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Wentworth, of St. Roque's, about the cut world' except the narrow one in which he of his coat and the precision of his costume, had been brought up. He comes to Carand decidedly preferred the word clergyman lingford with elevated expectations of getto the word minister. He had been brought ting into its highest sphere, as his natural up upon the ' Nonconformist' and the place; but his first invitation is to tea at Eclectic Review,' and believed that the Mrs. Tozer's, at six o'clock, where he meets Church Establishment, though outwardly the leading chapel members, and has the prosperous, was a profoundly rotten insti- pleasure of hearing their views of a pastor's tution; that the eyes of the world were duty. The scene is so admirable that we upon the Dissenters as the real party of pro- shall it quote not at length, but in those gress; and (greatest delusion of all) that passages where the peculiarities of the comhis own eloquence and the Voluntary prin- pany are most naïvely displayed. We are ciple were quite enough to counterbalance apprized that to go out to tea at six was a all the ecclesiastical advantages on the other wonderful cold plunge for the young man, side, and make for himself a position of the who had been looking forward to Mr. highest influence in his new sphere. How Wodehouse's capital dinners and the charmthe eyes of the young enthusiast were opened ing breakfasts of the pretty Lady Western; to the indifference of Society to Dissenting but he smiled over the note of invitation ministers, and the intolerable bondage of written by Phoebe, the butterman's daughhis position as pastor of Salem Chapel, is ter, and went in a patronizing frame of the main interest of the Chronicle.' mind, expecting quite a pleasant study of manners amongst the good homely people. And in that he was not disappointed.

Mrs. Oliphant has given a loose rein to her liveliest powers of satire in this story, and Dissenters have laughed as much as other readers at the exaggerated fun of her caricatures. There are, undoubtedly, busy bodies and small social tyrants, pests of ministers' lives, in all little communities, and patrons and patronesses of the most signal unpleasantness. There are literates in the Church, now-a-days, whose offences against grammar quite equal those of the young man from Homerton,' from whose taking discourse the letter h was conspicuously absent. But is it right or fair to hold the vulgar literate as a specimen of the Church of England curate furnished by the Universities, or the conceited Dissenting preacher, with his defect of speech, as a specimen of the men whom Homerton, under its learned President, Dr. Pye Smith, sent out, after a six years' training, into the Congregational ministry? It is as preposterous as it is unfair. With a more accurate knowledge of the class she was describing, Mrs. Oliphant would have made her portraits of Dissenting ministers more faithful and also more effective.

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Tozer, who awaited the minister at the door, black and the white tie, which produced so solwas fully habited in the overwhelming suit of and the men of the party were, with a few emnizing an effect every Sunday at chapel; varieties, similarly attired. But the brilliancy of the female portion of the company overpowered Mr. Vincent. Could these be the veritable womankind of Salem Chapel? Mr. Vincent saw bare shoulders and flower-wreathed heads bending over the laden tea-table. He saw pretty faces and figures not inelegant, remarkable among which was Miss Phoebe's, who had written him that pink note, and who was herself pink all over-dress, shoulders, elbows, cheeks, and all... . As for the men, the lawful owners of all this feminine display, they huddled all together, indisputable cheese-mongers that they were, quite transcended and distinguished by their wives and daughters. The pastor was young, and totally inexperienced. In his heart he asserted his own claim to an entirely different sphere. He was shy of venturing upon those fine women, who surely never could be Mrs. Brown, of the Devonshire dairy, and Mrs. Pigeon, the poulterer's wife; whereas Pigeon and Brown themselves were exactly like what they always were on Sundays, if not perhaps a trifle graver, and more depressed in their minds.

The new minister is the son of a minister, who has no private means, and whose mother and sister live in humble obscurity at Ashford. In his first flush of confidence, "Here's a nice place for you, Mr. Vincent he has blissful ambitious dreams, which even - quite the place for you, where you can hear Mr. Tozer, the butterman, and the other all the music, and see all the young ladies; for I do suppose ministers, bein' young, are like chapel managers cannot dissipate. He imagines the aristocratic doors of George aside her brilliant skirts, to make room for him other young men," said Mrs. Tozer, drawing Lane flying open to welcome him, and the on the sofa. "I have a son myself as is at coldormant minds of the dwellers in those se- lege, and feel mother-like to those as go in the rene places rousing up at the fire of his same line. Sit you down comfortable, Mr. Vineloquence. He is handsome, has talent, cent. There ain't one here, sir, I'm proud to and is well-educated and enlightened in say, as grudges you the best seat." "Oh, his fashion, but entirely ignorant of any mamma, how could you think of saying such a

