opened his jaws to absorb he suddenly eschewed the scentless phenomenon, and with a sullen plunge, sunk into the deep.

BULLER.

I tried the natural minnow after Seward-but I wished Archimedes at Syracuse for the Screw had spread a panic-and in a panic the scaly people lose all power of discrimination, and fear to touch a minnow, lest it turn up a bit of tin or some other precious metal.

NORTH.

I have often been lost in conjecturing how you always manage to fill your creel, Talboys; for the truth is—and it must be spoken-you are no angler.

TALBOYS.

I can afford to smile! I was no angler, sir, ten years ago-now I am. But how did I become one? By attending you, sir-for seven seasons-along the Tweed and the Yarrow, the Clyde and the Daer, the Tay and the Tummel, the Don and the Dee-and treasuring up lessons from the Great Master of the Art.

NORTH.

You surprise me! Why, you never put a single question to me about the art-always declined taking rod in hand-seemed reading some book or other, held close to your eyes-or lying on banks a-dose or poetising-or facetious with the Old Man-or with the Old Man serious-and sometimes more than serious, as, sauntering along our winding way, we conversed of man, of nature, and of human life.

TALBOYS.

I never lost a single word you said, sir, during those days, breathing in every sense" vernal delight and joy," yet all the while I was taking lessons in the art. The flexure of your shoulder-the sweep of your arm-the twist of your wrist-your Delivery, and your Recover-that union of grace and power-the utmost delicacy, with the most perfect precision-All these qualities of a heaven-born Angler, by which you might be known from all other men on the banks of the Whittadder on a Fast-day

I never angled on a Fast-day.

NORTH.

TALBOYS.

A lapsus linguæ-From a hundred anglers on the Daer, on the Queen's Birth-day

My dear Friend, you ex

NORTH.

TALBOYS.

All those qualities of a heaven-born Angler I learned first to admire-then to understand and then to imitate. For three years I practised on the carpet-for three I essayed on a pond-for three I strove by the running waters -and still the Image of Christopher North was before me-till emboldened by conscious acquisition and constant success, I came forth and took my place among the Anglers of my country.

TALBOYS.

I have seen Il Maestro himself in Timber, and in brushwood too. From him I learned to disentangle knots, intricate and perplexed far beyond the Gordian-"with frizzled hair implicit"-round twig, branch, or bole. Not more than half-a-dozen times of the forty that I may have been fast aloft-I speak mainly of my noviciate-have I had to effect liberation by sacrifice.

SEWARD.

Pardon me, Mr Talboys, for hinting that you smacked off your tail-fly to-day-I knew it by the sound.

TALBOYS.

The sound! No trusting to an uncertain sound, Mr Seward. Oh! I did so once but intentionally-the hook had lost the barb-not a fish would it hold -so I whipped it off, and on with a Professor.

BULLER.

You lost one good fish in rather an awkward manner, Mr Talboys.

TALBOYS.

I did that metal minnow of yours came with a splash within an inch of his nose and no wonder he broke me-nay, I believe it was the minnow that broke me and yet you can speak of my losing a good fish in rather an awkward manner!

NORTH.

It is melancholy to think that I have taught Young Scotland to excel myself in all the Arts that adorn and dignify life. Till I rose, Scotland was a barbarous country

TALBOYS.

Do say, my dear sir, semi-civilised.

NORTH.

Now it heads the Nations-and I may set.

TALBOYS.

And why should that be a melancholy thought, sir?

NORTH.

Oh, Talboys-National Ingratitude! They are fast forgetting the man who made them what they are-in a few fleeting centuries the name of Christopher North will be in oblivion! Would you believe it possible, gentlemen, that even now, there are Scotsmen who never heard of the Fly that bears the name of me, its Inventor-Killing Kit!

Men in Scotland who never heard the name of North!

NORTH.

Christopher North-who is he? Who do you mean by the Man of the Crutch? The Knight of the Knout? Better never to have been born than thus to be virtually dead.

SEWARD.

Sir, be comforted-you are under a delusion-Britain is ringing with your

name.

NORTH.

Not that I care for noisy fame-but I do dearly love the still.

