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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 MEPHISTOPHELES IN 
 BROADCLOTH.
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF GEORGE 
 FRANCIS ARMSTRONG. 
 
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 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 IN 
 
 BROADCLOTH: 
 
 A SATIRE. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE FRANCIS ARMSTRONG, 
 
 M.A., D.LIT. 
 
 " II y a dans les discours de Mephistopheles une ironie infernale 
 qui porte surla creation tout entiere, et juge l'univers comme un 
 mauvais livre dont le diable se fait le censeur." — De Stael. 
 
 " The Enemy, like a modern gentleman, 
 
 Still walks the earth with hungry ears. Beware ! " 
 
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 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET 
 18S8. 
 
 [All rights reserved.]
 
 CHISWICK PRESS!— C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE.
 
 
 MEPHISTOPHELES IN 
 BROADCLOTH. 
 
 T 'M somewhat weary, and a little sick, 
 
 Of wandering through this wilderness of brick ; 
 But here is Rotten Row, a famous place 
 Where worn-out London flaunts its blase face ; 
 And here the meanest man that wears a coat 
 May see the world go by him for a groat. . . 
 Dear blooming beauties ! . . Let me take a chair, 
 And sit with idle gentlemen, and stare. . . 
 
 It is not oft allowed me for a spell 
 To quit the lower for the upper hell, 
 Yet Evil's ends are satisfied as well — 
 
 705363
 
 2 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 The world, I find, on looking round about me, 
 Goes to the Devil very well without me. 
 
 But, recently, by some mysterious shove, 
 The trap-door opened, and I came above ; 
 And, though by gouty conscience still annoyed, 
 My little holiday I 've much enjoyed. 
 " Dear are the pleasures that are dearly earned ; " 
 And many things I 've noted, many learned. 
 So fast in Error's way these mortals go 
 By their example we '11 progress below. 
 
 So much I 've seen that, as 't is fashionable 
 For every babbler now to print his babble, 
 If I remain but three weeks more from home, 
 I also will produce a parchment tome. 
 I '11 print my observations line for line 
 So that the " reading public " here may see 'em, 
 
 And get 'em lauded in the A m 
 
 By asking in the Editor to dine.
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 3 
 
 'T is said to be outlandish now 's the way 
 To make your literary offspring pay. 
 But there are other crutches quite as mean 
 Whereon your lame and limping authors lean, — 
 As, joining some close clique or corporation 
 Banded to palm its produce on the Nation 
 And from Fame's temple carefully exclude 
 All writers of an independent mood — 
 Some mutually-congratulating club 
 Of poetasters, let us say, who snub, 
 Or patronize with condescending sneer, 
 At social gatherings where they most appear, 
 Or in the pages of their pet Reviews, 
 All bards that homage to the ring refuse. . . 
 By Heaven ! I '11 join a clique, the strongest faction 
 That draws the pressmen close with prime attraction, 
 Belaud the "great" among them, soothe the small. 
 Adore, delight, uphold, oblige them all, 
 Then launch my book, and in a trice arise 
 A leading author borne aloft on lies.
 
 4 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 No better road to fame could I propose. 
 Whether I clothe my thoughts in verse or prose 
 Is doubtful. Every man 's now called a poet 
 Who has a trumpet and a clique to blow it. 
 The name of poet 's hardly worth the seeking 
 Where every room with poetlings is reeking, 
 And every table with their volumes creaking. 
 True poets are a most unhappy race, 
 And oft their loftiest finds the lowest place. 
 I pity them — the proud and tender creatures — 
 Because they must with hard-grained tradesmen 
 
 deal, 
 With publishers of stern and icy features, 
 With butchers, chandlers, readers cold as steel, 
 The wretch that spoils their houses he upholsters, 
 Tailors whose bills are needles in their bolsters, 
 And — sharper to the touch than lancewood 
 
 splinters — 
 The printer's devils and the devil's printers. 
 A cheese breeds maggots and a poet critics ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 5 
 
 They stick as close as words and their enclitics. 
 Critics, those knaves of most obnoxious noses 
 That seem for ever conscious of queer smells 
 Where healthier people sniff the breath of roses, 
 Against their ban in vain the bard rebels. 
 
 Yet, were a choice of crowns before me laid, 
 I 'd choose the true bard's bays— they never fade. 
 I have a kindly leaning toward the tribe ; 
 They have a kindly leaning, too, toward me ; 
 And I am mindful of the smallest bribe 
 And faintest tribute to my vanity. 
 My name for ever ornaments their page, 
 I 've been their brightest hero many an age, 
 And still I linger on the lyric stage. 
 I 'm very grateful to divinest Dante, 
 And Virgil who with most benign intent 
 Led him enraptured through my many ante- 
 Chambers, and taught him tortures to invent, 
 Which since I 've taken under my protection,
 
 6 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And find they suit my system to perfection. 
 
 To that grey edifice the Church of Grace 
 
 I also owe a thousand thousand thanks 
 
 For giving me so prominent a place 
 
 Among the sacred histrionic ranks 
 
 Of priests, disciples, dogs like Pontius Pilate, 
 
 Gay publicans no pharisee will smile at, 
 
 Barabbases, weak Peters, Caiaphases, 
 
 Judases, Josephs, cocks, and colts, and asses, 
 
 That throng the scenes of mediaeval plays, 
 
 And in the midst of whom, in holier days, 
 
 To coax the erring in her fold to dwell, 
 
 She deemed my presence indispensable, 
 
 So taught the bards my features to descry 
 
 And keep me alway in the public eye. 
 
