BOOKS.

LORD BOWEN.* EVERY one who knew Lord Bowen well must be grateful to Sir Henry Cunningham for writing, and to Lady Bowen for em- powering him to publish, this brilliant sketch of one of the most brilliant men of our century. We wish, without any atom of depreciation of the admirable photograph which is prefixed to it, that we could have had another with that summer lightning flashing from his eyes and lips which was so characteristic of his humour, both early and late, in his too signally successful life. The photograph here given is most effective, but it represents the one painful ex- pression of his face, the expression of a light and elastic genius labouring under tasks too heavy for his physical health. There is a look in the eye of distrust of his own physical power to achieve what he desired to achieve, of the high- bred mettle which laboured under too great a weight, and was conscious of a tension above its permanent capacity to sustain. But that, though often seen on his face, was not the expression which his friends loved best. What they looked for most eagerly was that buoyancy and sweetness of expression which broke from him almost like the sunlight from an April sky, or like the happy laughter from a young child. That is what we see in the delightful letters which be wrote from College and from his early London lodgings, and from his various sojourns abroad, of which Sir Henry Cunningham gives us so many de- lightful specimens. His verses, excepting the fine transla- tion from Virgil, are, with some exceptions, wanting in passion. They were the amusements of a brilliant mind, not of the essence of its life and thought. But his nonsense was perfect. It had the essence of true gaiety in it, and must have brought to his familiar friends the refreshment of all brimming, and yet delicate and finely shaded, playfulness. Even this journal between 1864

• Lord Bowen a Biographical Sketch. With a Selection from his Verses. By Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham, K.C.I.E. London : John Murs ay.

and the later years of that decade owed much to his brilliant humour and wit. He was in those days a hearty Gladstonian, and delighted in nothing more than in laughing gently at the conservative Whigs who held Mr. Glad- stone back from the path of Reform, or the revolutionary Tories who, not altogether mistakenly, hoped so much from the democracy they sought to precipitate. His political touch was always light, and if he had ever become, as he might well have become, the Lord Chancellor of a Liberal Cabinet, he would, we believe, have done a great deal to keep its counsels as sober and prudent as they would have been steadily pro- gressive. His keen wit alone would always have saved him from the errors of a blood-shot or even a passionate enthusiasm. It is possible even that he might have saved Mr. Gladstone from the grand blunder of his career,—the rush into Irish Home- rule. Not that we have any right to say that Lord Bowen, who after he became a Judge kept aloof from party politics, disapproved of Irish Home-rule; but judging from the general attitude of his Liberalism, we should certainly have surmised that he would have preferred a very much more limited and less showy form of local government than that which was pro- posed in either 1886 or 1893, for Lord Bowen had the happy art of so presenting a moderate reform as to make it seem more progressive, as well as sounder and more safe than one more Radical. However this is pure conjecture, and we should not have referred to it except for the purpose of illustrating the present writer's conviction that if Lord Bowen had ever really taken the place in political life to which we believe that his youthful ambition aspired, he would have been found to be as wise and as persuasive as his keen wit and sunny humour, no less than his winning and gentle manner, qualified him to be. No man had a happier art of so fulfilling the command to do more than yield to the urgency of a wish that he should go a mile with a friend, by going with him twain; and yet the two miles would some- times bring the comrades to a more practicable and less distant goal for the purposes of the original petitioner, than the one.

Let us begin by giving our readers some conception of the buoyant and exuberant fun which made Bowen's early letters so eagerly desired by his friends, and so full of that rare exhilaration which even the most eagerly desired letters seldom contain. Here is the frolicsome account he gives to his friend Austen Leigh of the appearance of bailiffs in his first London lodgings, where a French Marchioness on one floor, and a speculative tobacconist who had not succeeded, on the ground. floor, had rendered themselves open to the invasion of these unwelcome visitors :—

