cold London pavement, in the chill London dawn, shivers drearily, as the peasant-fresh from the breezy meadowlands among which the child played in her innocent girlhood-drives his team into the sleeping city. And yet there is nothing discordant in this; both aspects are consistent with plain truth. One is drawn from the deep fountains of historical and religious feeling, where the boldest and most unreserved conventionalisms may be admitted; the other from the present, where nothing but the simple transcript is possible. In the antique, all the suggestions of the imagination may be introduced under abstracts and formal forms-like the chorus in the Greek drama, an embodied commentary upon the passing transaction; while, in the modern, the same law dictates the frankest and most conscientious adherence to reality. 'Signs and wonders' were familiar in the old ages of faith; but we have no creditable witches or miracle workers now; no angels resting on the rosy clouds; no 'spears arrayit' upon the menacing heaven. Our story must be related, as it relates itself in the life, and from the hidden face and the averted gesture alone can the shame, misery, humiliation, and swift remorse be gathered.' To this it is merely necessary to add that we find in his later work the same qualities that distinguished his earlier, a purely realistic treatment combined with high imagination, as in "The Beloved," the impressive drawing of "Hamlet and Ophelia," and that captivating picture of "Venus," where, through a tangled wilderness of real roses and honeysucklessplendid as an Arabian dream—the God dess of Love looks out. Mr. Rossetti has proved the fine temper of his critical faculty in the introductions prefixed to his Translations from the Italian Poets, and in the final chapter supplied by him to Mr. Gilchrist's Life of William Blake the Artist. These chapters should be read by all who are anxious to learn what close, exact, delicate, and thoroughly genuine and exhaustive criticism means,- -a knowledge which they will hardly acquire if they confine their read. ing to the Saturday Review or the AtheIt is thus for instance that he determines the relation between the earlier and the later work of Dante : пеит. Italian poets is one of the best translations in the language. To the illustration of Dante, Mr. Rossetti was attracted by hereditary sympathies. "In relinquishing this work (he says), which, small as it is, is the only contribution I expect to make to our English knowledge of old Italy, I feel as it were divided from my youth. The first associations I have are connected his own point of view, have done so much with my father's devoted studies, which, from towards the general investigation of Dante's writing. Thus, in those early days, all around me partook of the influence of the great Florentine till, from viewing it as a national element, I also, growing older, was drawn within the circle. I trust that from this the reader may place more confidence in a work not carelessly undertaken, though produced in the spare-time of other pursuits more closely followed. He should perhaps be told that few years, thus affording, often at long interit has occupied the leisure moments of not a vals, every opportunity for consideration and revision; and that, on the score of care at least, he has no need to mistrust it." The translation of the Vita Nuova oc cupies the central place in the volume, and is an admirable specimen of that difficult art, superior even in certain respects to Mr. Theodore Martin's very brilliant version. Mr. Rossetti has kept more of the original metal than Mr. Martin has succeeded in doing. The Vita Nuova is a piece of medieval poetry and feeling. Now, the old forms of poetic construction are not preserved by sticking in at random. a few words spelt and pronounced as Chaucer or Spenser spelt and pronounced them. Mr. Martin, however, is rather inclined to do this; and as the rest is essentially modern in sentiment and expression, the old words,-like Queen Elizabeth's ruffles on a modern beauty,-look awkard, and out of place and keeping. In Mr. Rossetti's, also, there is more literalness of thought as well as more literalness of language. Poetic language is always to some extent materialistic; and the materialism of Dante's language (being united with profound awe and passionate emotion) is more marked than any other poet's. It is only the critic who reads carefully, and weighs attentively what he reads, who will detect what is not a superficial difference merely ; but such a one will be disposed to say that the sustained and weighty music of Rossetti's lines, his gravity and The volume of translations from the singleness of purpose, are more in unison "It may be noted here, how necessary a knowledge of the Vita Nuova is to the full comprehension of the part borne by Beatrice in the Commedia. Moreover, it is only from the perusal of its earliest and then undivulged self-communings, that we can divine the whole bitterness of wrong to such a soul as Dante's; its poignant sense of abandonment, or its deep and jealous refuge in memory. Above all, it is here that we find the first manifestations of that wisdom of obedience, that natural breath of duty, which afterwards, in the Commedia, lifted up a mighty voice for warning and testimony. Throughout the Vita Nuova, there is a strain like the first falling murmur which reaches the ear in some remote meadow and prepares us to look upon the sea." For ever, among all my sighs which burn, That clamors upon death continually : My lady's life with most