BOOKS.

HOSEA BIGLOW'S LATEST WORDS.* THERE is always a dash of tremor, if not of fear, in the joy with which we welcome a new volume of poetry by a master who has moved our hearts and minds in their deepest recesses in years long past, "when all the world was young, lads ; and all the trees were green." As we sit down in our favourite chair by our study-fire, paper-knife in hand, full of priceless memories and eager hopes, the thought will somehow rise unbidden,—" What if touch and voice have lost their subtlety and magic ? Were it not better to abide in the old memories, • Heartsease and Rue. By James Russell Lowell. London ; Idaemillsu and Co.

to be content with the old friends which have been our ' stand- by ' for half a lifetime ?" Such, at any rate, was the thought of the present writer when he looked at Heartsease and Rue, as it lay on his table in its dainty blue binding and faultless type,—strange contrast to the wretched clothing in which the author had first met him, when the century was still young. He had been under the spell of this magician ever since that first introduction to "Sir Launfal " and "Hosea Biglow." To find the father of those immortals with failing ear or uncertain touch, would be like estrangement from a friend of boyhood. The momentary hesitation, how- ever, soon passed (as all such will), and we sat down to the new banquet.

At first, it must be owned, we began to mutter,—" Would that we had never set eyes on you, poor foster-children at best of a great sire." For, glancing through the, index, we lit on heading iv., "Humour and Satire," and turned to it at once, with the thought, "Here, at any rate, we shall be safe—on these lines that master-touch can never have become weak "- and plunged into " Fitzalan's Story," the longest piece in the book. We read on at first pleasantly ; the photographs of Fitzalan and Ezrael Weeks the landlord, were as clean-cut and as subtle as ever : the former,—

" A radical in thought, he puffed away With shrewd contempt the dust of usage grey, Yet loathed democracy, as one who saw, In what he longed to love, some vulgar flaw, And, shocked thro' all his delicate reserves, Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves

the latter,—

" A natural man with all his instincts fresh, Not buzzing helpless in reflection's mesh, Generous by birth, and ill at saying no,' Yet in a bargain he was all men's foe, Would yield no inch of vantage in a trade, And give away ere nightfall all he made."

Equally happy is the drawing of the inn-parlour, in which- " The furniture stood round with such an air There seemed an old-maid's ghost in every chair, Which looked as it had scuttled to its place And pulled extempore a Sunday face, Too smugly proper for a world of sin, Like boys on whom the minister comes in."

But alas for the story !—that of a cheating deacon, who, being set by the Devil to measure brimstone, tries on his old tricks, and is "clapped into furnace ninety-two." Nor was our second

experiment—" at the Burns Centennial," (p. 196)—much more hopeful, to which we turned to get the taste of brimstone out of our mouths, and with the noble "Elegy on the Death of Channing," and other such memorial poems, in our minds.

Again we found ourselves in the old conventional next world, "Holy Willie" having been left by St. Peter in charge of the gate, and refusing Burns admittance, which he, however, at last obtains without more reason than secured that of poor old George HI. in Southey's and Byron's "Visions of Judgment" rolled into one. Surely that grim old materialised burlesque of "the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched," must have a strange fascination still for Puritan New Englanders.

It was then, with trembling, almost panic-stricken finger, that we turned the page and came on " Credidimus Jovem regnare " (p. 180), but now began to breathe freely and take courage, for here was our old Hosea once more in his best— unrivalled, we think—satirical vein. A few lines are all we can spare room for :—

"Oh days endeared to every muse, When nobody had any views.

Oh happy days, when men received From sire to son what all believed ; And left the other world in bliss, Too busy with be-devilling this !

Whence ? Whither ? Wherefore ? How ? Which ? Why ?

All ask at once, all wait reply.

Men feel old systems cracking under 'em ;

Life saddens to a mere conundrum,

Which once Religion solved, but she Has lost—has Science found ?—the key."

