MR. LANG'S "BALLADES."*

THERE can be no doubt that Mr. Lang trifles very elegantly. He has not, indeed, attained, though it is quite possible that he may attain hereafter, to the first rank of the poets of Society. He can scarcely be said to approach very near either to Praed or to Mr. Calverley. He wants the substance—if trifles can be said to have substance—of the one, and the unfailing facility and felicity of the other. His pieces leave but little impression of themselves on the mind. We are amused, and admire as we read ; but do not carry away a definite recollection of anything very cleverly and originally thought, or very happily expressed. Yet the merits of his verse are considerable. Formed, in a great degree, after French models, it retains one notable good quality of its original,—a perfect easiness of style and transparency of meaning. It is quite preposterous that a reader should be required doubtfully to scan and laboriously puzzle over what is meant to give us the immediate delight of some unexpected combination of thought, be it graceful or bizarre. Mr. Lang never so offends. He is always clear and easy, and makes his little tours de force, which are sometimes very ingenious, with- out any unnatural twistings and turnings.

He may think, perhaps, that we wrong him, when we describe him as " trifling" in verse. But to trifle well, and Mr. Lang does it well, though not with the best, is, so to speak, no trifling achievement. There must be an undertone of seriousness ; and it is the great art of such work as these" ballades" to keep this undertone just at its right height, to let it be felt rather than heard, and to suggest a meaning which it would be quite out of keeping with the character to express with any directness. And Mr. Lang can be quite serious when be pleases. We are inclined to think that the pieces where he is so are among his best. His" Bal- lade of His Choice of a Sepulchre" has, it seems to us, just the right tinge of melancholy, not too deep to suit the general character of the verse. Let the reader note how skilfully this is managed :—

Here I'd come when weariest!

Here the breast Of the Windbutg's tufted over Deep with bracken ; here his crest Takes the west, Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.

Silent here are lark and plover ; In the cover Deep below the cushat best Loves his mate and croons above her O'er their nest, Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.

Bring me here, Life's tired-out guest, To the blest Bed that waits the weary rover, Here should failure be confessed; Ends my quest, Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover !

ENVOY.

Friend, or stranger kind, or lover, Ah ! fulfil a last behest, Let me rest Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover !"

The "Ballade of Sleep" is another happy example of the same style. Of the humorous kind, we may quote two stanzas from the "Double Ballade of Primitive Man :"—

" On the coasts that incessantly freeze,

With his stones, and his bones, and his bows; On luxuriant tropical leas, Where the summer eternally glows, He is found, and his habits disclose (Let theology say what she can) That he lived in the long, long egos, 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

From a status like that of the Crees, Our society's fabric arose,— Develop'd, evolved, if you please; But deluded chronologists chose, In a fancied accordance with Mos- es, 4,000 B.C. for the span

When he rushed On the world and its woes,-

'Twas the manner of Primitive Man !"

The next stanza, by the way, fails, for once, of the writer's wonted clearness of expression. Here, again, are two, from the "Ballade of Blue China :"—

• XXII. Balkan is Blue alma. By A. Lang. London: C. liegan Paul and Co. IWO.

"These dragons (their tails, you remark,

Into bunches of gillyflowers grow),—

When Noah came out of the Ark,

Did these lie in wait for his crew P

They snorted, they snapp'd, and they slow ;.

They were mighty of Su and of fang, And their portraits Celestials drew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

Here's a pot with a cot in a park, In a park where the peach-blossoms blow, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, Lived, died, and were changed into two Bright birds that eternally flew Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; 'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true lathe reign of the Emperor Hwang."

We must not pass over without notice a very happy para- phrase of " Quem tu, Melpomene," and " Spring (after Mele- ager)," in quoting which we shall take leave of Mr. Lang's very graceful little volume :—

"Now the bright crocus flames, and now The slim narcissus takes the rain,

And, straying o'er the mountain's brow, The daffodilies bud again.

The thousand blossoms wax and wane On weld, and heath, and fragrant bough, But fairer than the flowers art thou, Than any growth of hill or plain.

Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown, That my Love's feet may tread it down, Like lilies on the lilies set ; My Love, whose lips are softer far Than drowsy poppy petals are, And sweeter than the violet !"