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thing?" said Phoebe, under her breath; "to be tell Brown. For if there's one thing I can't sure, Mr. Vincent never could think there was abear in a chapel it's one set setting up above anybody anywhere that would be so wicked the rest. But bein' all in the way of business, and he the minister." "Indeed, my dear," except just the poor folks, as is all very well in said Mrs. Pigeon, who was close by, "not to their place, and never interferes with nothing, I affront Mr. Vincent, as is deserving of our best don't count there's nothing but brotherly love respects, I've seen many and many's the minis- here, which is a deal more than most ministers ter I wouldn't have given up my seat to; and I can say for their flocks. I've asked a few friends don't misdoubt, sir, you've heard of such as to tea, Mr. Vincent, on next Thursday, at six. well as we. There was Mr. Bailey, at Parson's As I haven't got no daughters just out of a Green, now. He went and married a poor bit boarding-school to write notes for me, will you of a governess, as common-looking a creature as take us in a friendly way, and just come without you could see, that set herself up above the another invitation? All our own folks, sir, and people, Mr. Vincent, and was too grand, sir, if a comfortable evening; and prayers, if you'll you'll believe me, to visit the deacons' wives. be so good at the end. I don't like the new Nobody cares less than me about the vally of fashion," said Mrs. Brown, with a signifithem vain shows. What's visiting, if you know cant glance at Mrs. Tozer, "of separatin' like the vally of your time? Nothing but a laying heathens, when all's of one connection. We up of judgment. But I wouldn't be put upon might never meet again, Mr. Vincent. In the neither by a chit that got her bread out of yours midst of life, you know, sir. You'll not forget and my husband's hard earnings; and so I told Thursday, at six." "But, my dear Mrs. my sister, Mrs. Tozer, as lives at Parson's Brown, I am very sorry; Thursday is one of the Green." "Poor thing!" said the gentler Mrs. days I have specially devoted to study," stamTozer. "It's hard lines on a minister's wife to mered forth the unhappy pastor. "What with please the congregation. Mr. Vincent here, the Wednesday meeting and the Friday comhe'll have to take a lesson. That Mrs. Bailey mittee' Mrs. Brown drew herself up as was pretty-looking, I must allow." "Sweetly well as the peculiarities of her form permitted, pretty!" whispered Phoebe, clasping her plump and her roseate countenance assumed a deeper pink hands. "Pretty-looking! I don't say glow. "We've been in the chapel longer than anything against it, continued her mother; Tozer," said the offended deaconess. "We've "but it is hard upon a minister, when his wife never been backward in taking trouble, ncr will take no pains to please his flock. To have spending our substance, nor puttin' our hands people turn up their noses at you ain't pleasant.' to every other good work; and as for makin' a "And them getting their living off you all the difference between one member and another, it's time," cried Mrs. Pigeon, clinching the milder what we ain't been accustomed to, Mr. Vincent. speech. "But it seems to me," said poor Vin- I'm a plain woman, and speak my mind. Old cent," that a minister can no more be said to Mr. Tufton was very particular to show no get his living off you than any other man. He preference. He always said it never answered works hard enough generally for what little he in a flock to show more friendship to one nor has. And really, Mrs. Tozer, I'd rather not another; and if it had been put to me, I hear all these unfortunate particulars about one wouldn't have said, I assure you, sir, that it of my brethren." "He ain't one of the brethren was us as was to be made the first example of. now," broke in the poulterer's wife. He's If I haven't a daughter fresh out of boardingbeen gone out o' Parson's Green this twelve-school, I've been a member of Salem five-andmonths. Them stuck-up ways may do with the twenty years, and had ministers in my house Church folks as can't help themselves, but many's the day, and as friendly as if I were a they'll never do with us Dissenters. Not that duchess; and for charities and such things, we ain't glad as can be to see you, Mr. Vincent, we've never been known to fail.". . . Such was and I hope you'll favour my poor house another the Salem Chapel connection and its require night like your favouring Mrs. Tozer's. Mr. ments; and such was Mr. Vincent's first expeTufton always said that was the beauty of Car-rience of social life in Carlingford.' lingford, in our connection. Cheerful folks, and no display. No display, you know—nothing but a hearty meeting, sorry to part, and happy to meet again. Them's our ways. And the better you know us, the better you'll like us, I'll be bound to say. We don't put it all on the surface, Mr. Vincent," continued Mrs. Pigeon, shaking out her skirts, and expanding herself on