That " conundrum " rhyme will remind all lovers of Lowell of the marvellous knack of impossible rhyming in The Biglow Papers, A Fable for Critics, and elsewhere. He is as good as ever ; take two specimens from this poem :— " My soul—I mean the bit of phosphorus That fills the place of what that was for us."

"Our dear and admirable Huxley Cannot explain to me why ducks lay."

One more short extract :—

" Noll had been more effective far Could he have shouted at Dunbar, 'Rise Protoplasm !' no dourest Scot Had waited for another shot."

After this we took courage, and, referring again to the index, took a bold plunge into "Part H., Sentiment," and were soon amongst a flight of sisters fit to claim their places beside the Margarets and Huldys of old days. Of course, no mere acquaintance of Lowell need be told that one of his greatest charms lies in the chivalrous reverence for women in which his sentimental poetry is steeped. Perhaps he has never exiiressed it more tersely than in " Das Ewig-weibliche "

(P. 89) :— " The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, The hourly mercy, of a woman's soul."

But how is this, we mused, as we read on ? Can this, and this, and this, have been really written by a man over twenty- five P Surely our Hosea must have come, in an old drawer, on a batch of forgotten outpourings of those lusty days when every lass was a queen. Let the reader judge for himself by this specimen, "The Petition :"— " Oh tell me less or tell me more, Soft eyes with mystery at the core, That always seem to meet my own Frankly as pansies fully blown, Yet waver still twixt 'no' and yes.'

So swift to cavil and deny, Then parley with concessions shy, Dear eyes that share their youth with mine, And through my inmost shadows shine, Oh tell me more or tell me less."

It is the shortest we could find, but let him try " Agro Dolce " (p. 103), "The Protest" (p. 99), "On Burning Some Old Letters" (p. 96), "Mona Lisa" (p. 93). Possibly he may get a hint from "Arcadia Rediviva " (p. 74), in which Hosea has once more his rollicking cap on :— " If Love his simple spell but keep Life with ideal eyes to flatter,

The Grail itself were crockery cheap To every day's communion platter.

Good heavens ! but now my hair was grey, And I of years had more than plenty ; The almanac's a fool ! 'Lis May !

Hang family bibles ! I am twenty."

After this volume one must look on Hosea as equally wonderful with his evergreen friend, Wendell Holmes, to whom, on his seventy-fifth birthday, he addresses an epistle which dances through three pages of Heartsease and Rue. Thus :—

"Nay, let the foolish records be That make-believe you're seventy-five ; You're the old Wendell still to me—

And that's the youngest man alive."

The opening poem, " Agassiz," is a worthy tribute to a grand man ; but unless readers have had at least a taste of Cambridge life, and have dined once or more at the Saturday Club, they will scarcely appreciate it.

We have already filled our allotted space, but must conclude with perhaps the most faultless poem o its kind that we are acquainted with in the English tongue,—" A Christmas Carol, for the Sunday-School Children of the Church of the Disciples"

(p. 107) :— "'What means this glory round our feet,'

The Magi mused, 'more bright than morn ?' And voices chanted, clear and sweet. To-day the Prince of Peace is born.'

What means that Star,' the Shepherds said, That brightens thro' the rocky glen ?' And Angels answering overhead, Sang, Peace on earth, good will to men!'

'Tie eighteen hundred years and more

Since those sweet oracles were dumb ; We wait for Him like those of yore ;

Alas ! He seems so slow to come.

But it was said in words of gold No time or sorrow ere shall dim, That little children might be bold In perfect trust to come to Him.

And,—

All round about our feet shall shine A light like that the wise men saw, If we our loving wills incline To that sweet Life which is the Law.

So shall we learn to understand The simple faith of shepherds then, And, clasping kindly hand in hand, Sing, Peace on earth, good will to men !'

And they who do their souls no wrong, But keep at eve the faith of morn, Shall daily hear the angels' song, To-day the Prince of Peace is born !' "

Our lamp was burning low when we came on this. It was long past midnight. We lighted our candle, turned out the lamp, and went to bed. We were not willing that any other strain should come between us and the harmony of that carol, and went upstairs saying to ourselves, " Vicisti Hosea!"