given to the world bear dates between 1860 and 1875. That Mr. Thomson has not the lyrical grace and tenderness of the Laureate, the fervour and splendour of Mr. Swinburne, or the fine chaste workmanship of Mr. Matthew Arnold, I concede. None the less he is a genuine singer, and has that remarkable gift to which Rivarol refers, the "heureux pouvoir des mots qui sillonne si profondément l'attention des hommes en ébranlant leur imagination." Pessimism of the most hopeless kind is apparent through his writings, and a dedication to "the memory of the younger brother of Dante, Giacomo Leopardi-a spirit as lofty, a genius as intense, with a yet more tragic doom," shows under what influences most of the works have been produced. The famous arrangement of the powers in "Atalanta in Calydon" or the wail in "Félise" is not more

Hopeless of the best

And its nugatory quest

than are the lines "To Our Lady of Death," the poem which gives its name to the volume and many other of Mr. Thomson's compositions. I wonder if the new-comer claims kinship with his great predecessor and namesake? At any rate, the similarity of name seems to have led the later poet to supply in the "Lord of the Castle of Indolence" a species of continuation of the most inspired work of the earlier. Whether Mr. Thomson will ever show himself an absolute high-priest of song I wait to see. He has, at any rate, won admission into the temple.

I'

N his singularly able and scholarly treatise on the Cradle Land of the Arts and Creeds, Mr. C. J. Stone supplies an account of the Ramayana, the earliest of Indian romances, a work assumably far antecedent to anything in European literature. The questions which this strange and primitive legend opens out are far too numerous to be dealt with in a short note. We hear of watering the roads, of public gardens, curtained screens, folding doors, golden statues, and inlaid floors, of music, palaces, terraces, ramparts, and warlike instruments which slay a hundred men ; all sorts of inventions, indeed, which are supposed to be altogether modern discoveries. What, however, is from a literary standpoint even more remarkable, is that "modern poetry is anticipated by the constant celebration throughout the epic of the grandeur and beauties of nature, especial praise being bestowed upon the charms of forests and flowers." What, then, became of this taste? Nothing is more remarkable in European literature, or has furnished subject of more frequent comment, than the insensibility to the beauties of landscape which seems to have prevailed until times altogether recent,

THE

amongst

HE names of Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale have justly acquired an enviable fame Englishwomen. Yet they are but a type of the noble devotion which has moved many excellent women who have preceded them. A brief record of one of these women, Elizabeth Alkin, alias Parliament Joan-who has been styled the Florence Nightingale in humble life of the Commonwealth period-appears in the new series of State Papers. The beneficent instincts of this woman ever prompted her presence and help to the sick and suffering sent ashore from the fleet, up to and beyond the range of her means. On June 2, 1653, she wrote from Harwich to the Navy Commissioners that she had spent, on necessaries for the sick and wounded, three times as much as the £5 given her when sent down there, for she "cannot see them want" if she has it, though, in consequence, she owes money for her own diet. She gave much "to have their bodies cleaned, their hair cut, and their clothes mended," but had only been able to obtain twenty shillings from the Mayor of Harwich, and therefore begged a speedy supply. She stated further that she had been to look after the men at Ipswich, and would have brought up to London those who were fit to bear the journey, but that Major Bourne was anxious for her to remain to wait the issue of the next engagement. Major Bourne promised to accommodate her with money, and paid her £10; but it appears that this large-hearted woman, although in the poorest circumstances, spent £4 on the English sick and wounded, and £6 on the Dutch prisoners landed at Harwich and Ipswich after the fight of 29th and 31st July. "Seeing their wants and misery were so great," she wrote, "I could not but have pity upon them, although our enemies." As the natural consequence of her exertions, Alkin herself fell ill, and had to return to London with only three shillings in her pocket. Although the Council of State ordered her £10 on December 6, 1653, and the Protector £10 on January 10, 1654, she was compelled to write in the following February two pitiful letters, begging for further aid, her many infirmities being brought on by continual watchings day and night. She stated that she required to keep two nurses, and had been forced to sell her bed and other goods, and she begged either relief or admission to some hospital, that she might end her days less miserably. We have no record as to how her life ended, but by her generosity and her untiring personal services she acquired for herself a wide and a noble reputation.

