"He is blowing up the barracks to prevent the fire from spreading," says another. Can it be that he is there stal? Still the flag waves as of old; the flames die down, and the smoke clears away somewhat, and the shells explode as before, and Major Stevens fires continually. The flag is down! A shot has struck the staff and carried it away. "Look, the flag is down;" and an excited crowd rush again through the streets leading to the Battery, and a shout fills the air. The flag of the United States has been shot down in the harbor of Charleston, South Car "It is West Point against West Point to-olina ! day," says one. 66 Stevens was not at West Point." "No, but Beauregard was a pupil of Anderson there." Where is Anderson? And yet who would not rather even at this moment be Anderson, with all his danger, than General Twiggs, in his safety, and with the applause of the Southern Confederacy? The tide has turned, and is going out. What does it mean? Still the people pass and repass, and the crowd thins a little, and they jest idly and remark on the passers, and conversation goes on. Friends meet and greet each other with playful words. Judge Magrath stands in a careless attitude in the window of one of the houses overlooking the scene. Beauregard passes, observant; carriages drive by; people begin to leave. 66 It is up again on a lower staff!" "Yes!" "No!" It is a white flag." A white flag waves from the walls of Fort Sumter, and the colors which have been repeatedly lowered as a signal of distress in vain to-day have fallen at last. The firing ceases, and Anderson surrenders unconditionally, with the fort a blazing fur nace. The man who, of all others, deserved to be supported by the whole power of the nation, who has manfully, nobly upheld his honor and the honor of the government to which he swore allegiance, against threats and taunts and entreaties and bribes has been forced to surrender, and the United States no longer hold a foot of ground in South Carolina. What will history say? of the philosopher's daughter. To contribute till that has been done and failed would be a mark of disrespect to those descendants who, with very proper pride, retain his surname as a Christian name in the family.-Reader. THE lengthy pamphlet against Renan by the Bishop of Nimes has been followed by a much shorter document from the pen of Desprez, Archbishop of Toulouse. The latter does not stoop to examine the arguments brought forward in the "Vie de Jésus," but briefly and summarily exhorts his flock to disavow" the attempt made against God—an attempt such as has not been seen since the day when the philosopher of Ferney cried "Ecrasons l'infame!" etc. The other bishops and archbishops are to follow with anti-Renan pamphlets, books, and pastoral let-ing from the year 1770.” ters. One of the most characteristic replies to the book appeared the other day, the author of which chiefly denounces Renan as anti-Napoleonic," since in the writings of Napoleon I. another view is taken of Christ. Of other writings occasioned by the book may be mentioned an Etude," now preparing, from the pen of M. Ste.-Beuve. It is said that he has only very reluctantly yielded to the pressing solicitations of his friends in appearing on a field comparatively foreign to him. His critique is to appear in the feuilleton of the Constitutionnel.-Reader. is entitled "Goethe and his Importance for our A SMALL work by C. G. Carus, just published, Generation and those to come together with fifteen hitherto unknown parables of Goethe, dat 66 66 AN appeal is being made by the rector of High Laver, near Ongar, in Essex, for subscriptions to repair the tomb of John Locke. Instead of being made to the public, this appeal should surely, in the first place, be made to the noble descendants By way of supplement to his edition of Homer, published at Bonn in 1858, Professor Immanuel Bekker, has collected into one volume octavo, of 330 pages, all his criticisms and remarks on Homer, and on the labors of other editors, which have appeared in German from his pen in the various literary journals of Germany from 1806 to 1862. On opening the book a startling novelty meets the eye in the prefice. German nouns, which usually commence with capital letters, are here printed after the fashion of Latin, French, and English, with lower-case or small letters at the beginning. This is a novelty which deserves to be recorded. THE number of gymnasts present at the late "Turner-Fest" at Leipsic-exceeded 25,000, with more than 600 flags. 5. Highland Roads and Highland Canals, Chambers's Journal, 179 183 66 66 185 187 189 Week 6. Mr. Foster on the Meaning of the American War, Spectator, 7. Napoleon in Poland, 8. Heroes and their Likenesses, 9. Letter from Hon. Josiah Quincy to Mr. Lincoln, POETRY.-The Shadow Dance, 146. Emmaus, 146. Barbara Freitchie, 191. Day Service at Westminster Abbey, 191. St. Margaret's Eve, 192. Equinoctial, 192. SHORT ARTICLES.