 To whomso first devised the goodly tale 
 
 Of Faustus too my hymns will never fail. 
 
 Then that sublime boy-poet, Shakespeare's master, 
 
 Whose life was dashed with premature disaster, 
 
 Poor Kit, the victim of a Deptford knife
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 
 
 Raised to avenge a sweetheart or a wife, 
 Slain in the morn of glory, youth, and pleasure, 
 Immortal Marlowe, whose heroic measure 
 Rolls like the voice of waters on the ear — 
 He to my heart of heart as light is dear. 
 To him his land owes much, and I no less ; 
 He clothed me in the neatest-fitting dress. 
 But daily do I homage to thy name, 
 
 serene Milton, who, in spite of shame, 
 Exaltest me for ever ! When I read 
 
 Thy page my heart doth inly pine and bleed, 
 
 My spirit writhes in that fell agony 
 
 That heaved it in proud warfare to defy 
 
 The Eternal and disturb His tranquil reign, 
 
 And back returns the old remorseful pain. 
 
 Immortal Goethe in immortal song 
 
 Makes me immortal, but he makes me wrong ; 
 
 1 am not half the mean thing that he paints, 
 Nor half so clumsy when I tempt the saints ; 
 Indeed I seldom wander from my lair
 
 8 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 To goad a rascal or a saint to snare ; 
 
 I set the ball a-rolling long ago, 
 
 And Evil reigns though I remain below. 
 
 Yet to the Doctor I am much indebted ; 
 
 The appetite for sin he somewhat whetted ; 
 
 Some morals that he taught us I approve — 
 
 Men should be cruel to the things they love, — 
 
 That is, they should do with them what they please, 
 
 And study nothing but their own vile ease. 
 
 It well avails me, works an equal evil, 
 
 That men should worship Self as serve the Devil. 
 
 So, though he made me half contemptible, 
 
 I like Herr Doctor Goethe passing well ; 
 
 I profit by the prominence he gave me, 
 
 And thank him for much trouble he will save me. 
 
 But most of all love I your music, Burns, 
 
 Sad, gay and fierce and delicate by turns. 
 
 " Auld Nick " himself wept o'er your dying head 
 
 And sighed to soothe the roughness of your bed. 
 
 Ah Burns, poor thrall of love and joyous revel,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 9 
 
 Whate'er the Kirk may swear to be your due, 
 The Devil never can be hard on you 
 Who could not ev'n be hard upon the Devil ! 
 Others have worshipped me, but none like these 
 Whose homage was the heart's and not the 
 
 knee's ; 
 For Coleridge, while he loved not Evil, drew 
 With Southey's help my face of such a hue 
 That none who know me by the picture crude 
 Will shrink from meeting me in solitude ; 
 And Byron, while he served me faithfully 
 Through six-and-thirty years of ribaldry, 
 Did little to advance my tarnished fame, 
 And trifled with my venerable name ; 
 And Shelley, that frail soul so weak and winning, 
 Too guileless to perceive when he was sinning, 
 Blaspheming God for making me and Hell, 
 Deemed each a myth, though writing Peter Bell. . . 
 I had forgot a book that once oppressed us, — 
 That endless Festus Bailey's " Bailey's Festus"
 
 io MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And Golden Legends, and a score of other 
 
 Books that much sense in needless metre smother. . . 
 
 Enough ! The bards have honoured me, and given 
 The critics thoughts whereby their pens have 
 
 thriven. 
 At Edinburgh I said, "Before I pass on, 
 I '11 call upon the Scottish critic Masson, 
 And ask him, in a deferential tone, 
 Which of the devils now I most resemble, — 
 Luther's, or Milton's, Goethe's, or his own." 
 Even the Devil at critics well may tremble. 
 I called. His face was frigid as a stone. 
 Reception could not ever colder be. 
 His would be warmer should he visit me. 
 
 If by a preestablished harmony 
 I and the poets ever thus agree, 
 Should I attempt a book, I 'd best begin it 
 In verse. No matter then if nothing 's in it ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. n 
 
 It will the more resemble Swinburne's art — 
 
 11 Form for form's sake," — no jam inside the tart, — 
 
 To pass away like fashionable slang 
 
 Or bubbles blown by Mallock or by Lang, 
 
 Or rondeaux, sonnets, Provencal confetti 
 
 Still served up by the rump of the Rossetti ; 
 
 Ay, though I fail to join a clique, or scorn 
 
 Some influential pressmen to suborn, 
 
 To cite reviews yet know the man who wrote 'em 
 
 Is just my own paid agent and factotutn, 
 
 And though I ogle every Muse in vain, 
 
 I yet might touch the skirts of Gosse or Payne. . . 
 
 This gentleman hard by is such a prater 
 He must be some distinguished legislator. 
 Ah ! yes, I 've grown familiar with the species, 
 And know an eagle when among the geese he is. 
 I said, " In London I shall not omit 
 To see the Commons when the Commons sit." 
 I wished to watch them, with no purpose sinister,
 
 i2 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 So dropt a postcard to far-famed Minister, 
 
 Requesting of that pillar of the State 
 
 Simply an Order for the next Debate. 
 
 He sent an answer, but so strangely penned it 
 
 The more I read the less I comprehend it. 
 
 I cannot say that it is not effusive ; 
 
 'T is only somewhat nebulous and elusive : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I have received your note with pleasure 
 
 And read enough to see that at more leisure 
 
 The rest of it I shall not read in vain. 
 
