vocation. With all his shortcomings, however, D'Orsay was not without his good qualities, as they who knew him best constantly assert. He was not as void of feeling as Theodore Hook, who, at a noble dinner-table where Jack Reeve's funeral was spoken of, remarked: "Yes, I was out that day; I met him in his private box going to the pit."

One of Chorley's dearest friends was, strangely enough, a man who had no music in his soul, and perhaps the last man one would have expected to "fraternise" with the musical critic. We allude to the boldly-thinking, philosophic Sir William Molesworth, of whom Chorley records that "after the first performance of 'Le Prophète' he never again entered his own opera-box, driven thence, he said (and, I suspect, not averse to the excuse), by the psalmody of the three Anabaptists." Perhaps the most painful portrait in the gallery is that of Campbell, whom Chorley describes in 1837 as "a little man with a shrewd eye and a sort of pedagoguish, parboiled voice. . . It would be hard to name an author of any country whose personality was more entirely at variance with his poetry than his . . ." ." To the terrible deterioration which took place in Campbell's later time Chorley refers when speaking of his "paltry conversation, when it was not coarsened by convivial excesses to a point which would not to-day be endured, were the poet thrice as god-like as he was." Campbell, it must be noted, was not a solitary drinker; he drank (too much) in good company. He died, neglected and forgotten, at Boulogne. But, with all his faults, we have more respect for the author of The Pleasures of Hope than for Rogers, the poet of The Pleasures of Memory.' There was another once celebrated personage who died in neglect at Boulogne, but who, before he made his exit, conformed to the Roman Catholic Church, namely, Alfred Bunn. Chorley writes him down as "that arch-blackguard Bunn," referring to an interview with that theatrical potentate. "He had been burning pastilles in his room. I thought of the devil getting up incense to overcome the smell of brimstone." This is rather of the rascal aspect. In the next order are the old hoaxers, an extinct race; but examples are to be met with, of course, in the narrative of a life which runs threescore years backwards. Of this race was a certain colonel whose name we are sorry that we cannot gibbet. He sent invitations to a Sunday dinner, in the name of the clergyman of Newton-in-the-Willows, to some poor starved mountebanks who had been exhibiting in the town, and he posted himself so as to see their disappointed faces on leaving the parsonage. But he was disappointed, for the good parson kept them all, and fed the hungry strollers well.

Perhaps the dearest of all Chorley's friends was Dickens. The letters of the latter are full of good sense and fun. As a sample of the former, take his advice to Chorley, who had been lecturing at the

Royal Institution, rather dully, on National Music:' "A spoken sentence will never run alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its most insignificant member. See it well out with the voice, and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier." Of the fun there are many samples. In one of the last letters written by Dickens to Chorley he refers to alterations at Gad's Hill: "The improvements solicit inspection; among them a toy stable, which has the air of being made for horses on wheels, with fur manes and tails. Bring a rocking-horse with you, and it shall have the best stall of state."

The social as well as the individual characteristics of the time. through which Chorley lived are well marked. It will surprise some to be told that, when Bonaparte escaped from Elba, "nine out of ten Dissenting men and women were Bonapartists." It seems like a leaf out of an old novel to read of Chorley's mother being called in to mediate among the relatives of a deceased wealthy old lady, "who were at daggers drawn which should inherit the silk gown.' That was a time when it was inevitable, for the honour of the family, when a member of it was buried, to give a sort of solemn but sumptuous dinner, though "ruin was in it." This custom is no longer observed; neither is the condition of country families in these railroad days to be anywhere described as "a family of sisters, who had among them some beauty, a little music, skill in needlework, and one who had been in London." It is to be noted that forty or fifty years ago, there were not above two ladies in Liverpool who could attempt a Beethoven sonata ! But there were some happy features in the social life of a generation or so ago. Shall we ever again see the nights of light suppers, gay talk, bright sense, jovial nonsense, and clear-headed to-morrows? Are the days entirely gone by when half a dozen friends often sat round a beautifully white-draped table, on which succeeded fish, a joint, a tart, with good wine standing by, and the dessert on the brightly polished mahogany, which reflected your features as in an untroubled stream? Such days had not gone by when Procter wrote to Chorley to come to dinner "to-morrow, at a quarter past five, quietly.. If you come, and pray do, you will see-besides my wife and myself a piece of fish, a ditto of meat, and a ditto of pie (or pudding), and the Illustrious Chevalier Sigismond Neukomm, who is about to leave this unholy island on Wednesday for the sanctities of Paris." This joyous, simple, old-world sort of spirit is also to be found in a letter from Darley, the critic. Writing to Chorley on some literary matter, Darley went on to say, 'Being such near neighbours, I think we should try the extent of each other's hospitality. Mine goes as far as a breakfast of tea and coffee, two eggs (or an equivalent broil), and buttered rolls ad libitum. . . . Had you rather have an evening rout?" It often happened, of course, that extreme vulgarity