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her chair; "but it's all real and solid; what we

say we mean — and we don't say no more than
we mean- - and them's the kind of folks to trust
to wherever you go."
"We never have
had nobody in our connection worth speaking
of in Carlingford but's been in trade," said
Mrs. Brown; "and a very good thing too, as I

The visit of the young minister to the old man he had superseded is as admirable as Mrs. Tozer's tea-party. Mr. Tufton strikes us as quite the proper type of pastor for such a flock. His counsel to his ambitious, ardent successor is excellent. We almost hear him speak as he raises his fat forefinger Be careful, my dear and slowly shakes it. brother; you must keep well with your deacons, you must not take up prejudices against them. Dear Tozer is a man of a thousand a man of a thousand! Dear Tozer, if you listen to him, will keep you

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out of trouble. The trouble he takes and the money he spends for Salem Chapel is, mark my words, unknown—and,' added the old pastor, awfully syllabling the long word in his solemn bass, in-con-ceiv-able.' Adelaide Tufton, the minister's daughter, a dreadful shrewd invalid, like a malign parrot, predicts that Mr. Vincent will not last out two years under the chapel managers, and when we hear the much-lauded Mr. Tozer aspiring to rule in the pulpit as well as in the vestry, we begin to agree with her. I'm very partial to your style, Mr. Vincent,' said the deacon; there's just one thing I'd like to observe, sir, if you'll excuse me. I'd give 'em a coorse; there's nothing takes like a coorse in our connection. Whether it's on a chapter or a book of scripture, or on a perticklar doctrine, I'd make a point of giving 'em a coorse if it was me. There was Mr. Bailey, of Parson's Green, as was so popular before he married-he had a historical coorse in the evenings, and a coorse upon the eighth of Romans in the morning and it was astonishing to see how they took. .' The deacon's version of this poor minister's dismissal is a caution for Mr. Vincent, who asks the reason why of his going. Tozer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. All along of the women: they didn't like his wife; and my own opinion is he fell off dreadful. and the managers found the chapel falling off, and a deputation waited on him; and to be sure he saw it his duty to go.'

his farewell oration to his flock he sums up the opinions of Nonconformity, which are all his brief experience has left him.

"I am one of those who have boasted in my day that I received my title of ordination from traditionary church, but from the hands of the no bishop, from no temporal provision, from no first, when you were all disposed to praise me, people. Perhaps I am less sure than I was at that the voice of the people is the voice of God; but, however that may be, what I received from you I can but render up to you. I resign into your hands your pulpit which you have erected with your money, and hold as your property. I cannot hold it as your vassal. If there is any truth in the old phrase which calls a church a cure for souls, it is certain that no cure of souls can be delegated to a preacher by the souls themselves who are to be his care. I find my old theories inadequate to the position in which I find myself, and all I can do is to give up the am either your servant, responsible to you, or post where they have left me in the lurch. I God's servant, responsible to Him-which is it? I cannot tell; but no man can serve two masters, as you know.”’

'A Church of the Future, an ideal corporation, grand and primitive, shone before his eyes, as it shines before so many; but in the meantime the Nonconformist went into literature, as was natural, and was, it was believed in Carlingford, the founder of the "Philosophical Review," that new 'organ of public opinion.' The golden vision of the enthusiastic young minister, what is it but the grand old medieval theory born again? A church free above the world and universal - - and so in the round of ages extremes meet, the earth swings on, but human mature never changes, and there is no new thing under the sun.