 'T is clear the Tory moon is on the wane. 
 
 I think our common cause is wholly just. 
 
 In Providence I trust you put your trust. 
 
 Thanks for your interest in this Great Nation. 
 
 You have my prayers and best consideration." 
 
 I waited for the Order, but it came not. 
 
 And yet his ways ambiguous I blame not. 
 
 I am not of his party. Still he knows me 
 
 Too well to know not that he something owes me. 
 
 I taught him much, while yet he needed teaching ;
 
 (I 
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 13 
 
 Taught him to preach, not follow his own 
 
 preaching ; 
 Taught him that use of words he knows so well, 
 Nothing to leave unsaid, yet nothing tell ; 
 Taught him to wear his conscience on his sleeve, 
 Deceive the Nation and himself deceive ; 
 To read the Book in Church on Holy Days, 
 And when a Hero dies go see the plays ; 
 Before the sacred Table bend the knee, 
 And never to forgive an enemy ; 
 To flirt with faction, cut the State adrift, 
 Protest, explain, dodge, dive, elude and shift, 
 Eat his own words, and palter every hour, 
 On his own broken pledges climb to power, 
 Ignore his Queen, and, clad in saint's attire, 
 Drag his vexed country daily through the mire. 
 And so I do n't think he should play the actor 
 With his best friend and oldest benefactor. 
 
 But access to the Commons may be gained
 
 i4 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 By many ways that need not be explained. 
 Few know me when not clothed in black and red, 
 And fewer when the horns are off my head ; 
 Ev'n preachers threatening Satan with most fell 
 
 bow 
 Do n't see him when he 's standing at their elbow ; 
 So, passing for some Judge with state-paid salary, 
 I entered the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery, 
 And, sitting by a Rajah in that place, 
 I looked quite white beside his heathen face. 
 
 Who flouts the name of England, who ignores 
 Her banners waving o'er a thousand shores ? 
 What foe that ever with her prowess fought 
 The tempests of her onsets has forgot, 
 Or doubts the courage of her stubborn sons, 
 And cowers not at the thunder of her guns ? 
 Who fails the might of intellect to trace 
 In Shakespeare's, Milton's, Newton's, Darwin's 
 race?
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 15 
 
 Who deems her noblest energies are dead, 
 And every virtue from her heart hath fled ? 
 Not I ; and yet that senatorial show 
 Might lay the pride of all her children low. 
 There Britain's third-rate minds at dead of night 
 Or on, half-dozing, through the dawning light, 
 Exhausted, maddened with the unearthly noises 
 And howling hurricane of Irish voices 
 ('Mid which I heard the Speaker called a rogue 
 By someone shrieking in a Galway brogue), 
 Confused and addled, careless what they said 
 If only they could get at last to bed, 
 Were forging, in rage, hate and panic blended, 
 The laws whereon the Empire's fate depended ! . . 
 But this was some time since. Now all is changed. 
 The Commons' House in order is arranged ! . . 
 Fall of the Mighty ! — O, that ye should need your 
 Successive stringent New Rules of Procedure ! 
 The Public Houses close here at eleven — 
 The Commons' one hour later ! . . O great Heaven !
 
 1 6 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Where is the Saxon's boasted self-restraint, 
 The temperate calm his poets loved to paint ? 
 What fate degrades him or what cruel chance, 
 That he must go for curbs and gags to France ? . . 
 
 I gazed upon six hundred languid faces 
 Of legislators lolling in their places, 
 And sought in vain amid their ranks unblest 
 For England's wisest and for England's best. 
 Some honest folk among them I could note, 
 Just men who might as conscience bade them vote ; 
 Some stately souls that could not stoop to brawl ; 
 Some nobles that could more than yawn and 
 
 drawl ; 
 Some hats that rested not on empty heads ; 
 Some reputations not yet torn to shreds ; 
 Some graceful Plunkets 'mid the wild O'Triggers ; 
 Some Brights amid the Bradlaughs and the Biggars. 
 But where were England's thinkers? Where the 
 men
 
 IN BR OAD CI OTB. 17 
 
 That wield in pure devotion sword or pen ? 
 Where were the patriot souls that seek alone 
 Their country's weal and care not for their own ? 
 Far from the Senate's purlieus seemed to stand 
 The noblest and the ablest of the land ; 
 The strong, the God-made rulers of the realm 
 Renounced, and let the unworthier seize, the helm, 
 Cast statecraft and ambition to the winds, 
 And left the loathsome game to lower minds. 
 
 / murmured not at this. It gladdened me. . . 
 Speed, speed the ruin, O Democracy ! 
 Yes, round about the Witches' Cauldron go ; 
 Pour in the ingredients ; let them ranker grow. 
 Pour in the place-hunter whose wrongs are righted 
 If even he can boast that he 's been knighted ; 
 The craftier knave of more ambitious aim, 
 Content to crawl through sewers and sinks of 
 
 shame, 
 In hope to gain a seat among the Peers 
 
 c
 
 1 8 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 By eating mud through half-a-score of years, 
 
 Then stalk in robes and mimic dignity, 
 
 A full-fledged peer with purchased pedigree ; 
 
 Pour in the Jew that covets an alliance 
 
 With noble lords who greedily affiance 
 
 (For gold dishonouring an ancient stem) 
 
 Their daughters to the sallow sons of Shem ; 
 
