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versed with Lord Wellesley and others with have to live?' When the physician hesitatunabated vigour on subjects of public inter- ed, and muttered something, that it was est. But the excitement was too much, and certain he was much indisposed, but that he fainted away. From that day, the 14th many had recovered who had been as ill, of January, he kept the house. The physi- and he might yet perhaps be restored to cians at first buoyed themselves with hopes health, Pitt fixed his penetrating eye on that their skill might save him. But on the him, and quietly asked him to leave the 19th a typhoid fever set in, and all hope dis- room. He then turned himself to the side appeared. We borrow what remains of the on which the bishop was standing, and looked story from the narrative given by the Bishop steadily at him. The bishop renewed his of Lincoln at the time to the Dean of Carl-offer to read a prayer suited to so solemn an isle.* 66 The bishop had often pressed the occasion. Pitt replied, I have lived so physicians to allow him to inform Mr. Pitt much in the habitual neglect of prayer, that of his danger; but he had been constantly I think it almost unbecoming, and, I fear, refused by them. At length, on Wednes- unavailing to pray now.' The bishop day, January 22nd (Pitt died on the 23rd), his physicians told the bishop that it was nearly over, and that he might say what he pleased. On this the bishop desired admittance into Mr. Pitt's room, and he and one of the physicians entered it together. Mr. Pitt,' the physician said, 'the Bishop of Lincoln is here.' Pitt opening his eyes, said, 'Well?' in a tone that expressed, 'What is there in that?' The bishop then said, 'Mr. Pitt, I am sorry to find you so poorly this morning: I should much wish to read a prayer to you.' In an instant Pitt turned to the other side of the bed, and said to his physician, How long do you think I

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*The bishop toned down this narrative in his biography, and Lord Stanhope has naturally adopted his account; but ours comes from contemporary sources remarkable for their accuracy, and there is no doubt that the scene occurred as here described.

answered this remark, and read some of the prayers of our Liturgy. There was then a long and deep silence; and after this Pitt said, I am sure I have had great infirmities, and done many things that I wish I had not done; but I have tried to follow God's will, and,' clasping his hands with great energy, I cast myself on the mercies of God, through the merits of Jesus Christ.""

On the following day Pitt died; and it is said that a servant, sent the same day from Wimbledon to inquire after his health, finding no one to answer his inquiries, wandered into the house, went from room to room, till, in the bedroom upstairs which looks with its bow-window to the west over the heath, he found the body of him, who a few hours before had filled England with hope and France with fear, stretched in that deep stillness which gives to death its awful power.

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And the spotted giraffes fled wildly

In a yellow cloud of fear. I sucked in the noontide splendor, Quivering along the glade, Or yawning, panting, and dreaming, Basked in the tamarisk shade, Till I heard my wild mate roaring,

As the shadows of night came on,
To brood in the trees' thick branches
And the shadow of sleep was gone;
Then I roused, and roared in answer,
And unsheathed from my cushioned feet
My curving claws, and stretched me,
And wandered my mate to greet.
We toyed in the amber moonlight,
Upon the warm flat sand,

And struck at each other our massive arms
How powerful he was and grand!
His yellow eyes flashed fiercely

As he crouched and gazed at me,
And his quivering tail, like a serpent,
Twitched curving nervously.
Then like a storm he seized me,

With a wild triumphant cry,
And we met, as two clouds in heaven
When the thunders before them fly.
We grappled and struggled together,

For his love like his rage was rude;
And his teeth in the swelling folds of my neck
At times, in our play, drew blood.

Often another suitor

For I was flexile and fair Fought for me in the moonlight, While I lay crouching there,

Till his blood was drained by the desert; And, ruffled with triumph and power, He licked me and lay beside me

To breathe him a vast half-hour. Then down to the fountain we loitered, Where the antelopes came to drink; Like a bolt we sprang upon them,

Ere they had time to shrink. We drank their blood and crushed them, And tore them limb from limb, And the hungriest lion doubted Ere he disputed with him.

That was a life to live for!

Not this weak human life, With its frivolous bloodless passions, Its poor and petty strife! Come to my arms, my hero,

The shadows of twilight grow, And the tiger's ancient fierceness In my veins begins to flow. Come not cringing to sue me!