" I think, before I despatched my last, the bailiffs, which, as you will perceive, is commonly spelt with two f's, arrived. It was a very touching scene They took up their quarters in the kitchen, and lived upon my coffee and on penny loaves. They were very respectable men—perhaps (only one doesn't like to be over critical) a little gloomy, if anything ; but you soon get over that. One devoted himself to the French marchioness ; the other occupied the position of Harasser-general of the household. My landlord made great exertions on my behalf, and got an order to pass out all my property. One bailiff and I got it down into a van in solemn silence. On the stairs I met the French marchioness, a fine old lady of seventy, with a wicked look in her eye, like the Baden pictures of Tbackeray. I ought here to mention that, not only had the marchioness been a defaulter, but the ground- floor,' a respectable vendor of tobacco, had suddenly eloped to America, leaving behind his debts and ten bundles of cigars. So horrible, my dear Amyas, is that vicious habit of smoking, and such are the depraving influences which it exerts over all connected with it. The bright home of ' ground-floor ' being henceforward in the setting sun, he could not do much to extricate my landlord from his difficulties ; so matters are in a bad way. However, my landlord and his nice wife do not suffer, as I already told you, to any great extent. I am not, accordingly, my dear little creature, in the hospital ; though I may be said to have gone into that line of life, as my new landlord, in order to repress any improper tendency to cheerfulness in those about him, has chosen the career of an undertaker. At 7 Edward's Street, Portman Square, families are supplied (such is our high boast) with every necessary for the grave. The room I have secured is a splendid one, and when you have thrown in a clergyman, who lives above, the whole establishment is almost ecclesiastical. Write and tell me when you are coming to see me. I dare say, if you choose, you can have a shakedown in a coffin, which is my intention for the future, penury forbidding me to go to the luxury of a bed. At all events you will find a warm welcome, and that funerals are conducted with the strictest economy." (pp. 79-80.) And here is the humorous account of the first opening of his friendship with Professor Jowett, for whom he felt the warmest affection to the end of his life "On the 6th, the Master found it necessary to retire for change of air to the country, and insisted on our leaving the college while he was away. Jowett, who was staying at Cowley in a little farmhouse, asked me to go and stay with him. It was dreadfully cold and dreadfully windy, and only two very back bedrooms, and one sitting-room, with a miserable fireplace. One might hear the wintry wind howling in the turrets and the pine- tops, had there been either turrets or pine trees within several miles, which, unfortunately, there were not. It was, however, very instructive to see the great Professor of Greek inventing more than Arian errors on the other side of the table. Having been able to discover, by a close contact with that remarkable individual, the chief sins gull Sons for a heretic, you may expect to see me coining out strong in that line. One is to hum very melancholy airs during breakfast ; another is always to fill up the teapot before you have put in any tea ; thirdly, to have no watch, and to lie asleep till twelve o'clock. I think with applica- tion I shall be able to master all these requisites except the last, which my regular habits completely prevent me from accomplish- ing." (p. 61.) But Bowen was not only in his early life, and at intervals even to the end, full of genuine gaiety of heart, but he was a fine scholar, a true critic, an astute jurist, a shrewd advocate, and an ardent friend. It seems probable that his warm personal attachment to Jowett and Stanley had more to do with his dislike of the theological attacks made upon them than any profound interest in the questions on which those attacks turned. But probably he belonged to the school of thought which did not regard many of the Christian dogmas as established by any sufficiently clear evidence to render it justifiable to pass censures on those who were found to be uncertain in their adherence to them. Perhaps some of the melancholy which breathes in his later poems was due almost as much to an impression that the ideal faith is too doubtful to hold firmly and definitely, as it is to the over- burdened constitution of an eager genius with an inadequate physical stamina for its work. Now and then, however, Bowen was sure that it was the earthly shadows which were the unrealities of the true life, and the ideal lights that were its fixed stars, as in this, the most beautiful, we think, of his original verses :— " Far, far aloof from Olympus and its thunder,

Lost midway in the spaces of the night, Lies a dim wilderness of vanity and wonder, Half within darkness and half amid the light. Stray suns visit it : the callow moon has found it : Sad seas circle it, a melancholy strand; Dreams impeople it, and shadows are around it, And the Gods know it as the distant Shadow-Land.

Phantom music of Coronach and Paean Bolls wind-borne to the sky for evermore; Sun-mists open, and reveal to Empyrean How shadows live on the visionary shore. Life that were sleep, but for dreams that overcome her, Smiles that are tears, and ambition that is pain, Hopes unharvested, and springs without a summer, Round the sad year, and renew themselves again.

All things there suffer death and alteration, Fair flowers bloom for a season and are bright, Songs over-sweet but outlive a generation, Ring for a little and are gathered into night. Cycles decay and their sepulchres have perished, Kingdoms depart and their palaces are sand, Names unchronicled, and memories uncherished Fill the lost annals of the distant Shadow-Land.

Here great souls, in a plenitude of vision, Planned high deeds as immortal as the sun ; Winds sang their requiem, and had them in derision— Thoughts left in cloudland ; purposes undone.

Here sate Youth with the crown her lover brought her, Fond words woven for her coronal to be ;

Brief lived, beautiful, she laid it by the water—

Time's waves carried it, and whelmed it in the sea.

What spirits these so forsaken and so jaded : White plumes stained and apparel that is rent : Wild eyes dim with ideals which have faded : Weary feet wearily resting in ascent ? Heroes and patriots, a company benighted, Looking back drearily they see, along the plain, Many a bright beacon which liberty had lighted Dying out slowly in the wind and in the rain.

