of scorn in his voice; "faix, it's little fear troubles me; but may be you won't like to be in her yourself when she's once out. I've none belongin' to me-father, mother, chick or child; but you may have many a one that's near to you." "My ties are, perhaps, as light as your own," said Harcourt. "Come, now, be alive. I'll put ten gold guineas in your hand if you can overtake him." "I'd rather see his face than have two hundred," said the man, as, springing into the boat, he began to haul out the tackle from under the low half-deck, and prepare for sea. "Is your honor used to a boat, or ought I to get another man with me?" asked the sailor. "Trust me, my good fellow, I have had more sailing than yourself, and in more treacherous seas, too," said Harcourt, who, throwing off his cloak, proceeded to help the other, with an address that bespoke a practised hand. The wind blew strongly off the shore, so that scarcely was the foresail spread, than the boat began to move rapidly through the water, dashing the sea over her bows, and plunging wildly through the waves. "Give me a hand now with the hal'yard," said the boatman; "and when the main-sail is set, you'll see how she 'll dance over the top of the waves, and never wet us." "She's too light in the water, if anything," said Harcourt, as the boat bounded buoyantly, under the increased press of canvas. "Your honor's right; she 'll do better with half a ton of iron in her. Stand by, sir, always, with the peak hal yards; get the sail aloft in when I give you the word.' "Leave the latter to me, my man," said Harcourt, taking it as he spoke. "You'll soon see that I'm no new hand at the work." "She's doing it well," said the man. "Keep her up! keep her up! there's a spit of land runs out here; in a few minutes more we'll have say-room enough.' The heavier roll of the waves, and the increased force of the wind, soon showed that they had gained the open sea; while the atmosphere, relieved of the dark shadows of the mountain, seemed lighter and thinner than inshore. "We're to make for the islands, you say, sir?" "Yes. What distance are they off?" "About eighteen miles. Two hours, if the wind lasts, and we can bear it." "And could the yawl stand this?" said Harcourt, as a heavy sea struck the bow, and came in a cataract over them. "Better than ourselves, if she was manned. Luff! luff! - that's it!" And as the boat turned up to wind, sheets of spray and foam flew over her. "Master Charles has n't his equal for steerin', if he wasn't alone. Keep her there!-now! steady, sir!" "Here's a squall coming," cried Harcourt; "I hear it hissing.' Down went the peak, but scarcely in time, for the wind, catching the sail, laid the boat gunwale under. After a struggle, she righted, but with nearly one-third of her filled with water. "I'd take in a reef, or two reefs," said the man; "but if she couldn't rise to the say, she 'll fill and go down. We must carry on, at all events." "So say I. It's no time to shorten sail, with such a sea running." The boat now flew through the water, the sea itself impelling her, as with every sudden gust the waves struck the stern. "She's a brave craft," said Harcourt, as she rose lightly over the great waves, and plunged down again into the trough of the sea; "but if we ever get to land again. I'll have combings round her to keep ler dryer." Here it comes! - here it comes, sir!" Nor were the words well out, when, like a thunder-clap, the wind struck the sail, and bent the mast over like a whip. For an instant it seemed as if she were going down by the prow; but she righted again, and, shivering in every plank, held on her way. "That's as much as she could do," said the sailor; " and I would not like to ax her to do more." "I agree with you," said Harcourt, secretly stealing his feet back again into his shoes, which he had just kicked off. "It's fresh'ning it is every minute," said the man; "and I'm not sure that we could make the Islands if it lasts." "Well-what then?" "There's nothing for it but to be blown out to say," said he, tragically, as, having filled his tobacco-pipe, he struck a light, and began to smoke. The very thing I was wishing for," said Harcourt, touching his cigar to the bright ashes. "How she labors - do you think she can stand this?" "She can, if it's no worse, sir." "But it looks heavier weather outside." "As well as I can see, it's only beginnin'." Harcourt listened with a species of admiration to the calm and measured sentiment of the sailor, who, fully conscious of all the danger, yet never, by a word or gesture, showed that he was flurried or excited. "You have been out on nights as bad as this, I suppose?" said Harcourt. "May be not quite, sir, for it's a great way is runnin'; and, with the wind off shore, we couldn't have this, if there wasn't a storm blowing further out.” "From the westward, you mean?" "Yes, sir—a wind coming over the whole ocean, that will soon meet the land wind." "And does that often happen?" The words were but out, when, with a loud report like a cannon-shot, the wind reversed the sail, snapping the strong sprit in two, and bringing down the whole canvas clattering into the boat. With the aid of a hatchet, the sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and soon cleared the wreck; while the boat, now reduced to a mere foresail, labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound. Her course, too, was now altered, and she flew along parallel to the shore, the great cliffs looming through the darkness, and seeming as if close to them. "The boy!