Take me with triumph and power, As a warrior that storms a fortress! I will not shrink or cower. Come, as you came in the desert, Ere we were women and men, When the tiger passions were in us, And love as you loved me then! - Blackwood's Magazine.

W. W. 8.

From the Spectator.

AUTOGRAPHS.*

THE love of collecting autographs, if it has sometimes been pursued without

much taste or meaning, has never sunk to

him either a decided man or a decided gentleman, he is allowed to pass for a very gentlemanlike man. Again, some scholars and gentlemen are always hurried, and cannot afford time to write legibly. We see hands going through a gradual change under increased pressure, and the beautiful copperplate of youth becoming the reckless scribble of manhood. Charles Knight describes the undignified rush of Lord Chancellor Brougham from his robing room to the woolsack, with grave officials puffing scandalized after him. The characteristics of Brougham's handwriting, as we see it here, are just the same; it is a hasty, dashing scrawl; the words have been thrown at the paper, instead of being written upon it, and have stuck there as they best could without as

the rank of a mere mania, like the tulip
mania of the seventeenth and the postage-
stamp mania of the nineteenth century.
There is always a pleasure in contemplating
the handwriting of persons whom you re-
spect or admire, and the mind is led on in-
sensibly to associate certain characteristics
with handwriting from reading those same
characteristics in lives or faces. We do not
speak of the art of cheiromancy, which,
though practised with apparent success by
individuals, seems to us rather random and
uncertain. Like phrenology, it presents some
good facts and some basis to go upon, but it
is too much exploité by people who are ig-inburgh.
norant of its first rules, and only care to
make it agreeable to their customers. But
leaving this out of the question, and treat-
ing a man's handwriting as something be-
longing to him, and therefore some index to
his character, it is impossible not to be struck
by its peculiarities. The most careless read-
er, in turning over the lithographed leaves
of this handsome volume, would see the dif-

sistance.

hand of Croker, the Quarterly with the EdCompare with this the ladylike

And yet Croker was hardly ladylike, except in the qualities of spite and pettishness, which are always assigned to wothe official hand explains much, as does the man by her enemies. In cases like these business hand in the case of Rogers. Often there is a family hand, and sons write like their fathers, however unlike they may be in character. It is difficult to avoid con

ference between a hand like Thackeray's structing a theory of character and handand one like the late Duke of Cleveland's. writing from a comparison of the letters of A comparison between the neat hand of read at once their likeness and their differChatham and William Pitt; we seem to Rogers and the scraggy sprawling hand of ence. But when we enlarge the field of

Byron, has much the same effect as reading Lara and Jacqueline together must have had when they were first published in one volume. That "joint concern summut like Sternhold and Hopkins," as it was described by a passenger in the Brighton coach, would no doubt have looked still more unnatural in autograph. Rogers' hand is as calm, laboured, and regular as his poetry, Byron's as uneven, dashing and unlovely as his life. In many cases, however, this sort of parallel does not hold good. There are many kinds of handwriting which do not accord

culiar ways

comparison, and take in several nationalities, as we must in examining this volume, we find another qualifying influence. There is a distinct nationality in handwriting, as distinct as in speech and manners. Of course the Germans, who use a character of their own, write differently from all other European nations, but the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, the English, have their peof forming the same character. We do not pretend to any knowledge of the East, but a volume of prayers in twentyfour languages, which we bought at the with what we know of their authors. We Armenian Convent at Venice, seemed to must allow for so many influences, in some men for so many moods. One man is the convey an instructive comment on the ways of the various Eastern nations. There is slave of his pen, ink, and paper, writing a beautiful hand with his own, an abominable the Chinese writing, every word or every hand with any one else's. There is a hand-letter like a picture, or rather a puzzle, writing which looks actually artistic, while single squares painfully elaborated." it is really nothing but the product of Chaldæan is black and bold, and seems the ample leisure and the best materials. And type of manly vigour, upright and courathis may be described as a very gentlemanly hand, just as when a man has no character or intellect of his own, not enough to make

1805.

The Autographic Mirror. Vol. II. London.