-Pompeii, 163. Literary Intelligence, 163, 178. (Archæology, 166. French Song, 166. Washing the Atmosphere, 174. Voting-Machine, 178. TO READERS OF THE LIVING AGE. In making remittance, please send UNITED STATES NOTES. Having the opportunity of establishing a sound and uniform Currency, let no man delay to make use of it; and to do what he can to make it the only paper money. Bank Notes are very good-at least we have not had a bad one for a long time-but while our Government stands, its notes are better than any other: and "when that flag goes down" (to adopt the words of our gallant neighbor, Captain Selfridge of the Navy), "we are more than willing to go down with it." TO NEWSPAPER EDITORS. A friend in the country writes to us that he sees almost every week, in his country paper, some article copied from The Living Age, without acknowledgment. And he advises us to say as follows: (and so we proceed to say) "We have been accustomed to exchange with many newspapers which we do not read, out of courtesy, or from remembrance of their early introduction of The Living Age to their readers. While some of these papers are very sensitive and tenacious in regard to credit due themselves, they habitually copy from us without acknowledgment, preferring to give credit only to the foreign journals, which we always quote. They thus set up a claim on their own subscribers, as if they (the newspapers) were at the trouble and expense of importing all the Quarterlies, Monthlies, and Weeklies. We are therefore forced to give notice that where we are overlooked in this way, we must stop the exchange." PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON & CO., 30 BROMFIELD STREET, BOSTON. For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage. Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dokars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. MR. OWEN MEREDITH's poetry has won a considerable share. of general popularity. Two of the books at the head of this article are already out of print, and he himself refers in his last long poem, with modest self-congratulation, to the gratifying fact that several of his early poems have been set to music, and are favorites with the young ladies of the present day. He has established a certain position, therefore, in the world which entitles him to the benefit of serious criticism at the hands of all who are jealous of the fame of English literature. Mr. Matthew Arnold has recently invented a new name for the quality which characterizes permanent as contrasted with ephemeral fame, that fine, clear-cut individuality of touch which does not merely stimulate the mind with transient little shocks of interest, but engraves the form of a poet's thought on the memory, as distant hills are chiselled out against a sunset sky;-he calls it "distinction." "Of this quality," he says, "the world is impatient; it chafes against it, rails at it, insults it, hates it; it ends by receiving its influence and by undergoing its law. This quality at last invariably corrects the world's blunders and fixes the world's ideals. It procures that the popular poet shall not finally pass for a Pindar, nor the popular preacher for a Bossuet." And it will, we feel no doubt, convince the readers of English poetry, after careful study, that the clever writer who composes under the name of Owen Meredith has no part or share in the true poetic faculty. Mr. Owen Meredith is by no means what would generally be called a dull writer. His verses shimmer like shot-silk with antithesis, sentiment, similes. There are smart hits at times, that show a considerable knowledge of the world. He admires nature and analyzes character, and versifies with a fatal fluency. But the more you read of him, the more clear it becomes that he is a poet of what we may call the decorative school, and that even his decorative art is essentially meretricious.. His poems remind us of the judgment passed by Eckermann (or shall we rather say by Goethe's mind speaking through Eckermann), and approved by the great poet, on a certain German poem: "They are the impressions of a dilettante who has more good intention than power, and to whom the highly developed state of our literature has lent a readymade language which sings and rhymes for him, while he imagines himself speaking." And this seems to hit exactly the sort of talent displayed by Mr. Owen Meredith. He plays on what Coleridge calls the ready-made barrel-organ of our poetic phraseology with a facility that pleases the ear unaccustomed to true and individually elaborated poems. But the more you read the less you admire him; the colors with which his poetry is so liberally heightened seem all hot and glaring, and put on in patches, like rouge; the artificial tone of the pleasantry jars more and more; the sentiment is thick and blurred, and overluscious, like Tokay: and, on the whole, you feel that this poetry is a gaudy artificial costume for life, which catches the eye at first as striking, but the enjoyment of which is soon exhausted. We are sorry to pass so severe a judgment on a poet who has no doubt attained a certain level of popularity; but we are convinced that it is a true one by many concurrent evidences, and fear that we can only too easily convince our readers also. When we attempt to compare Mr. Owen Meredith's poems, or any poems of the same class, with a high poetical standard, we are vividly reminded of the fine passage in Plato's Gorgias, in which he compares with the four genuine Arts that concern themselves with preserving or restoring the well-being of the body and the mind,-namely, Gymnastics, Medicine, Law, and Justice, the four imitative