 The lawyer next on selfish ends intent, 
 
 Who holds the House a ladder of ascent, 
 
 A rung, to clasp with momentary clench 
 
 Of hasty hands up-clambering to the Bench, 
 
 Who at the hustings vows his one desire 
 
 Is just to serve the State through flood and fire, 
 
 But ere his hustings speech has left the press 
 
 Issues his "valedictory address; " 
 
 Pour in the pimp, the publican, the sinner, 
 
 The grimy tramp that begs or steals his dinner, 
 
 The law-defier using as a hedge 
 
 His lofty legislator's " privilege," 
 
 The houseless lodger lately made a voter, 
 
 Content till now to breakfast on a bloater,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 19 
 
 The burglar fattening on his neighbour's ale, 
 The shaven convict just emerged from jail ; 
 Pour in the whole bad brood become notorious 
 By doing things outrageous and uproarious, 
 Till old King Mob his final feat achieves, 
 The House of Commons is a den of thieves. 
 Then let the once proud Empire, weak and blind, 
 Ruled by brute motives and a drunkard's mind, 
 Lame, staggering, mocked by every whiffler's breath. 
 Reel down through degradation to its death. . . 
 
 Sweet consummation ! . . Nay, shall Good prevail, 
 And I once more in schemes of ruin fail ? . . 
 
 But see, a stir is yonder ! It might seem 
 Just a mere ripple on a tranquil stream. 
 The quiet people softly move aside 
 And leave the carriage-ways a moment wide, 
 And many turn a little round to see 
 Who 's coming through this concourse of the free. 
 It is the Prince. They like him. That is clear.
 
 20 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 The languid faces lighten far and near. 
 
 An English Prince, an English gentleman, 
 
 Kind, genial, brave. I heard the cheer that ran 
 
 Gathering from hill and vale and field and street, 
 
 When England's loyal hosts arose to greet 
 
 Their Sovereign's firstborn son, from tightening hand 
 
 Of Death snatched back to grace his native land, 
 
 As to the temple of the Living God 
 
 Beside his Royal Mother good he rode, 
 
 To thank the Power that stayed him from the grave ; 
 
 A shout that like the thunders of the wave 
 
 Rolling upon the stormy Labrador 
 
 Echoed around her Empire's leagues of shore. 
 
 I heard it in my murky halls, and knew 
 
 Death's aims were baffled, and my longings too. 
 
 I yearned to see destruction in the Isle, 
 
 The triumph of my most insidious guile, 
 
 A race of children nursed on Besant's milk, 
 
 The Church of Bradlaugh and the State of Dilke. 
 
 My hopes were dashed, as oft before they 'd been ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 21 
 
 England, still loyal to her peerless Queen, 
 Would guard the sacred treasure of her throne, 
 And yearn for law-fenced liberty alone. 
 Pass, Albert Edward, welcomed as you go 
 By every wholesome heart of high and low, 
 Prince, nursing no ambition in your breast 
 Except to see your Isle content and blest, 
 Foremost in every gentle deed of grace, 
 Gladdening the crowd with ever kindly face ! . . 
 On all sides round my traps are laid to lame him, 
 And if his foot should stumble, who shall blame 
 him ? . . 
 
 Ah year propitious ! Happy celebration 
 Of that which, 'mid Earth's boons that flame and 
 
 fleet, 
 Looks fairest in my heart's great desolation, — 
 Marriage, — of human lives the union sweet, 
 Love's perfect, tenderest, holiest harmony ! . . 
 Again the land rejoices. Many a knee
 
 22 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Is bent in prayer before that loftiest Throne 
 To which all bow whose hearts are not as stone, 
 To beg that endless blessings still may shower, — 
 Albert and Alexandra, — grace and power, 
 Glory and peace, upon your wedded liyes ! . . 
 O gentlest, fairest of all England's wives, 
 it it were mine to bless, could I to-day 
 Remember thy bright marriage-morn, nor pray, 
 As England prays, that every wind that blows 
 May bear thee life and strength, sweet Danish 
 rose . . 
 
 Think they I never know remorse or sorrow 
 For griefs of men from which my strength I borrow — 
 Ay, pain on pain to feel that out of Pain 
 Alone my fruitless triumphs I must gain ? 
 It is my doom to mock — no curse were fitter ; 
 But evermore the mocker's joys are bitter. . . 
 
 Certes, this is a pleasant place to sit,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 23 
 
 And watch the human frailties round me flit. 
 Lo, now, among the umbrellas and the sticks, 
 There struts the Bantam-Cock of Politics — 
 Spurs sharp as steel and beak made keen for fight 
 And blood-red comb and plumage fiery-bright ! 
 Too weak too lead, too fractious to be led, 
 Already half his flickering glory 's fled — 
 The press-proclaimed ambassador to Russia, 
 Boxed on the ears, in passing home, by Prussia ; 
 Yearning to leave on history's page just his mark, 
 He gains for guerdon a rebuff from Bismarck. 
 Foiled in his hope his Leader still to lead, 
 He stabbed his party in its hour of need, 
 And earned the cold curt comment of his Chief, — 
 
 "Goodbye, dear Schoolboy — (Thanks for this 
 relief.)"— 
 
 I almost chuckled when I read that Letter ; 
 
 Disraeli, or myself, could frame no better — 
 
 A huge sledge-hammer driving home a nail ; 
 
 A grain of barley flattened by a flail.
 