per

was to be found in the last place where it was to be expected. We have an instance in the case of a so-called noble earl, who bluntly asked the rich Duke of Ossuna "what his income amounted to"! The Spanish grandee answered, "My lord, I am not acquainted with your English money." We remember something better of Prince Esterhazy, whom Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, was leading through his celebrated flocks of sheep, as one of the sights on his estate. Proud of their possession, Coke asked the Prince if he had as many sheep on his Hungarian estates, and the Prince replied, "Mr. Coke, I have as many shepherds as you have sheep!" Again, with reference to vulgarity in the upper classes, it was strikingly illustrated in the son of Rogers. He took a cruel delight in making Chorley feel small and uncomfortable. This is just what a true gentleman would not do; for it is part and parcel of a gentleman never to wound the feelings or the susceptibilities of any other person, whether of higher or of lower social quality. But, at a dinner of eight, at which the poet and the critic were present, Rogers would ask, loud enough to be generally heard, "Who is that young man with red hair?" The answer would be "Mr. Chorley," &c. &c. "Never heard of him before," was the rejoinder. We have, however, a much worse example of the vulgarity of Rogers. Chorley (at a concert) was sitting next to Miss Stephens (Countess of Essex). "Rogers loved to sit next her," says Chorley, "and pay her those elegant and courteous compliments, the art of paying which is lost. When I saw the old gentleman creeping down the side avenue at a loss for a seat, I said, 'Now I shall give up my place to Mr. Rogers. Good-night.' While I was stooping for my hat, 'Come,' said she, in her cordial way, 'come, Mr. Rogers, here's a seat for you by me.' Thank you,' said the civil old gentleman, fixing his dead eyes upon me, as I was doing my best to get out of his way, thank you; but I don't like your company?'

·

There was worse company in London, if Chorley's own account may be trusted. We suspect, however, that he was fastidious. To him "funny people" were detestable. He could bear Hood, but he hated James Smith, of the Rejected Addresses,' with his "Garrick Club talk," and the trick of "whistling the airs of his odious comic songs" during a theatrical performance. This is somewhat supercilious, and when it is remembered that Haynes Bayly and Chorley were sometimes bracketed, as equals in poetry, we may perhaps account for the sketch of Bayly and his wife at a fancy ball in 1838. "Till I saw them I never understood the full force of the reproach of Bath fashion; tawdry, airy, sentimental, vulgar; he with a pen-and-red-ink complexion, and a hyacinthine Romeo wig, dancing and behaving prettily to all the little girls in the room; she, in an old French dress, rouged, fade, haggard: what a pair of shabby old butterflies!"

Of criticism and the ways of critics there were some few examples.

VOL. XL.