I taught you, Talboys, to play Chess-and now you trumpet Staunton.

TALBOYS.

Chess-where's the board? Let us have a game.

NORTH.

Drafts-and you quote Anderson and the Shepherd Laddie.

TALBOYS.

Mr North, why so querulous?

NORTH.

Where was the Art of Criticism? Where Prose? Young Scotland owes all her Composition to me-buries me in the earth-and then claims inspiration from heaven. "How sharper than a Serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless

Child!" decks.

Peter-Peterkin-Pym-Stretch-where are your lazinesses-clear

It has come into my head, I know not how, to ask you a question.

NORTH.

Let it be an easy one-for I am languid.

TALBOYS.

Pray, sir, what is the precise signification of the word "Classical?”

NORTH.

My dear Talboys, you seem to think that I have the power of answering, off-hand, any and every question a first-rate fellow chooses to ask me. Classical-classical! Why, I should say, in the first place-One and one other Mighty People-Those, the Kings of Thought-These, the Kings of the Earth.

Attend-do attend, gentlemen. And I hope I am not too much presuming on our not ancient friendship-for I feel that a few hours on Lochawe-side give the privilege of years--in suggesting that you will have the goodness to use the metal nut-crackers; they are more euphonious than ivory with walnuts.

NORTH.

In the second place-let me consider-Mr Talboys-I should say in the second place-yes, I have it-a Character of Art expressing itself by words: a mode-a mode of Poetry and Eloquence-FITNESS AND BEAUTY.

TALBOYS.

Thank you, sir. Fitness and Beauty. Anything more?

NORTH.

Much more. We think of the Greeks and Romans, sir, as those in whom the Human Mind reached Superhuman Power.

Superhuman?

TALBOYS.

NORTH.

We think so-comparing ourselves with them, we cannot help it. In the Hellenic Wit, we suppose Genius and Taste met at their height-the Inspiration Omnipotent-the Instinct unerring! The creations of Greek Poetry!Пongis-a Making! There the soul seems to be free from its chains-happily self-lawed. "The Earth we pace" is there peopled with divine Forms. Sculpture was the human Form glorified-deified. And as in Marble, so in Song. Something common-terrestrial-adheres to our being, and weighs us down. They-the Hellenes-appear to us to have really walked-as we walk in our visions of exaltation-as if the Graces and the Muses held sway over daily and hourly existence, and not alone over work of Art and solemn occasion. No moral stain or imperfection can hinder them from appearing to us as the Light of human kind. Singular, that in Greece we reconcile ourselves to Heathenism.

TALBOYS.

It may be that we are all Heathens at heart.

NORTH.

The enthusiast adores Greece-not knowing that Greece monarchises over

him, only because it is a miraculous mirror that resplendently and more beautifully reflects-himself

"Divisque videbit

Permixtos Heroas, et IPSE videbitur illis.”

Very fine.

SEWARD.

NORTH.

O life of old, and long, long ago! In the meek, solemn, soul-stilling hush of Academic Bowers!

The Isis!

SEWARD.

NORTH.

My youth returns. Come, spirits of the world that has been! Throw open the valvules of these your shrines, in which you stand around me, niched side by side, in visible presence, in this cathedral-like Library! I read Historian, Poet, Orator, Voyager-a life that slid silently away in shades, or that bounded like a bark over the billows. I lift up the curtain of all ages-I stand under all skies-on the Capitol-on the Acropolis. Like that magician whose spirit, with a magical word, could leave his own bosom to inhabit another, I take upon myself every mode of existence. I read Thucydides, and I would be a Historian-Demosthenes, and I would be an Orator-Homer, and I dread to believe myself called to be, in some shape or other, a servant of the Muse. Heroes and Hermits of Thought-Seers of the Invisible-Prophets of the Ineffable-Hierophants of profitable mysteries-Oracles of the NationsLuminaries of that spiritual Heaven! I bid ye hail!

BULLER.

The fit is on him-he has not the slightest idea that he is in Deeside.

NORTH.