 24 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Yes, with the tyro chief compare the Master, 
 The true-born Premier with the premier-aster — 
 The One prepared to risk the Vessel's weal 
 In his hot haste to meddle with the wheel; 
 Prepared to see the Ship to ruin go 
 Rather than serve in peace and keep below ; 
 Or see her flung from billowy ridge to ridge 
 If he himself could stand not on the bridge ; 
 The Other willing, would it help the State, 
 To toil, a rival chief's subordinate — 
 A ruler planning only what might prove 
 Best for his country, not his own self-love; 
 A ponderous mind, not made for show or speed — 
 Not a lithe horse, like Dizzy (winged steed !), 
 Or young rogue Randolph few but fools will trust, 
 Or Gladstone backing in a cloud of dust ; 
 Rather a traction-engine, huge and broad, 
 Clattering with rough hard wheels along its road, 
 Good to crush stones with, not to leap or race, 
 Do useful work, but do it without grace. . .
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 25 
 
 Hold, hold ! — I cry with Goldsmith's Marlowe 
 here, 
 " No, hang it ! no, I won't be too severe ! " 
 When up in London for a holiday 
 Asperity will never be my way. 
 I grant the little Ishmaelite is clever, 
 Most capable of strenuous endeavour, 
 Courageous, quick of stroke, and keen of wit, 
 For dashing charges eminently fit, 
 Industrious, oftener rich than poor in tact, 
 A colt that never bucks if never backed. 
 With more of conscience and with less of vanity 
 His future may not prove a sad insanity. . . 
 
 I envy these great English, I confess, 
 Their fire-concealing vast impassiveness. 
 Last night upon a platform, mute and meek, 
 I sat to hear the Coming Premier speak. 
 The people rose and cheered the Cavendish. 
 Callous he stood, and gelid as a fish.
 
 26 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Then, when he spoke, each sentence seemed to 
 
 pass 
 Like some huge serpent moving through thick 
 
 grass, 
 Still onward trailing in the same slow fashion 
 Without one trace of art or touch of passion. 
 Not dexterous at undoing party ties, 
 Not easily swayed to break with old allies ; 
 No Derby, now a Whig and now a Tory ; 
 No fine Sir Robert ratting from vain-glory ; 
 No wavering child of fear, like good Trevelyan, 
 Clinging behind his Nurse upon a pillion ; 
 No shrill Carnarvon, sure to bolt and start, 
 Being all things "from the bottom of his 
 
 heart ; " 
 No Granville smiling off his country's honour 
 With every gem her bleeding heroes won her. 
 Against the old smooth-tongued Flatterer triply 
 
 mailed, 
 Steadfast when many a trusted spirit failed,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 27 
 
 Content to wait for power or to forego, 
 
 He stands unmoved whatever whirlwinds blow. 
 
 The cheers for Hartington had scarce subsided 
 When forward to the footlights Goschen glided. 
 How oft in England men of alien race 
 Seek more her honour, blush at her disgrace, 
 Delight her splendours more to glorify 
 Than the true children of her own grey sky ! 
 Lives there a stouter champion of her fame 
 Than German Goschen with his Jewish name ? 
 Not England's Israelite Ben Disraeli 
 Extolled her more than this Rhinelander's son. 
 Why, Britons, must enthusiasms repel ye ? 
 Is not your coldness rather overdone? 
 Most welcome after Hartington's chill platitudes 
 Were Goschen's heat and even Goschen's attitudes ; 
 Yes, having fed on ices to satiety, 
 Some cherry-brandy was a warm variety. 
 " Great " is a word too often misapplied
 
 28 MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 And must by me to Goschen be denied ; 
 But many things not small are still not great, 
 And Goschen is a bulwark of the State. 
 A keen clear mind, a tongue epigrammatic, 
 A man of fire amid a race phlegmatic ; 
 Strong in defence, determined in assault, 
 On Error's trail not often found at fault; 
 Half Liberal and half Conservative, 
 Content alone in just the mean to live. 
 To make a sort of semi-Coalition 
 It seemed an unavoidable condition 
 Some Whig must at the Tory Council sit. 
 What statesman for the hybrid seat were fit ? 
 'T is said that every bullet finds its billet ; 
 The seat is empty — Goschen, then, will fill it. 
 
 Uprose, when Goschen sat, that man of pith 
 The right Right Honourable Mr. Smith, 
 Whose fate it seems (however fair his dream is) 
 A Commoner to linger in extremis^
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 29 
 
 And never be, it matters not who else is, 
 Apotheosized quite and in excehis ; 
 But who, whatever sphere his soul inherits, 
 Will always be a man of many merits. 
 Too full of homely useful common-sense 
 To clothe a single thought in eloquence, 
 Welcome relief from Gladstonism and Dizziness, 
 Straightforward, truthful, honest man of business, 
 Plain English of the plainest English order, 
 Incapable of crossing Reason's border. 
 (Seeing distinctly just their noses' length, 
 They take weak sight for intellectual strength, 
 And poetry is folly, they agree, 
 Because it tells of things they cannot see.) — 
 Successor to the Churchills and Hicks-Beaches, 
 Better thy silence oft than half their speeches 
 
 1 
 
 But there goes he whom certain seasons back 
 The unworthier Irish nicknamed " Foxy Jack." 
 Yes, they had learned to fear his resolute sway.
 