The

geous, representing to our (perhaps prejudiced) minds the perfection of English handwriting. The Hebrew is a more limited character, more precision, less show of sternness and energy, still order and dignity. The Siriac is small and twisted, and to us

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represents French handwriting of the lower order. The Arabian, the Turkish, the Persian are very similar in their characteristics, except that each seems more flowing, more graceful, more effeminate than the other. Perhaps the Persian is best entitled to this character. There is something more rugged in the Arabian, something blacker in the Turkish; the Persian flows like a woman's letter, like the poetry of Moore.

tion, differing at once from the ladies of Mary and those of Victoria -a hand that runs yet cannot be read, so fluent and so illegible. If we glance distantly at the late Duke of Cleveland's letter, we take it for the production of a Cavalier during the interregnum. But by degrees we miss the old incision and deliberateness, we see how the lines crowd each other, and we know that "schoolboy hand" of Thackeray, a hand which is to be seen grown up on so many When we come to examine more deeply sheets of club paper. One of the best hands into national handwriting, we find of course we have in this volume is Southey's, and this that it is much qualified by individual char- curiously enough preserves the old characacter. Take the French autographs we have teristics. It is not modern English writing, in this volume. The best of the purely but a modernization of old English writing, French is perhaps that of Murat, a fine Several of these contemporaries are placed manly hand, without any ostentation. Per- near each other, but there is little to be signy's hand is also of the pure type, neat gained by comparing them. Moore, who and tripping. Napoleon III.'s is a lower comes next to Rogers, is not much inferior sample of the same type, has a mean look, in neatness, but seems to write with the and is entirely devoid of elevation. Thiers is point of a fine pen, and sometimes he falls inquite illegible, though some kind slave who to the fault of thinness. Scott's handwriting has devoted himself to the work of unravelling has a cramped look, which seems unnatural the web of black strokes says that it contains from the pen of such a ready writer. Anoththe following allusion to Guizot's reception er sort of comparison may be made between of Lacordaire at the Academy :-"A monk Mrs. Hemans and Miss Mitford; no one received by a Protestant is a spectacle would take the first for a woman of talent, which is turning the brain of Paris.' Louis the second for a woman at all. Equally Blanc writes a splendid hand, extremely strange is the contrast between Bright and clear and orderly, with just a tinge of Cobden. Mr. Bright writes a small, neat, French formation to stamp its nationality. and orderly hand. Cobden's hand is that Of passed generations, Madame Récamier's of the Northern man of business, on which letter to Miss Edgeworth bears witness to a is based the genuine American hand, as we hand of anything but "incomparable beau- see it here in Stonewall Jackson. Neither ty." There is nothing remarkable in Vol- Washington nor Franklin possess it. taire's handwriting. Rousseau's is small and perfectly legible, as if it was engraved on a copper plate. Corneille's hand is good, and bears a certain resemblance to Milton's, if we allow for the difference of nation. But just as there is a national hand, so there is a contemporary hand. People of the same, or nearly the same, period write more alike than people of the same character. The resemblance between the hands of Milton and Charles I. is the most striking instance that we can adduce, but the Duchess of Marlborough is not altogether unlike Milton. There is a certain affinity between Shelley and Byron, yet what two men could be less alike? A good proof of the way handwritings run in generations is furnished in this volume by the juxtaposition of Lady Jane Grey and the late Duchess of Gloucester. Look at the close blackness of the first, the compression of every kind, the lines so near together, and the words scarcely separate, and yet such labour expended on every letter, and then turn to the lady's hand of the last genera

We frankly confess that to us the German hand is an abomination. There is a long letter in it here from Heine to Dr. Simrock, and an epigram on Schleswig-Holstein in 1847 and 1865 by Arnold Rüge, which ought to call a blush to the face of Dr. Simrock. But viewing these writings from the orthographic, and not the autographic, point of view, we find little to remark in them. Niebuhr's hand is perhaps the best of German hands. Rückert seems to write with a pin and a German pin into the bargain. Best of all is Wilhelm Grimm, who has the grace to write in Roman characters, and whose elegant precision, void as it is of all affectation of caligraphy, is not to be surpassed. The finest Italian hand is that of Ariosto, which may be compared to the Chaldæan. It is difficult to say under what nationality we are to class the writing of Napoleon. France has certainly no claim to it. But there is a very curious letter of his from Egypt to his brother Jerome, the more curious that it fell into the hands of Nelson, and is endorsed by him," Found on the per