The young minister follows the butterman's advice about the coorse,' and soon fills the chapel to overflowing; but he suffers his heart to go madly astray after that bright particular star' of the highest Carlingford society, Lady Western, and that is an irretrievable blunder. There is some- Our remarks on the famous Chronicles thing ludicrous as well as painful in his pas- of Carlingford' have run out to so great a sion, which brings him nothing but mortifi- length that we must sum up briefly what we cation and grief. The enthusiasm of pretty have to say about the writer's other works. Phoebe Tozer and her compeers is lost on We regret this the less because Mrs. Olihim, and general discontent in the connection phant does not provoke to much variety of results. The flock rebels, and when the criticism. When we have said that her Enpastor falls into trouble, falls away from glish is good, her method diffuse, her sarhim all but Tozer, that man of a thou-castic vein excellent, her moral tone unimsand,' and his family. These improbable peachable, we have said almost all there is events and others, not connected with the chapel business, but mixed in with it by the dexterous art of the story-teller, bring on the scene one of the best characters in the Blackwood' that it is hers or not hers. book Vincent's proud, brave, discreet By the time we have read half way through little mother. But the crisis is past her if we are no longer in doubt, but she has management, and her discretion and valour not the individuality by which we can assert avail only to secure for her son a dignified at once, This is Mrs. Oliphant's — her retreat from Carlingford. Disappointed in his love, disgusted with his vocation, he determines to resign his pastorate, and in VOL. XIII. 569

LIVING AGE.

to say of her style. It is not so strongly characterized that we can ever declare with certainty on taking up a new story in

mark.'

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Some years before the Chronicles' there appeared in 'Blackwood' a charming group

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of shorter stories of which we retain the | nent place amongst the biographies of napleasantest recollections; of these 'Katie tional worthies. We will not do it so ill a Stewart,' and The Quiet Heart' were the service as to treat of it at the fag end of an chief. 6 Zaidée,' and The Athelings' were article; we will but quote the criticism of a amongst Mrs. Oliphant's earlier pictures of shrewd old woman of the cottage class, who English society, and amongst her most re- having read leisurely through it from the first cent are Madonna Mary,' and Agnes,' word to the last, remarked: "That's a real both tales of sorrow. In A Son of the good book, and very interesting;" and then Soil,' she goes back to Scottish ground and wiping her spectacles, moved her mark backher most serious vein; and in the Brown- wards and added, "I'll read it over again.” lows,' her last published work, we detect a It will indeed bear reading over again many slight flavour of Carlingford. times, and in a cheaper form would, we think, achieve the popularity it certainly merits.

Besides her novels by which she is most widely known, Mrs. Oliphant has written a Life of Irving,' which deserves a perma

pretty much what it was before the Union.
Now, if it would be the height of ignorance to
mistake the Spaniard's courtesy that declares
his house, his cellar, his picture-gallery, and
his gardens are at your service; that his greatest
happiness consists in knowing that you deem
them worthy of acceptance, and that the honour
of being your servant is a pride which he finds
it even difficult to realize to his imagination-I
say, if it would be gross ignorance to believe
that all this meant more than the polite form of
a very polished people, and actually stood for a
legal tender so in like manner, but less in
degree, is it a capital blunder to suppose that
Irishmen are half as reckless, half as unthrifty,
half as cordial, or half as terrible, as their lan-
guage would imply; and it would be as down-
right cruelty to make an honest Hibernian
responsible for his words, when under an attack
of Delirium Tonans, as to go down to Hanwell
and prosecute the patients for their expressions
under Lord Campbell's Act.
Blackwood's Magazine.

DELIRIUM TONANS. Tertian and low fever are not more endemic in the Pontine Marshes than what is called "tall talk". -the specific disease of Ireland. Whether we derive the habit of it from our Phoenician origin, whether it came to us with our round towers, or whether we cultivate the practice as one that harmonizes well with a brogue, I cannot say; but that we love it, that we indulge in its use, that it forms one of the delights of our domestic life, and one of the chief attractions of our public meetings, is not to be denied. Irishmen are the victims of that terrible malady that is characterized by a sort of sub-acute raving, and may, for want of a better name, be called "Delirium Tonans." Until English people come to know this- until they are brought to see that we are not so violent, so impulsive, so reckless, or, indeed, so generally dangerous as our ordinary language would bespeak us, there will be no end to the blunders they will make in legislating for us. Everything with us of good or evil partakes of this tone of exaggeration, which is not misleading to ourselves, for it is a coinage we are used to; but is sorely perplexing to a people who do not habitually resort to superlatives, and pass the greater part of their lives in the cold and cheerless atmosphere of unadorned fact. We A TOPIC of conversation in French Governhave all of us felt the sense of half shame that mental circles at this moment is the discovery attends being addressed in Italy as "illustris- of a substance the destructive effects of which simo" and "ornatissimo," fully conscious the far exceed the terrible force of picrate of potaswhile that we were neither of the one or the sium. Some experiments are said to be about other; but habit rendered us dulled to being to take place with it at Cherbourg.