N the well-known and admirable "Echoes of the Week" which

plies a list of books constituting a library of reference suitable to a

young journalist, and consequently to any young man of culture whose requirements in the way of books are not limited or expanded by the pursuit of some special profession. As a nucleus, and the list does not profess to be more, it is excellent. I should like to add to it, however, Dr. Brewer's "Reader's Handbook," Roget's "Thesaurus," Coleridge's "Table Talk," "A Dictionary of Terms in Art," a "Glossary of Architecture," the "Globe Atlas," Vapereau's "Biographie des Contemporains" and "Dictionnaire des Littératures," and Blair's "Chronological Tables." When the next edition of the "Biographie Universelle" is published, let our youthful journalist subscribe to it, even if he has, in consequence of so doing, to forego one year's holiday. That book is indeed a treasure. An English cyclopædia of biography-a new one is much needed, since those in existence are lamentably deficient and a good gazetteer are also important, nor should a man who aims at becoming a writer leave out of a library, however small, Milton, Dryden, and Pope. Mention of "Don Quixote" and the "Arabian Nights," with "Robinson Crusoe" and some others, is only omitted because everybody is supposed to have these works. It is very difficult to stop when once the task of enumerating indispensable books is commenced. When Mr. Sala recommends the journalist to pick up "as many of Bohn's editions of anything as can be got hold of," he gives admirable advice. A service, the full extent of which is not yet admitted, was rendered to cheap literature when Bohn's libraries first began to see the light. Is there anywhere a statue to a bookseller? I shall be glad to subscribe towards one for Mr. Bohn if his works are not monuments enough. I know that Napoleon hanged a bookseller, but that is a different matter.

N Oxford pupil of Mr. Ruskin has had the industry and enthusiasm to collect and rescue from the oubliettes all the published letters of the great art-critic for seven-and-thirty years past-including some new discoveries of his own in addition to those enumerated in the Bibliography. Mr. Ruskin has consented to their republication in two handsome volumes, under the somewhat fanciful title of "Arrows of the Chace," and has written a special preface to the book, which will certainly be a most welcome boon to the many collectors and students who had despaired of ever gathering these Sibylline leaves together. The first volume, I understand, will be ready early in October, and may be obtained, like Mr. Ruskin's other works, from his agent and publisher, Mr. George Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

NOVEMBER 1880.

QUEEN COPHETUA.

BY R. E. FRANCILLON.

CHAPTER XXX.

I found none good, save her. The world was darkened
With breath from evil hearts, yea, through and through :
I, even I, who saw her eyes, who hearkened

Unto her voice, I did-as all men do.

But o'er my nights of travel she, above me,

Shone a lone star from out a moonless sky :

And, since she shone there, should she fail to love me,
To wander and to wait content was I.

Save her, good found I naught, divine or human :
She was my hope, my faith, by sea and land :
Swift shot the star to earth-and she was woman,
And I the man who built his house on sand.

NCE upon a time, Helen's heart would have leaped with

triumph at sight of the parchment that her husband spread open before her. It would have meant for her that Alan had come to his own, that the usurper would be overthrown, and that law and might were on the side of Right and Wrong, after all. But now what signified Copleston-what signified anything in the world? The parting words of Walter Gray had not as yet so much as taken. root in her; far less had they had time to grow. She could only feel that the man to whom, in the name of friendship, she had given. all that she believed to be left of her heart, had deserted her in her utmost need in the name of a duty that she was unable to recognise. Alan was dead. What could she want with Copleston? It was not for herself that she had married Gideon Skull.

"You have found that my father made a will?" she asked mechanically and coldly, with all her real feelings far away-mostly in the grave, but not all.

"Found that he made it?" said Gideon impatiently. "Found the Will! What has come to you? Don't you understand? Ah, I thought I should win your battle at last-and it's won! Do you understand me a little better now?"

66

'No," said she. "I don't understand anything at all. How can Copleston be mine?"

"Of course it's yours. It's left first to Alan; and, in case of his dying without issue, then to you--in both cases as freely and absolutely as can be. Your father has put you in the same position as if he had died intestate, being your father according to law. Under all the circumstances, it was the best thing he could do. It wasn't drawn by a lawyer, I'm told. Naturally. Of course he wasn't the man to tell even a lawyer how things really were between himself and Mrs. Reid."

A hot light came into Helen's eyes. But he did not see it-he never could understand why plain facts should not be recognised. Had he been born out of wedlock, he would not have minded—so, why should she? A woman is but a woman; and her chancing to be one's own mother cannot, in reason, make her different from the rest of such things.

"So, no doubt, he wished Alan to succeed him as if in due course of law, and you to succeed Alan in the same way; and made the will himself to make everything square in case of need. I always thought it impossible that he, under such circumstances, should let himself die without some sort of a will. Luckily, it's a good sortsigned, witnessed, everything in form, and written on parchment for safety."

"And how came it to be lost-and found?" asked Helen, with the heat still in her eyes, but in a frozen voice that Gideon must have been dull indeed not to have felt as well as heard. But then he was far too much interested in his triumph to notice shades of tone, however marked they might be.

"Ah-how! He had to put it somewhere, you see; and I suppose he took it for granted that my reverend uncle was a man of business, instead of a-the other thing. Any way, my uncle had charge of a certain document in a foolscap envelope, not to be opened till a certain time after his death." Gideon had never told an untruth, nor was he telling one now. "Well, it would have struck any baby that it contained a will. My uncle had hidden it away in some