-the boy!" cried Harcourt; "what has become of him? He never could have lived through that squall." "If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too," said the sailor; "she'd have gone down by the stern, as sure as my name is Peter." "It is all over by this time," muttered Harcourt, sorrowfully. "Pace to him now!" said the sailor, as he crossed himself, and went over a prayer. The wind now raged fearfully; claps, like the report of cannon, struck the frail boat at intervals, and laid her nearly heel uppermost; while the mast bent like a whip, and every rope creaked and strained to its last endurance. The deafening noise, close at hand, told where the waves were beating on the rock-bound coast, or surging with the deep growl of thunder through many a cavern. They rarely spoke, save when some emergency called for a word. Each sat wrapped up in his own dark reveries, and unwilling to break them. Hours passed thus -long, dreary hours of darkness, that seemed like years of suffering, so often in this interval did life hang in the balance. As morning began to break with a grayish blue light to the westward, the wind slightly abated, blowing more steadily, too, and less in sudden gusts; while the sea rolled in large round waves, unbroken above, and showing no crest of foam. "Do you know where we are?" asked Harcourt. "Yes, sir; we 're off the Rooks' Point, and if we hold on well, we'll be soon in alacker water." "Could the boy have reached this, think you?" The man shook his head mournfully, without speaking. "How far are we from Glencore?" "About eighteen miles, sir; but more by land." "You can put me ashore, then, somewhere hereabouts? "Yes, sir, in the next bay; there's a creek we can easily run into." "You are quite sure he could n't have been blown out to sea?" "How could he, sir? There's only one way the wind could dhrive him. If he isn't in the Clough Bay, he's in glory." All the anxiety of that dreary night was nothing to what Harcourt now suffered, in his eagerness to round the Rooks' Point, and look into the bay beyond it. Controlling it as he would, still would it break out in words of impatience, and even anger. "Don't curse the boat, ye'r honor," said Peter, respectfully, but calmly; "she's behaved well to us this night, or we 'd not be here now." "But are we to beat about here forever?" asked the other, angrily. "She's don' well, and we ought to be thankful," said the man; and his tone, even more than his words, served to reprove the other's impatience. "I'll try and set the mainsail on her with the remains of the sprit.” Harcourt watched him, as he labored away to repair the damaged rigging; but though he looked at him, his thoughts were far away with poor Glencore upon his sickbed, in sorrow and in suffering, and perhaps soon to hear that he was childless. From these he went on to other thoughts. What could have occurred to have driven the boy to such an act of desperation? Harcourt invented a hundred imaginary causes, to reject them as rapidly again. The affection the boy bore to his father seemed the strongest principle of his nature. There appeared to be no event possible in which that feeling would not sway and control him. As he thus ruminated, he was aroused by the sudden cry of the boatman. "There's a boat, sir, dismasted, ahead of us, and drifting out to say. "' cried Har "I see her!-I see her!" court; "out with the oars, and let's pull for her.' Heavily as the sea was rolling, they now began to pull through the immense waves, Harcourt turning his head at every instant to watch the boat, which now was scarcely half a mile ahead of them. "She's empty! - there's no one in her! THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND SYMPATHY "The Marquis of Lansdowne being struck with a short poem, So it come,' by Frances Browne, which appeared in the Atheneum, applied for information respecting the author; and on learning that she had been long beset by difficulties, placed £100 at her disposal, which was accepted in the spirit in which it was offered."-The Guar dian, Sept. 5. purpose of Mohammedanism" (F. Q. R. No. 23, 1833) · ence." Notes and Queries. ON reading the above paragraph, I was re-proofs of fitness, not the least of which was by minded of a circumstance not less deserving Objects and Advantages of Statistical Scian article in the Foreign Quarterly, on the of honorable record, that occurred twenty-two years ago, on an occasion when the noble mar- munication to that Review was on Niebuhr's (Vol. xvI. p. 205.) Dr. T.'s first comquis applied to me, then in the foreign house of Treuttel and Würtz, the publishers of the For-new edition of the Byzantine Historians, a subject selected by himself as his coup d'essai, eign Quarterly Review, for the ascertaining the author of an article in the and, in his treatment of it, affording evidence of such scholarship and ability, as convinced number just then published of that Review, the editor that Dr. T. would prove a most valuan article with which his lordship informed me able contributor. he had been "so struck". - his own wordsJOHN MACRAY. that he was desirous of becoming acquainted with the writer of it. Being delighted by the occurrence of such an unexpected piece of good fortune to a young Irishman with whom I had recently become acquainted, and whom I had introduced to the editor of the Review (the late Mr. Cochrane, of the London Library)—I informed his lordship that the article in question was written by a Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Cooke Taylor, a literary man who had recently come to London from Trinity