Ay-from the beginning a part of the race have separated themselves from the dusty, and the dust-devoured, turmoil of Action to Contemplation. Have thought-known-worshipped! And such knowledge Books keep. Books now crumbling like Towers and Pyramids-now outlasting them! Books that, from age to age, and all the sections of mankind helping, build up the pile of Knowledge-a trophied Citadel. He who can read Books as they should be read, peruses the operation of the Creator in his conscious, and in his unconscious Works, which yet we call upon to join, as if conscious, in our worship. Yet why--oh! why all this pains to attain that, through the labour of ages, which in the dewy, sunny prime of morn, one thrill of transport gives to me and to the Lark alike, summoning, lifting both heavenwards? Ah! perchance because the dewy, sunny prime does not last through the day! Because light poured into the eyes, and sweet breath inhaled, are not the whole of man's life here below-and because there is an Hereafter!

SEWARD.

I know where he is, Buller. He called it well a Cathedral-like Library.

NORTH.

The breath of departed years floats here for my respiration. The pure air of heaven flows round about, but enters not. The sunbeams glide in, bedimmed as if in some haunt half-separated from Life, yet on our side of Death. Recess, hardly accessible-profound-of which I, the sole inmate, held under an uncomprehended restraint, breathe, move, and follow my own way and wise, apart from human mortals! Ye! tall, thick Volumes, that are each a treasure-house of austere or blazing thoughts, which of you shall I touch with sensitive fingers, of which violate the calmly austere repose? I dread what I desire. You may disturb-you may destroy me! Knowledge pulsates in me, as I receive it, communing with myself on my unquiet or tearful pillow-or as it visits me, brought on the streaming moonlight, or from the fields afire with noon-splendour, or looking at me from human eyes, and stirring round and around me in the tumult of men-Your knowledge comes in a holy stillness and chillness, as if spelt off tombstones.

SEWARD.

Magdalen College Library, I do believe. Mr North-Mr North-awakeawake-here we are all in Deeside.

NORTH.

Ay-ay-you say well, Seward. "Look at the studies of the Great Scholar, and see from how many quarters of the mind impulses may mingle to compose the motives that bear him on with indefatigable strength in his laborious career."

SEWARD.

These were not my very words, sir—

NORTH.

Ay, Seward, you say well. From how many indeed! First among the prime, that peculiar aptitude and faculty, which may be called-a Taste and Genius for Words.

BULLER.

I rather failed there in the Schools.

NORTH.

Yet you were in the First Class. There is implied in it, Seward, a readiness of logical discrimination in the Understanding, which apprehends the propriety of Words.

BULLER.

I got up my Logic passably and a little more.

NORTH.

For, Seward, the Thoughts, the Notions themselves-must be distinctly dissevered in the mind, which shall exactly apply to each Thought-Notionits appropriate sign, its own Word.

BULLER.

You might as well have said "Buller"-for I beat Seward in my Logic.

NORTH.

But even to this task, Seward, of rightly distinguishing the meaning of Words, more than a mere precision of thinking-more than a clearness and strictness of the intellectual action is requisite.

And in Classics we were equal.

BULLER.

NORTH.

You will be convinced of this, Buller, if you recollect what Words express. The mind itself. For all its affections and sensibilities, Talboys, furnish a whole host of meanings, which must have names in Language. For mankind do not rest from enriching and refining their languages, until they have made them capable of giving the representation of their whole Spirit.

TALBOYS.

The pupil of language, therefore, sir-pardon my presumption-before he can recognise the appropriation of the Sign, must recognise the Thing signified?

NORTH.

And if the Thing signified, Talboys, by the Word, be some profound, solemn, and moral affection-or if it be some wild, fanciful impression or if it be some delicate shade or tinge of a tender sensibility-can anything be more evident than that the Scholar must have experienced in himself the solemn, or the wild, or the tenderly delicate feeling before he is in the condition of affixing the right and true sense to the Word that expresses it?

I should think so, sir.

TALBOYS.

SEWARD.

The Words of Man paint the spirit of Man. The Words of a People depicture the Spirit of a People.

NORTH.

Well said, Seward. And, therefore, the Understanding that is to possess the Words of a language, in the Spirit in which they were or are spoken and written, must, by self-experience and sympathy, be able to converse, and have conversed, with the Spirit of the People, now and of old.