SECOND THOUGHTS.*

MISS BROUGHTON'S latest novel, which she describes in the. dedication as a "slight story," sets forth in a pleasant and persuasive manner the advantages of "beginning with a little aversion." Indeed, there is more than a little in the cue of Gillian Latimer and Dr. Burnet; there is strong dislike, made manifest by mutual rudeness which would happily be, imposs- ible in real life ; but is very amusing, in Miss Broughton's bright, quaint way of putting it. The stronger emotions are not roused by the novel at any stage of it ; the reader is only equably, pleasantly amused, for the end of the story is plainly to be discerned from the beginning of the third chapter, and while one forms a kind of liking for the two persons chiefly concerned, one cannot help wondering whether, in the romance- killing intimacy of daily life in common, they ever relapsed into the out-and-out incivility of their earlier relations, and if they did,—what then P One fails to see exactly why Miss Gillian Latimer is rude to the imperious doctor before she has had time to learn that he is a doctor, or to discover that he is imperious; but the author's heroines are the least accountable of creatures in or out of fiction, and the doctor so soon and so amply justifies the young lady's rudeness, that the reader may give her credit for a prevision, if be feels himself called upon to account for her at all. He would do better to accept her simply, rudeness and all, not to "reason of" her, for she is the plea- santest and brightest of beings, although it would be better if she did not dislike her own father quite so much, and if her father were a less repulsive personage,— especially as the reader has to attend his death-bed.

The tone of this book is more pure anti healthy than that of any of its predecessors ; the author has apparently cured herself of some of her worst faults, and her characteristic brightness and humour, which, in former instances were obscured by irreverence and flippancy, get fair-play in consequence. The only unpleasant part of this story is that which introduces the selfish and godless father of Gillian.. A bad and ridiculous father is, indeed, a fixed quantity in all the compositions of this clever writer, and it is due to Mr. Latimer's eminently timely decease that the reader derives AO much satisfaction from the book. The battle between Gillian and the doctor rages unchecked around the patient of the latter, and a very amusing battle it is ; but it might have been fought with as much effect and a similar result without snaking the patient so odious, and, it must be said, so unnatural. Who believes in a dying father's saying to his daughter, when she kisses him,—" God bless my soul, child ! how cold your cheek is. I think, my dear, se yeas en di;plaiee, that we will defer the repetition of that ceremony, sine die ?" This snub in three. languages to an only child, who has been brought to him in a

• &mid Thasteic By Rhoda Broughton. London: Sest:ey sod Son.

hurry by his medical attendant in person, is followed by a still more unpleasant speech, when Mr. Latimer explains to his daughter that it was Dr. Burnet's "idea," not his own, that she should be summoned. "'As for me,' he says, with a little air of dried and withered gallantry, of course I am always charmed to receive a lady ; but entre nous, my dear, from the little I remembered of the former visits that you were good enough to pay me, I was afraid we should not amuse each other very much, and so I told him.'" There is, to say the least of it, perverse bad-taste in Miss Broughton's habitual handling of the grave relationships of human life after this fashion, and, in the present instance, it is quite unnecessary. Mr. Latimer might as easily have been made harmlessly eccentric as cynically wicked, and the former mode of treatment would have had the advantage of lending far greater probability to the will by which the relative positions of Gillian and the imperious doctor are ingeniously complicated.

Gillian is charming ; her notion of her own importance, her misgivings respecting her uncle and his household when her all-pervading care is temporarily removed by her enforced attendance on her father, her kindly patronage of her uncle— who is slightly but cleverly drawn—her fussy conscientiousness, her irritable temper and sensitive pride, but with all that, her genuine loveableness, combine to recommend her to the reader, as a person very different from the Joans, Nancys, and Lenores whose joys and sorrows the author formerly chronicled. There is a great deal of character and real humour in the ac- count of the self-sufficient young lady's return to her uncle's house, after she has fallen in love with the imperious doctor (when, in fact, she is in the period of her "second thoughts "), and how she finds herself set entirely aside by her precocious cousin Jane. Gillian, a beauty, a fortune, becomes all at once aware that she is a nobody,—that the mere doctor, to whose guardianship her father has left her, will have none of her. Has he not declared, with more emphasis than elegance, that he "would be flayed alive, before he would marry her ?" She is dethroned by her cousin, who pets and patronises "papa," much as Gillian had been accustomed to pet and patronise "uncle," only with an indefeasible right against which Miss Latimer is powerless; and outwitted by the scheming, quarrelling Tarlton girls, and the clever device by which " Uncle " is persuaded into a secret marriage, and Jane is, in her turn, dispossessed. All the personages of the slight, but carefully written, story are entertaining. A charming freshness pervades the book; and Miss Brough- ton's ridicule of the "excessive cultshaw " school, the " Maudle and Postlethwaite " jargon—which, with the illustrations, is the best thing that has appeared in Punch since the healthy, hearty, fun of "Mr. Briggs" in the bygone years—is very amusing indeed. It is, perhaps, too much to hope for, that the contemptible and unmanly affectation that is personified by Mr. Chaloner will be killed by the shafts of ridicule ; egotism and folly are proverbially thick-skinned and long-lived, and while such persons as Mr. Chaloner find women, brainless, idle, vain, and in- delicate enough to pose as the goddesses of such a despicable cul- tus, while third-rate talent or mere facility finds silly fanatics to rant in its praise, hewildering, if not persuading, the ignorant by their impudence, the singularly offensive nonsense that has of late risen to such a height of blatancy and bombast will continue to be brayed into the ears of society. Women have in this case, as in almost all cases, the power of solving the social question. If they would but obey one sound and wholesome impulse, of the kind that would make them better pleased to breathe pure air than the sickly atmosphere of pastilles, Messrs. Maudle, Postlethwaite, Chaloner, and Co. would speedily return to their original and fitting insignificance. Perhaps Miss Broughton's admirable sketch of the High-Art young gentleman of the period (with a keen eye to the main chance) may help to give the craziest and most artificial of fashions a timely and desir- able shove towards its decline. We might entertain a lively hope of that desirable consummation, but that this particular kind of folly is invariably allied with a curious dearth of humour ; the pompous solemnity of its fooling is the chief note of it. Here is a capital example of the folly in question. Miss Latimer is residing, after the death of her father, with the imperious doctor, now her guardian, and his maiden sister, and one day, when she is extremely bored, chiefly because her guardian scrupu- lously respects her privacy, and defers to her aversion, the butler brings her a card :— " Mr. Francis Chaloner,' she repeats dreamily ; is he—;' but