College, Dublin; and who was then chiefly occupied in writing for the booksellers. His lordship added that he had some works in his library, which he thought would interest Mr. Taylor, whom he would be glad to see any morning at Lansdowne House. I lost no time in acquainting Mr. Taylor with this striking tribute to the merits of his communication from a nobleman of such distinguished discernment of literary talent and of sympathy for its gifted possessors. The article which attracted Lord Lansdowne's attention in so remarkable a manner, was (if my memory does not deceive me), "On Mohammed and It is well known that the albumen with which any books have been sized, in the course of time (especially if they have been visited by damp) becomes altered in composition; I therefore suggest that the plan of marking books with a pencil be adopted, and for these reasons: After the writing is finished, it can be fixed with milk, and will remain perfect many years in a dry place. It does not disfigure the book, and both lead and milk being on the surface, they can be erased at any time with a sharp knife, but the lead can never be destroyed by fire. I have some writing in pencil by me, as distinct as when written more than ten years ago. The milk should be dabbed on with a sponge, otherwise the lead will be rubbed off, and this will make the writing less clear, and give the book a dirty appearance. The plan has also this advantage: notes written anywhere can be fixed anywhere where milk is to be had, -a desideratum for travellers. · AVON LEA. -Notes and Queries. From The Spectator. LEWES' LIFE OF GOETHE. * tity. Shakspere was a greater dramatist certainly, and we think with equal certainty a - AMONG the literary men of the last hundred much greater poet. But Goethe wrote Weryears, there is no more interesting figure than ther, and Wilhelm Meister, and the WahlverJobann Wolfgang Goethe. With the excep-wandtschaften, as well as Goetz, Egmont, and tion of Napoleon Bonaparte, there is no one, Faust. Milton could roll on in majestic wordbe he writer or actor, who stands out from thunder, and unfold to his grand music picthe mass of his contemporaries so promi- tures as grand; but where are we to look in nently, and who is so sure of being more and Milton for the figures to put beside Mignon, more identified as time rolls on, ripening Philina, Clärchen, and greatest of all, the all things that are true, and destroying all Faust-Gretchen? Bacon was minister of a things that are false and partial—with the greater sovereign than Karl August, and of a history of this period. Whatever else perishes greater state than little Saxon Weimar, and is forgotten, these two-the king of wise moralist, a noble prose-writer, the man thought and the king of deed-will be among to whom more than to any one Europe owes the everlasting heirlooms of European civiliza- her scientific method. The discovery of the tion; the ideas to which they gave articulate maxillary bone in man, the idea of the verteform with the pen and with the sword will brate character of the skull, the elaborated be among the conscious influences destined to theory of the metamorphosis of plants, though shape the ideas, the character, and the con- they indicate a marvellous advance on conduct of our latest posterity. Writers fond temporary notions of philosophic method, and of antithesis somewhat hastily pronounce, in are themselves important steps in the science comparing the influence of two such men, of development, must yield to the Novum that the empire of the king of speech is of a Organum and the De Augmentis. But the more permanent character than that of the wonder is, that these discoveries should have king of action; as if the first Napoleon ceased been made by the author of Werther and to sway the world when he ceased to lead the Hermann and Dorothea. Walter Scott was armies of France-as if the changes he effected even more prolific, and in literature quite as in Europe had been really obliterated by the various; but, to say nothing of the important treaty of Vienna! Calmer observers may re- difference that Scott's variety is only specific, member that the earth bears traces to this even enthusiastic Edinburgh would hesitate day of primæval deluges, Noachian or Ethnic; in placing the quality of Scott's best works and, since Mr. Carlyle made the comparison on a level with that of Goethe's best; and between Goethe and Napoleon, a second em-posterity will probably agree with Carlyle pire has arisen, to prove that great action in classing the two men at very different elesows a seed which may be as prolific and as enduring in its progeny as great speech. Goethe interests us on his own account, and on account of the persons by whom he was surrounded. He is not only the greatest figure in German literature, but he is the centre of the greatest group. He is not only the Shakspere of Germany, but the Shakspere of the Elizabethan age of Germany; not only Thus producing largely, in the most various the author of the greatest works, but the fields, and with consummate excellence, Goesource of the widest influence. Filling with the was as a matter of course a man of wide his own activity the largest circle of thought, acquaintance and of vast influence. What a and cultivating to their highest power facul- group of names that is which spontaneously ties originally of extraordinary fertility, he rises to the recollection associated with his! has combined, more than any other writer what a vast change in the literature of his that we know, excellence, variety, and