 30 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And cowering at his foot rebellion lay. 
 I saw him oft in Dublin, riding by 
 With anxious face, but ever-fearless eye, 
 When on the unscathed assassin's weapon yet 
 The blood of Burke and Cavendish was wet, 
 When every hedgerow bore a crimson stain, 
 And murder lurked in every street and lane. 
 Erect he rode amid the sullen crowd, 
 Sad, careworn, sick, yet self-possessed and proud, 
 An English noble undismayed by death, 
 fit to have served the Great Elizabeth. 
 He grappled with a dark invisible foe, 
 He dragged him from his lair, he laid him low ; 
 A true-born soldier trained in Nature's school, 
 A true-born king, men said, foreframed for rule. 
 But who could dream that he who ruled to-day 
 To-morrow would his sceptre cast away, 
 The pilot who had saved the ship from wreck 
 Would cut its cables when he 'd left its deck ? 
 What wrought the change in Spencer ? Can it be,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 31 
 
 Unnerved at last, he sought his brain to free 
 
 From the dread vision of the murderer's knife, 
 
 And sighed for pleasures of a peaceful life ? 
 
 Or deemed he that no arm except his own 
 
 Could wield the sword that kept rebellion down, — 
 
 That, he being gone, remained no better shift 
 
 Than let the ungovernable country drift ? 
 
 Was it his own or other men's exertion 
 
 That brought about that singular " conversion ? " 
 
 Nay, was it but the Old Magician's wiles, 
 
 The tongue persuasive, the bewitching smiles, 
 
 The wand of Hawarden that with one light wave 
 
 Transformed him from a master to a slave ? . . 
 
 To Erin's Isle I do not mean to roam, 
 Because I seek a thorough change from home ; 
 But, though I 've shirked that land of saints and 
 
 caitiffs, 
 I 've not escaped its patriotic natives ; 
 And therefore with its grievances (as painted
 
 32 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 By Irish brushes) I am well acquainted. 
 
 I met what might have been an Irish Member 
 
 Travelling by Kew to London in the train, 
 
 In whom I recognized a burning ember 
 
 Of fierce rebellion trampled on in vain. 
 
 Assuming that I was his country's foe, 
 
 And out my brains his blunderbuss must blow, 
 
 He set himself before me and most shrilly 
 
 Began to talk of Ireland willy-nilly. 
 
 " Do you deny that we 're a race opprest ?" — 
 
 " Believe me, nothing 's farther from my breast !" — 
 
 " Yes, sir, you do, and by the seat I sit on, 
 
 I tell you, you 're a base and bloody Briton." — 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, your language grows so hot "— 
 
 " Insult me, and I '11 shoot you on the spot ! " — 
 
 " To insult you I respectfully decline, sir." — 
 
 " Then you 're a coward, and can only whine, sir." — 
 
 " You 're welcome, most pugnacious Irishman," 
 
 I said and smiled, " to kill me, if you can." 
 
 At this he cooled, and asked my frank opinion
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 33 
 
 Of Ireland under England's proud dominion. 
 And thus I answered : — " Sir, I know your Island 
 By many men is held a very vile land, 
 Much over-peopled by a hybrid race 
 That can 't abide in peace in any place, 
 Vindictive and irascible and shifty, 
 Uncleanly and untruthful and unthrifty, 
 That hug their hate as others hug their love, 
 Or only nurse the loves their hates approve — 
 Look in your glass and you will comprehend me — 
 (From men with restless eyeballs Lord defend me !); 
 And yet with glimmerings of attractive light, 
 Like meteors breaking from the gloom of night, — 
 An inconvenient show of virtuous phases 
 That stupid English judgments much amazes, 
 A jack-o'-lantern lustre that deceives them 
 And lures them into quagmires, and there leaves 
 
 them. 
 Sir, that 's too sweeping. 'T is your noisy few 
 That make your Island hateful to the view. 
 
 D
 
 34 MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 No kindlier race upon this planet dwells 
 
 Than that which haunts the Wicklow hills and 
 
 dells ; 
 No worthier folk inhabit field or town 
 Than they who brighten happy, smiling Down ; 
 Ay, and kind Irish hearts there are, and merry, 
 Even amid the blood-stained glens of Kerry. 
 'T is such as you, sir, work your Isle's disgrace, 
 By deeds, by words, mean, dastardly, and base. 
 You perpetrate your crimes and ne'er relent, 
 And " persecution " call your punishment, 
 Name equity " injustice " if it thwart 
 The wishes of your harmless little heart, 
 And when you 've picked men's pockets, and they 've 
 
 smit you, 
 Cry out that they are cruel to have hit you. 
 O sir, if I were England, let me tell you, 
 To Russia, Prussia, France, I 'd gladly sell you, 
 To rid my soul of all the botheration 
 And endless talk about an Irish " nation."
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 35 
 
 But were I England, this could never be 
 
 If I would still be Mistress of the Sea ; 
 
 For what must be your happy Home Rule's 
 
 ending ? 
 More men and ships for England's coast-defending ; 
 New dangers in each European broil ; 
 A Russian fleet at Cork, a French in Foyle. 
 Nay, were I England, I should have to clasp 
 Your Island tight and tighter in my grasp ; 
 So, then, my furnace I should pile more fire on, 
 And rule your country with a rod of iron. 
 But England I am not, and I perceive 
 The Siren doth her dainty nets enweave 
 Most dexterously round the Saxons' hearts, 
 And yet may gain her ends by woman's arts. 
 Hath she not lulled old Merlin in her lap, 
 And well at Scottish Rosebery set her cap, 
 Led the strong Spencer by a silken thread, 
 And found a champion in the stainless Stead, 
 Among her lovers counted sainted Ripon,
 