before she can finish the sentence, the long, pale poet stands befote her.—' I am early,' he says, with subdued sadness,—' perhaps too early.

Do I derange you ? Must I go ? Of course not,' she answers, laughing nervously, and with a vigorous effort to shake off the fangs of memory which, at the sight of his Early Byzantine face, and the sound of his faint voice, &c., are fastening themselves so deeply in her heart. 'I am not busy ; I am doing nothing. I never am doing any- thing now.'—‘ What a terrible room !' he says, with a slight but per- ceptible shudder, his sorrowing eyes wandering round the room ; the blinds, pulled well up to the very top, giving him plenty of light for examining the bold design and lively colours of the expensive carpet ; the good, strong, undeniable blue of the carefully-looped cur- tains, and the outlines of the first-class walnut drawing-room suite, disposed with stiff neatness about the apartment. Do you

think so ?' replies Gillian, coldly ; think I like it. One has had of late years such a surfeit of cholera blues and livid greens, that one begins to long for magenta and arsenic back again.' But he does not heed ; he is still looking, still slightly shivering. 'How ungrace- ful! how un-Greek !' he murmurs, half under his breath. I had heard that your entourage was unlovely,' he continues, empty of rhythm and phantasy, but I had not anticipated anything quite so

shocking I tell you I like it,' she says, perversely ; I find it a refreshing change from sunflowers and peacocks' eyes.' He smiles mournfully. 'Please, may I sit here ?' he asks, drawing a small stool to her feet, and carefully arranging himself so as to have his back turned to as much as is poseible of the obnoxious furniture. 'I have brought you a little Ritournelle, as a Frilhlings Grass,' he says, presently, shaking back the long waves of his honey- coloured hair. I wished to read it to you, but I do not quite know whether I could read it here,' glancing round apprehen- sively at the walnut suite.—' Why not ?'—' It should be read,' he says, gently, to the pale sound of the viol or virginal ; with a subtle perfume of dead roses floating about, while the eye is fed with porphyry vases and tender Tyrian dyes.'—' Then it certainly cannot be read here,' replies Gillian, with a humorous glance at the India- rubber plant, and the lustros under glass shades. If you wish it, I will try,' he says, with a soft sigh, putting his long, slight hand into his pocket, and drawing thence a faintly-tinted, attar-scented manu- script.

' Is it long ?' asks Gillian, with a covert, but anxious, look at the large-faced gilt clock. I think you will like the burden,' he says, disregarding her query, while a faint flash of colour steals into his pale face. Shall I?' says Gillian, absently ; what is it ?' His voice trembles a little,— - Ho: sick-sweet beryl eyes !'

—' Sick,' says Gillian, in a demurring tone, why sick ? I do not like sick.'—' Surely,' he says gently, but firmly, there is nothing so beautiful as disease. The beauty of a pearl is greater than that of any other jewel, because it is the beauty of disease.' He has gradually slidden from his stool on to the hearthrug, only his elbow now rests upon it. His wan face, propped up by his hand, is lifted towards her. Before she can reply—which, indeed, she is in no hurry to do —Burnet enters."

All those among Miss Broughton's readers who know any- thing of the so-called esthetic school of taste and manners, will recognise the humorous truth of this sketch of its nauseous nonsense. The conclusion of the story of the recalcitrant heroine and the imperious doctor is cleverly reached. We are glad to find so much to praise and so little to condemn in Miss Broughton's latest novel,—a work which affords more than one proof of her having learned, in her own case, on more than one subject, that "second thoughts are best."