quan- country is blended inseparably in the mind, life! The fact becomes most impressive when as it was in fact, with the different æras of his we remember what German literature means to a German or a cultivated Englishman now, *The Life and Works of Goethe: with Sketches of his Age and Contemporaries, from Published and Unpubished Sources. By G. H. Lewes, Author of "The Biographical History of Philosophy," &c. In two volumes. Published by Nutt. vations, and, while they regard Scott as the man who does best to amuse the leisure-hour, will assign to Goethe the nobler function of occupying the most serious studies of the highest intellects, of blending the ministry of Wisdom with the grace of Art, profound reflection and wide culture with the force of imagination and the play of humor. and what it meant before Goethe's time. The share. Form and substance in poetry are only names of importance that precede his inseparable without vital injury to the poem are Klopstock and Lessing; and how small which undergoes transformation into another now is the practical influence of the former! language. But we think Goethe labors under Round Goethe's image we now see Herder, prejudices which, quite apart from ignorance Schiller, Wieland, the two Humboldts, the of the German language and the inevitable two Schlegels, Jacobi, Novalis, Jean Paul loss of beauty and force which poetry underRichter, and a crowd of others whose works goes in translation, impede his claim to be are on the shelves of every reading man's studied with affectionate attention, prejulibrary. The Goethe literature has attained dices which affect the English reader of Gera bulk which would make its complete mas- man, as well as the reader of German literature tery a life study. Werther, Goetz, von Ber- translated into English. They are mainly lichingen, Faust, and Wilhelm Meister, were three, and may be summed up in the charge each in their turn the fruitful parents of a of want of heart, laxity of morals, indifferentpatriarchal family of imitations. The amount ism in politics. Like all lies that obtain any of activity excited by Goethe's works in the currency, there is a basis of facts, which, way of comment, criticism, and imitation, is, interpreted by a disposition to see everything it appears to us, quite without parallel, and from one particular point of view, and a must always be a prominent topic in any ade- resolution to believe a great man a little man quate literary history of the period. We be- if possible, lend color to these charges: and lieve that the catalogue of books illustrative the general public, which knows nothing else of Goethe already fills a moderate octavo vol- of Goethe, is sure when his name is mentioned He attained the questionable advantage to recognize him as the man who went about of being made a classic when he was yet alive; in his youth breaking women's hearts, and and while eager visitors took pilgrimages to in his old age made love to an innocent imWeimar as to a shrine of mysterious sanctity, pulsive girl, to put her fresh feelings into and not seldom found the god silent and some- poems for which his cold nature could not times terrible, ruthless commentators raised else find material; as the man who had illehideous discord of the critic orchestra round gitimate children by a low woman, whom his unresisting books, and tried to unflesh the clearest art in Europe into metaphysical dry bones, and to interpret, as they call it, magnificent music into formula of school or catechism of sect. ume. he was afterwards fool enough to marry, and was served right; as the man who, when Germany rose-a nation for the momentagainst Napoleon, had no sympathy with the movement, and who all his life preferred to be the servile courtier of a petty prince rather than the poet of a free people. A phenomenon of such magnitude, so wide and complex in its relations when viewed even in its literary aspect alone, was not likely to Now, so far as these prejudices have really make itself clearly understood at first glance; stood in the way of England's recognition of and-while in Germany Goethe's rank as Goethe's true greatness, and have prevented facile princeps has not seriously been disputed, many from reading his works, and distorted though Schiller was, and may be for all we the judgments of many who have dipped into know still, the more popular poet- the Eng- them, the publication of this Life by Mr. lish public has scarcely yet begun to give him Lewes will be a signal service to truth and place among its household favorites of the justice. All these charges are candidly met, exotic species. His literary worth is accepted the facts on which they are founded stated rather on the testimony of acknowledged au- with honesty, and the inferences from them thorities than on experience. And this, fairly and thoroughly discussed. Mr. Lewes natural enough among people who read his is a great admirer of Goethe, as it is necesworks only in translations, is also very largely sary that a biographer should be; but his true of English people who read German. admiration has not made him shirk facts apSo far as the excellence of his poems is un-parently to the discredit of his hero. It is of translatable—and this would include all his that deeper kind which has faith enough in lyrics and the finest qualities of his dramatic poetry-there is no remedy for an absence of appreciation which all foreign poets its object to refuse to allow any shade of suspicion to rest upon his character; all shall be clear at any rate, whether it tells for him or |