H

In the past generation was founded the axe and scalpel school. Then came the period when a paper depended for popularity on the severity, not on the justice, of its articles. If an author was not put to the torture, the tender public was, like the French judge's wife, disappointed at having no tale of horror to gratify the feelings. Talfourd writes to Chorley: "It has happened to me, when writing dramatic criticisms for the New Monthly,' not merely to see my friends attacked by the editors, but to have my own article of eulogy altered into censure." This sort of dirty work has been gone through since then, in papers which are read for the pleasure of finding a man "slated.' Some recent investigations at the Mansion House, in the Clement Scott business, proved that criticism, or rather critics, may be susceptible of great improvements. On the other hand, some authors would have the critical bowl of punch without any lemon at all, nothing but sugar. Chorley's experience in this matter was that "few have admitted the right of private judgment so grudgingly as the most advanced Liberals; few have been so despotic in their partisanship." In some cases Chorley was himself mistaken; for instance, of Wordsworth and Byron he said: "The former is only coming to his fame (I mean among the good and worthy); the latter almost lived his out before he died." What is the case now? Byron has "gone ahead,” in spite of calumny, and the other day there was not a single copy of Wordsworth's works to be found in any bookseller's shop of Wordsworth's native town! Nevertheless, both these great poets will live in their works. Chorley's opinion of Macready is nearer the truth than the above of the two English poets, but it will not please the actor's idolaters: "However much Macready moves me at the time by the subtle intellect of his personifications, I am never much the better for it afterwards; never find a word, a look, an attitude, written on my heart." This could never be said of Edmund Kean, the last great master of this art, with whom, as Mrs. Fanny Kemble remarks, died Shylock, Richard, and Othello.

The critical judgment that finds expression in the fewest words generally carries with it more than can be found in verbose paragraphs. Thus, we find an occasion when the elder Disraeli was struggling with an exposition of how Shakespeare did not obtain public regard as speedily as Ben Jonson (quite a mistake, by-the-way), and Landor struck in with, "Yes, Mr. Disraeli, the oak and the ebony take a long time to grow up and make wood, but they last for ever."

We turn now to the more agreeable subject of the ladies. We have all heard of what a poet calls "Pretty Fanny's way," and some of us may remember reading of Lady Londonderry appearing at a court ball in Vienna, with her husband's order of the garter, and its diamonded device of "Honi soit," &c., round her brow. Quite as singular was an American captain's wife, who was made much of

in Liverpool, and who figured at parties (when a gold chain and a ferronière on the forehead were in fashion) with a small French watch on her brow, "the hands of which went round, and which ticked in an excruciating manner." Lady Morgan, in her ways and words, was as eccentric as the Marchioness. "I remember her," writes Chorley, "at one of those wondrous gatherings, where the crowd was great and the drawing-room was crammed, breaking through a company of men who had perched on an upper staircase, sitting down, and crying aloud, 'Here I am, in the midst of my seraglio.' She never shocked decorum, though very free of speech. We remember being led by her. up to a collection of miniature portraits of ladies of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. "There they are," she exclaimed, "a dozen beautiful creatures, and not an honest woman among them!" There was something of the graceful French actress in her, when, for instance, she would not arrive at a dinner-party till the guests were all seated. Then, enter miladi, and there she stood for a moment in the doorway, to be looked at, gently working her fan, and moving smilingly to her chair, with a "Hope that nobody will disturb themselves on my account." The acting was quite in the style of French comedy, where Sydney, Lady Morgan, had probably caught it. She would do all sorts of queer things, and make all sorts of bold assertionsto the extent of once declaring that she had taught Taglioni to dance an Irish jig. Nevertheless, there was something genuine in her character; and she was not afraid to ask, "Who was Jeremy Taylor?" on reference being once made to that celebrated divine. On another occasion, Lady Morgan mistook the stately, grave, and accomplished Mrs. Sarah Austen for Miss Jane Austin, complimenting her on her novels, and especially on her 'Pride and Prejudice.'

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The Miss Berrys (Walpole's friends) do not look quite so attractive in this company as in society described in other books. They reminded Chorley of Frenchwomen of the olden time, rouged, with the remains of some beauty, and managing large fans, like the Flirtillas, &c. &c., of Ranelagh, and besetting Macready about the womanly proprieties of the character of Pauline, in The Lady of Lyons,' till one thought of the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes.' On one occasion, when Mr. Landor was famous for the most famous of his works, on his name being passed round in their circle by some enterprising guest, Miss Berry said: "Mr. Landor? what has he written ?" Lady Morgan, rouged and managing her fan, and asking who was Jeremy Taylor, did not show greater ignorance than the modern Flirtilla.

Let us add to this subject of the ladies a word or two as to Chorley's position among them.

Though Chorley was a plain man (he calls himself 'ugly,' and he