Ah ! sad realms, where the ripest of the meadows Bring bitter seeds to maturity,' I cried ; sweet life, who would change thee for the shadows ! Take me again to earth's summers, 0 my guide !' Smiling he answered me, Thy journey home is ended, Raise up thine eyes, and behold on either hand ; ' Straightway lifting them, I saw and comprehended, Earth was herself the Gods' distant Shadow-Land."

(pp. 214-16.)

There is not only the true ring of poetry, but almost the sug- gestion of a poet born, about some of these verses, and yet we

do not think Lord Bowen was meant for a poet. It would be difficult to exceed the beauty of the stanza,— " What spirits these so forsaken and so jaded :

White plumes stained and apparel that is rent : Wild eyes dim with ideals which have faded : Weary feet wearily resting in ascent ?"

We can all feel the depth of that sadness. And there is almost equal sadness in some lines of the piece called "Manqué"

"I could have wept, had any tears Been as enduring as the years That make and mar our mortal span.

But hearts grow cold as seasons fly, Life leaves us but the power to sigh, And takes the strength to weep from man."

But there the last couplet rather weakens the effect of the first, for it is not the power to weep that time takes away ; rather does it confer the power to weep tears that mean little, —tears that do not stand for any of those deeper passions which "make and mar our mortal span." But Bowen was so near a poet that one can only say of him that if he could have thrown into poetry the vigour and determination which he threw into the mastery of the law,—perhaps it was his eager ambition that prevented it, —he might perhaps have become a considerable poet.

For as a lawyer he was certainly great, and had, as Sir Henry Cunningham has truly suggested, " acquired " that genuine passion for it of which he was so absolutely destitute in his early student days :— "In this connection a more than personal interest attaches to a letter which, some years later, Bowen wrote to his friend, the Dean of Wells, with reference to the choice of a profession for the Dean's son, in whom, as a godson, Bowen felt an especial interest.

As for the law, it is of no use following it, unless you acquire a passion for it He may not have one now for it. That is unim- portant. I have known men develop a fondness for it, who never would have dreamed it possible that they ever could like it. But a passion in the end is necessary if he is to succeed. I don't mean a passion for its archaisms, or for books, or for conveyancing ; but a passion for the way business is done, a liking to be in Court and watch the contest, a passion to know which side is sight how a point ought to be decided. This kind of " professional " passicn, as distinct from " student " passion, is necessary.' It is probable that the development, to which Lord Bowen refers, had taken place in his own ease, for it is certain that at one time he felt so little passion for his profession that it needed some fortitude not to abandon it. On his return from Norway in 1865, in the course of a Sunday walk with the Dean of Wells, he confided to him, ' I simply hate law ; ' adding, however, 'a man may be a fool to choose a profession, but he must be an idiot to give it up." (pp. 168-69.) There can be no doubt that many of Lord Bowen's judgments showed that lucidity of exposition, that dis- tinction of expression, that loving nicety of discrimination, and yet that breadth of grasp, that all-pervading sagacity and refined sense, which shine out in the following remark- able passage of his address in January, 1884, to the Birming- ham Law Students' Society, in which he took up and followed up a clue of Sir Henry Maine's :— " Is it possible,' he asked 'to introduce a gleam of sunshine and to furnish a silver thread to guide the law student through the tangled labyrinth of a law library ? Wanted, then, a method of studying the law pleasantly. Now, I believe that there exists such a method, absolutely scientific, full of interest, capable of satisfying the finest intellect, because it affords a scope for every power. Law is the application of certain rules to a subject-matter which is constantly shifting. What is it ? English life ! English business ! England in movement, advancing from a continuous past to a continuous future. National life, national business, like every other product of human intelligence and culture, is a growth —begins far away in the dim past, advances slowly, shaping and forming itself by the operation of purely natural causes.'" (p.165.) That description exactly expresses Lord Bowen's "acquired passion" for his profession. He was a high-bred racer who undertook heavy draught work, and tried to make fine quality make up for deficient stamina, in which to a very great extent he succeeded, but not without paying a great price and shortening his life. His passion for law was really a passion for the study of the various habits and ways of more or less civilised men as we see them in such a country as our own. He loved to follow the genius of Courts of Justice, the dis- crimination of truth amidst many misleading and bewildering will-of-the-wisps of error, the way in which fraud betrays itself, and honesty often raises false suspicions, the sins and follies of wise men, and the paraphernalia by which society organises their discovery and defeat. In short, he was a man of genius who, to his own delight, discovered the manifold

human interests which were petrified or crystallised in the long traditions, precedents, and customs of the law.

Sir Henry Cunningham has given us the great pleasure of following Lord Bowen's subtle and fascinating career ;—the great pleasure but the great sadness also, for it is always sad to see a man of genius undertaking labours too heavy for his inadequate physical stamina, or an idealist and a poet gazing with clouded oyes at a vision of beauty and justice which seemed to vanish from his grasp.