son of the courier." Nelson's endorsement you cut sticks, they skedaddled." But on is in his left-hand writing; Napoleon's let- asking for a repetition of it the German ter is scratchy and impetuous, with uneven found that it varied every time, and he had lines and black patches, and most careless at last to give it up in despair as a grammatin spelling. "Tu vaira dans les papiers pub-ical Proteus. lics," he begins, and adds in a later place, "je suis annuié de la nature humaine." He commissions Joseph to buy him "une campagne, soit prés de Paris, ou en Bourgogne ;

From the Spectator.

TESQUIEU."*

je compte y passer l'hiver et m'y enterrer. MAURICE JOLY'S "MACHIAVEL ET MONJ'ai besoin de solitude et d'isolement; la grandeur m'annuie; le sentiment est desseché; la glorie est fâde, à 29 ans j'ai tout epuissé, il ne me reste plus qu'à devenir bien vraiment Egoiste." But he soon found that this laudable object could be accomplished in a better way than by becoming a hermit. As a rule there are not very many characteristic passages or bits to quote in this volume. Some of the longer letters, take them for all in all, confirm our old impressions of their writers, without giving us any sudden insight into their characters. Among curiosities, independent of handwriting, we may place the reproduction of a manuscript page of Armadale, which must, we think, have given trouble to the printers. Erasures are numerous, and are effected with a jealous completeness, as if Mr. Wilkie Collins was loth to let others see what his first

M. MAURICE JOLY is a writer who has succeeded so well in hiding the merits of his work, that they have scarcely been discovered by any but its legal accusers and suppressors. It needs a robust reader to travel through the first third of his Dialogue, and yet it is impossible to close the volume without feeling that it contains by far the most searching analysis of the policy of the Second Empire which has yet appeared. The author's misfortune has been that he has chosen a dramatic form, which he was quite incapable of working out in a manner which should be even tolerable for the general public. If he did so in the hope of escaping the Argus glance of the French literary police, he was wofully mistaken, since he has been condemned without mercy for an almost unread book. Whereas, had he adopted the ordinary form of a disquisition, like that of De Tocqueville on American democracy, the incisive and penetrating vigto fasten public attention, at no higher cost

our of his criticism would have been certain

to himself.

thoughts had been. Another curiosity is Douglas Jerrold's receipt for 10l. for the perpetual copyright of the Rent Day. The handwriting of this differs materially from the later specimens of the same author, which have what we may call a "twang" in them. Another is the original MS. of Thackeray's Little Billy, showing many departures ble des Matières," or The real sting of the work lies in its " Ta"Contents." This, from the text at present received. As we which in ordinary cases is a mere reproduchear it sung now, and as we believe Thack- tion of chapter-headings by the printer, beeray sang it himself at the horseshoe dinner given him when he left for America in 1855, comes in M. Joly's hands a real treatise of some fourteen pages, four-fifths of which the ship is not loaded, but "wittled,” “Little Billy" has just got to the end of the might be transcribed almost literally as

twelfth commandment when he catches sight of land, and the commander of the British fleet is "Admiral Lord Nelson, K.C. B.," whom we have seen quoted in that guise in the leading articles of the Daily Telegraph. The future literary historian will have to compare this first version with the later one, and trace the successive ad

ditions inspired by various convivialities. We hope that he will not find the same difficulties as the German in search of the one English irregular verb. The story is that an American was teaching English to a German, and on being asked if there were no irregular verbs in English, replied by giving one solitary example. It was, "I go, thou wentest, he departed, we made tracks,

a

summary of the Napoleonic policy, and the reader who wishes to understand the book should be careful to consult this in the first instance, so as to be able to take up the thread of the writer's argument at the point at which he may feel it to become really interesting, the dulness of the opening matter being in very truth almost little before the first dialogue on the Conunsurpassable. Beginning in this way a stitution, and skipping judiciously from time to time the clumsy compliments of the two illustrious shades to each other, or the weak objections of Montesquieu (as the

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