 36 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And Morley forced his Christian garb to slip on, 
 And captive Blunt led captive in her train, 
 And Aberdeen entangled in her chain ? 
 Sweet Bully Bottom Harcourt now reposes 
 Between her white arms, garlanded with roses. 
 And hath not lately too the fair deceiver 
 Put her comether quite on Shaw Lefevre ? 
 And Labouchere, whose name is one with Truth, 
 And Graham, that inestimable youth, 
 And Wilfred Lawson, with his wit and water, 
 Have all the wealth of all their wisdom brought her. 
 Then she can boast still eighty Members free, 
 Her ever-faithful Parnell and O'Shea, 
 Town-Councillors from Boyle to Ballyhooley, 
 Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde, and Gillooley. 
 Sir, aided thus, whatever England's need, 
 The Home Rule brig will certainly succeed — 
 Nay, every timid foot may now embark on it 
 Since philanthropic Plimsoll 's set his mark on 
 
 it!"
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 37 
 
 At this with rage he foamed, and drew a knife, 
 Intent on taking my immortal life. 
 I parried the fell weapon with my stick, 
 And out flew sparks electrical and thick. 
 (He took me then for some distinguished player). 
 He crossed himself and offered up a prayer, 
 Turned blue, as if his blood began to freeze, 
 And all but begged for pardon on his knees. 
 Just then the engine neared another station 
 And with a whistle drowned the conversation, 
 And I, unwilling any more to rile him, 
 Stopped at the ^Esthetes' Lunatic Asylum — 
 
 I mean that curious place by Turnham Green, 
 Where red-tiled houses from the train are seen, 
 Mild eyes aesthetic to attract and please, 
 Stuck here and there 'mid blooming apple-trees ; 
 Where, dressed in garments of a bygone age, 
 The people act all day as on a stage ; 
 Where coldness and discomfort are a study,
 
 38 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And windows damned unless their light be muddy ; 
 Where every box must be unique and old, 
 And every bedstead crumbling into mould — 
 One spacious lumber-room wherein are tumbled 
 The treasures often thousand Ghettos jumbled; 
 Old kettles from the stores of East End brokers, 
 Old clocks, old cupboards, shovels, fenders, pokers, 
 Chippendale tables that have lost their legs, 
 Old silver spoons too frail for breaking eggs, 
 Worm-eaten chairs of long-forgotten families, 
 Old pots coeval with the rout at Ramillies, 
 Old stools perhaps Bubb Dodington has sat on 
 Or Chesterfield or Lumpkin laid his hat on — 
 Anything dingy ever used by man, 
 Or woman, so it savours of Queen Anne. 
 I walked about the stage with studied grace, 
 Yet somehow felt most sadly out of place. 
 The actors saw 't was plainly not my line, 
 And frowned upon me as a Philistine. 
 I felt, I must allow, a day too old
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 39 
 
 To drop into the arch-aesthetic fold ; 
 Youth is the time for masquerades and folly, 
 And age for broadcloth and for melancholy ; 
 So, when I had my little round for fun done, 
 I left the sacred applegarth for London. . . 
 
 Dear ! what a crowd along the railings presses ! 
 I scarce can see the Ride for ladies' dresses. 
 Alas, while I 've been lost in recollection, 
 What marvels may have passed without inspection ! 
 Now surely comes a personage amazing, 
 Else why should all the world be one way gazing ? 
 Heavens ! who rides by so broad of beam and back, 
 An elephant upheaved upon a hack ? 
 What ! is that mass amorphous, ponderous, 
 That human heap, renowned Historicus ? 
 He whose prodigious jests by night resound 
 From Stephen's chaos up to Heaven's profound, 
 And, having vainly smitten earthly ears 
 And moved Heaven's angels to unwonted tears,
 
 4o MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Roll down, and reaching late our world of woe, 
 Add one more torture to the damned below ? 
 Is this sublime Silenus of the Law, 
 This Senatorial Samson and his jaw, 
 Is this stupendous bulk so broad and bossy- 
 Great England's Lord High Chancellor in posse ? 
 O, take him hence ! He shadows me with gloom. 
 His every smile reminds me of the tomb. 
 O, take him hence ! I do not merit this 
 Extinguishment of all my earthly bliss ! 
 O, take him hence, and let me see no more 
 The blessed daylight darkened by a bore ! 
 Take back thy champion, Erin, to thy bosom, 
 And, having found him, see that you do n't lose 
 him ! . . 
 
 Of Radicals I wished to get some notion, 
 But Chamberlain had gone across the Ocean, 
 On a hard errand driven by the Fates, — 
 To patch up treaties with the Yankee States ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 4* 
 
 And Bright was altogether out of town, 
 
 And only sending letters up and down 
 
 To various correspondents who might nobble 'im 
 
 For counsel on the endless Irish problem ; 
 
 And Dilke, whose black eclipse was such a loss 
 
 for us, 
 Was sipping coffee somewhere on the Bosphorus ; 
 And Morley, with Lord Ripon, was appearing 
 In Christian parts at theatres in Erin ; 
 Trevelyan to be caught was quite too slippery ; 
 And all the rest are but the merest frippery. 
 