counterfeits which concern themselves not with the well-being but the temporary gratification of the body and the mind; the trick of dressing up the body so as to counterfeit the symmetry and beauty produced by gymnastic training, the trick of dressing up food so as to make it gratify the palate instead of imparting nourishment, the trick of recommending false measures to the people which salve over the public disorders instead of ensuring the well-being of the commonwealth, and finally, the trick of persuading the judges so as to gain for the criminal not instead of the effort to grasp truly in the imagination, the life within and the life without. justice but impunity. This last spurious or counterfeit "" dexterity," namely Rhetoric, -which is concerned not with procuring the true well-being of the soul, but its immunity In the first place you may see this false from temporary pain, is defined by Socrates aim at the plausibly agreeable, instead of at as "a state not belonging to true Art at all, the true, in Mr. Owen Meredith's occasionbut the quality of a soul ready in taking aim, ally clever but always over-emphatic descripand bold and clever by nature in its inter- tive poetry. True poetic descriptions are of course with men." It is impossible for a many kinds, following the law of the poet's modern critic not to add to this enumeration own mind. There is the careless school of of genuine Arts, and the corresponding para-description, which succeeds like Byron's later sitical dexterities which aim at a temporary genius by the mere audacity with which he gratification instead of true artistic standards, -on the one hand the genuine poetry which aims at taking the veil from life, whether the life of nature or of men, and showing us, on however modest a scale, the impressions made by men and things on the creative imagination, and, on the other hand, that merely decorative talent which seems to aim at giving the pleasure and surprises which poetry gives, but without the labor, without the fidelity, without the spontaneous simplicity of true poetry. While true poetry unveils through the imagination the secrets of natural and of human expression, the decorative poetry of which we speak paints for it a new, and at first sight pleasing, external veil, which bears the same relation to the transparent medium of the poet which the patterns drawn on ground glass to prevent vision bear to the images of living forms in a perfect mirror. This decorative trick of false poetry seems to be exactly described in Plato's words as "a state not belonging to true art at all, but the quality of a soul ready in taking aim, and bold and clever by nature in its intercourse with men." Socrates adds that he considers the sum and substance of these pleasureseeking parasites of true art to be a specics of flattery,*-a dexterity, that is, in selecting the weak place in human nature, where a very little tickling with plausible falsehoods will win a great deal of temporary power. And this is, though of course without any of the dishonorable character of personal flattery, exactly the characteristic of the kind of poetry we wish to discuss. It is the instrument of minds "ready in aim, and bold and clever by nature in their intercourse with men," and its method of procedure seems to be just that amount of plausible deception which is certain to follow from taking the superficial tickling of the fancy as the aim of poetry, * κολακεία. thrusts into his verse accidental and miscellaneous objects in the arbitrary kind of way in which they would arrest the eye of an absent-minded spectator,-"a sail peeping out here and there, so full of life that you seem to feel the sea-breeze blowing; "* and here again London sights and sounds tumbled in pell-mell upon the imagination, "the wigs in a hair-cutter's window and the passing lamplighters" jostling one another in the memory. Or there is the tranquil German school of description, which Goethe adorned, a school that aims at realizing in due perspective, moral as well as physical, the whole picture before the eye, choosing your point of sight at some defined personal centre,-as for instance in the mind of the good old hostess of the Golden Lion in " Hermann and Dorothea,"-and then painting the scene traversed by her exactly as it would seem to her eye, looking at the kitchen-garden with a gardener's vigilance for the caterpillars on the leaves, or scarlet runners that need new staking, and so forth. Or there is the meditative school of description, like Wordsworth's, which describes not so much the outward reality as the trains of reverie it set moving in his breast. But whatever the school be, so long as it is a true poetic description, there is always some one point of view which reconciles all that is noted down into a distinct harmony of intellectual effect. Nothing of the kind is discernible in Mr. Owen Meredith's descriptions, which sometimes remind us of a lady's letter, with dashes under all the non-emphatic words, and notes of admiration after all the least significant sentences. Take for instance the following description of the Pyrenees by moonlight, in "Lucile " :— "The moon of September, now half at the full, Was unfolding from darkness and dreamland the lull * Goethe's conversation on Byron with Ecker mann. |