deemed worthy of these epithets, and we ended by thinking that, like people who enjoy an exceptional rank in certain latitudes, and are brigadiers in the tropics but subalterns at home, we could be illustrious and ornate on the Arno, and yet very humble creatures on the Thames. A similar lesson has to be learned by those who would sojourn in Ireland. They are to know that, though an Act of Parliament could assimilate the coinage, it could not equalize the conversation, and that language in Ireland remains

COD-FISH skin, heretofore considered quite worthless and given away to any one who would take the trouble to haul it, is now, after having been ground fine, to be used as a fertilizer. This new kind of guano is said to be free from the disagreeable odour of the ordinary fish manure.

CHAPTER I.

BOOK XII.
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXECUTION.

ON the journey to the capital, Sonnen kamp and Pranken were astonished at Roland's fluency and mental activity; he was the only one who expressed himself freely, for both Sonnenkamp and Pranken could not entirely repress a feeling of anxiety. They appeared to be so confidential and open with each other, and yet Sonnenkamp was continually asking himself: Do you know it? and Pranken, on the other hand: Do you know that I know it?

But neither of them spoke out. How were they to do it? Pranken wanted, when the revelation took place, to appear as the innocent, the ignorant, the deluded individual; he had been imposed upon, he as well as the rest of the world, and more than all, the Prince himself. The Prince had conferred the title of nobility-how was Pranken to do otherwise than confide in the man!

Sonnenkamp on the contrary was undecided, and he was glad that Pranken was determining everything; it was no longer a question of will, all was settled and must proceed.

He looked through the coach-door every now and then, and put out his hand, as if he were going to lay hold of the handle, spring out and flee. What a bold game it was he was trying his hand at! He was angry with himself that, close upon the last critical moment, he allowed a feeling of apprehension to come over him. He could not help declaring to Pranken that he felt very much excited. Pranken thought this quite natural, for elevation to the nobility is no small affair. And now, in the conversation that took place, Sonnenkamp discovered the cause of his timidity. Those Huguenots, mother, aunt, and son, with their double-distilled transcendental notions, had brought around him an element of weakness; it would be as well to throw them aside, politely, of course, but they must go their way, like instruments that have done their work, like paid-off workmen.

In this thought of casting something from him, there was a sense of power which restored him to himself once more.

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reached the capital. Roland went to bed directly. Pranken took his leave, saying that he had to make a necessary call.

"Don't forget that you are a bridegroom," Sonnenkamp cried out after him with a laugh.

For the first time in his life was Pranken troubled by such a jest; it hurt him because it came from Manna's father, and because he was really going on an errand very serious and moral in its nature and object; he was going to the house of the Dean of the cathedral.

The house was in the garden behind the . cathedral, hidden from the whole world, and amidst a quiet that was never broken by the bustle of the capital.

Pranken rang, a servant opened the door, and Pranken was not a little astonished at hearing himself instantly called by name.

The servant was the soldier whom he had employed for some little time as an attendant. He received Pranken's commission to inform him personally the next morning, at the Victoria Hotel, whether the Dean could receive him alone at eleven o'clock.

Pranken turned away, and he smiled, when, still thinking of his father-in-law's admonition, he stopped before a certain house. He knew it well, the pretty, quiet house that he himself had once furnished, the carpeted stairs, the banisters with their stuffed velvet, and everything so cosy, the bell up-stairs with its single note, the cool ante-chamber full of green plants, the parlor so cheerful, the carpets, and the furniture of the same pattern of silk throughout, a green ground and yellow garland. Pranken liked the national colors even here. In the corner stands an alabaster angel holding in its hand a fresh bunch of flowers every day. Many a time too, the angel has to bear a woman's jaunty hat, and many a time too a man's hat. And then the door-curtains. Who is laughing behind them? No, he passes on.

He stopped at a shop window with large panes of glass; when going to that cosy little house, he had always brought with him from this shop some trifle, some comical little thing - there are many new things of that kind in it now; he enters and purchases the very latest.

The young salesman looks at him inquiringly, Pranken nods and says:

You can show me everything." And then the hidden treasures of the establishment are shown to him; he does not take anything, however, but says that he will make a purchase some other time, and goes off with his trifle.

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