foul cruelty. Going up from us with the joy we had, A light of love which makes the angels glad, Such an exceeding glory went up hence That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire, Until a sweet desire Enter'd him for that lovely excellence, Who speaks thereof, and feels not the tears warm As to be dead to all sweet sympathies. He needs no bitter tears for his relief. And the desire to find no comforter (Save only Death, who makes all sorrow To him who for a while turns in his thought The translation of the Vita Nuova shows, perhaps, the most sustained power, but in rendering the difficult and brilliant trifles of the lesser Italian poets -most arduous of any to a translatorMr. Rossetti achieves his most remarkable success. The impressive effect of a massive work of art may be conveyed to a foreign reader, even through the medium of an indifferent translation; but when the whole excellence of a poem lies in its dexterity and adroitness of movement, in the delicacy of its form and the fragility of its workmanship, a translation is absolutely worthless unless the translator's hand be as light, trenchant, and dexterous as the hand of the man who wrote the original. These delicious trifles, these fitful emanations of the fancy, are apt to suffer irreparable injury when rudely handled. Yet see how Mr. Rossetti succeeds. This is a sonnet by Boccaccio: Her lovely face; and the green leaves did yield With a soft wind for ever stirr'd and still'd. (I heard her) "Think! If, ere the next hour struck, Each of our lovers should come here to-day, Think you that we should fly or feel afraid?" To whom the others answered, "From such luck A girl would be a fool to run away.' IO These catches are by Francho Sacchetti: ON A FINE DAY. "Be stirring, girls! we ought to have a run; And rocks and reels and wools: To-day your spinning's done. Up with you, up with you!" So one by one, Then singing, singing to the river they ran. To the river, the river; To the mill o'er the river. And this other. Now steady!" "You weigh a hundred, you, And this one weighs two.' 66 Why dear, you do get stout!" "Keep your temper, and I'll keep mine." So, as we crossed the hill, O what a wretch I am!" "Well, fellow, here's a clatter! Well, what's the matter?" "O Lord, O Lord, the wolf has got my lamb!" Now at that word of woe, The beauties came and clung about me so ON A WET DAY. As I walk'd thinking through a little grove, Some girls that gather'd flowers kept passing me, Saying, "Look here! look there!" delightedly. "Oh here it is!" "What's that?" A lily, love, "And these are violets!" "Further for roses! Oh the lovely pets, The darling beauties! Oh the nasty thorn! Look here, my hand's all torn!" "What's that that jumps?" "Oh don't! it's a grasshopper!" "Come run, come run, Here's bluebells!" "Oh what fun!" "Not that way! stop her!" "Yes, this way!" "Pluck them, then!" Oh, I've found mushrooms! oh look here!" "Oh, I'm Quite sure that further on we'll get wild thyme." "Oh we shall stay too long, it's going to rain! There's lightning, oh there's thunder !" "Oh sha'n't we hear the vesper-bell, I wonder?" "Why, it's not nones, you silly little thing; And don't you hear the nightingales that sing Fly away, O die away?" "I feel so funny! hush!" "Why, where ?" "What is it then?" "Ah! in that bush!" So every girl here knocks it, shakes it, shocks it, Till with the stir they make Out skurries a great snake. "O Lord!" "O me!" "Alack!" "Ah me!" "Alack!" They scream, and then all run and scream again, And then in heavy drops down comes the rain. Each running at the other in a fright, Each trying to get before the other, and crying And flying, stumbling, tumbling, wrong or right; One sets her knee There where her foot should be: One has her hands and dress All smother'd up with mud in a fine mess; And one gets trampled on by two or three. About the wood, and not picked up at all. The wreaths of flowers are scattered on the ground, And still as screaming, hustling without rest I stood quite still to have a perfect view, Mr. Rossetti has at length published a small volume of original poetry. We may be sure that it will excite considerable controversy that there will be much said in praise and dispraise-that it will be vehemently admired, and perhaps even more vehemently assailed. My own opinion is that the volume is lighted by the authentic fire of the imagination, and that the poems of which it consists are almost without exception products of the high poetic faculty in certain of its highest and most intense moods. This cardinal fact being conceded, I am ready to own if required that-not free from quaintness, eccentricity, mysticism of a sort—it is a publication in certain aspects fitted to startle and perplex that British Philistine with whose features Mr. Matthew Arnold has made us familiar. What is the highest faculty exercised in poetic composition? The question is not difficult to answer when we keep steadily in view what is its essential aim. In the sister art of painting, neither the landscape painter nor the portrait painter can be held to reach the level of the men who painted the "Transfiguration" and the "Last Judgment." The same observation may be applied to the poet. He may be a master of description, he may be a master of metaphor, he may be a master of color, but all these avail him nothing if he has not vision. Form, color, metaphor, are secondary, and not essential-they clothe but do not constitute being. The true use of an image or metaphor, for instance, is to represent or suggest through a mate www |