 But heartily I wish that I had seen 
 And heard John Bright while yet his age is green. 
 An honest politician is so fair a thing 
 T is pity, if there 's one, to miss so rare a thing ; 
 And, judged, I hold, according to his light, 
 No man more honest breathes than bluff John 
 
 Bright. 
 His old " peace policy " has proved, no doubt,
 
 42 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 A little weak, as things are turning out. 
 We must have order and we sigh for peace, 
 But will the wicked from their troubling cease ? 
 If not, when Turmoil sweet Persuasion stifles, 
 What 's left to use but truncheons, swords, and rifles ? 
 But Christianity and Commerce call 
 Alike for peace amid this mundane brawl ; 
 The shrewd commercial Christian shrewdly mea- 
 sures 
 What swells his earthly and his heavenly trea- 
 sures. 
 Thus there is reason in that high appeal 
 For peace amid the wide world's commonweal ; 
 And, sooth, if Earth had such a boon as this is, 
 The Heavens themselves might envy her her blisses. 
 Yet, were I mortal 'mid this world of care, 
 However I might shrink from battle's din, 
 I 'd hold by old Polonius' words : — " Beware 
 Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, 
 Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee," —
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 43 
 
 And never underrate mine enemy, — 
 A fault of Britons, which, the world well knows, 
 Oft humbles England to her paltriest foes. . . 
 Leave baby soldiers to their babies'-rattles, 
 And pay a corps of men to fight your battles. . . 
 
 On Chamberlain I 've pondered with mixed 
 pleasure ; 
 I think he too is honest — in a^ measu re. 
 A Radical who likewise is Imperial 
 Is Radical of very best material. 
 Somehow I think he wishes England well, 
 And would not for mere place her honour sell, — 
 At least not yet, while still he 's no temptation 
 To play the Gladstone with this patient nation ; 
 But truly to my inexperienced eye 
 In him no serious danger seems to lie. 
 Upon the Irish case he looks as sound 
 As any man can look on Irish ground, 
 Which always is so shifty and so boggy
 
 44 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And shrouded in an atmosphere so foggy 
 That all who tread it seem in wild gyrations 
 Revolving in a life of transformations ; 
 And I, until he 's done some patent ill, 
 Will hold that Chamberlain is honest still. . . 
 
 I 'm tired of musing on these politicians 
 Who deem themselves so great and are so small — 
 Why, Bismarck, in his mammoth deglutitions, 
 In one light morsel might devour them all. 
 A man of letters, were he small or great, 
 Were now a pleasing thing to contemplate — 
 And here comes Robert Browning ! . . . I regret 
 To see the seal of age upon him set. 
 I saw him last in Florence years ago, 
 Long ere that massive head was touched with snow, 
 When Landor's words were truer than to-day, — 
 An eager watcher looking every way, 
 A man of buoyant step and grasping eye 
 That laid its grip on every passer-by,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 45 
 
 And read him— not perhaps exactly right, 
 
 But always in some interesting light, 
 
 And nothing let escape in park or street 
 
 Of all that he in rapid walk might meet, 
 
 Glancing from Beauty in her chariot down 
 
 To the bare foot of beggar or of clown, 
 
 From the dull pavement upward to heaven's blue, 
 
 And back from heaven again to me or you. 
 
 Short, broad, erect, not lithely in his gait, 
 
 Unweariable, self-confident, elate, 
 
 With easy, drawing-room-educated shoulders — 
 
 A presence always cheering to beholders. 
 
 To-day, alas ! the largeness of the eye 
 
 Is gone, and tamed the fine vivacity, 
 
 Less buoyant is the step, the keen-cut brow 
 
 More toward its mother-earth begins to bow. 
 
 Ay me ! the poets at three-score-and-ten 
 
 Cease to be poets and are only men, 
 
 And Tennyson and Browning Delphi's god 
 
 Hath stamped with mournful letters " Ichabod ! "
 
 46 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Yet hath Sordello lived to hear his claims 
 To deathless glory sung by girls and dames, 
 To find that every critic now afraid is 
 To chide the hoary lion of the ladies, 
 To sit at ease while Furnivall's Society 
 Spoon-feeds his large self-love to sick satiety. 
 Lord ! how this foolish and inconstant world 
 From folly unto folly still is whirled ! 
 A score of years ago poor Browning's name 
 Was only whispered with a blush of shame ; 
 Now I perceive the literary papers 
 Are following Furnivall's fantastic capers, 
 And Athenceum, Saturday Review, 
 Academy, and eke Spectator too, 
 The Editor most genial and loquacious, 
 The Editor most graceful and most gracious, 
 The Editor most liberal though not spacious, 
 The Editor most kind and most capacious, 
 All laud his feeblest fancies to the skies, 
 Declare his darkest devils deities,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 47 
 
 And carve upon his pedestal sublime, 
 "Browning, the Greatest Poet of all Time !" 
 Well, this is very well, but after all, 
 
 All Editors, down even to 1 
 
 Should, one would think, have sometimes still at 
 
 heart 
 The interests of literary art, 
 And not exaggerate in blame or praise 
 Though they may know exaggeration pays. 
 And I, who am artistic to the core, 
 Though liking Browning, cannot but deplore 
 That the poor public should be led astray, 
 And taught that Browning writes the proper way, 
 That verse should be as harsh and rough as shingle, 
 And Milton's English turned to hobbling jingle, 
 And men from poesy should nothing gain 
 But grains of pleasure got with spasms of pain. 
 
 To whatsoever madness critics run 
 I hold the time's best bard is Tennyson.
 
 48 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Though poorer stuff ne'er dripped from worn-out 
 
 pens 
 Than Carmen Seculare and The Wrens, 
 Though " Go not, happy day " is grievous folly, 
 And Harold 's as insipid as Queen Molly, 
 Though he should ne'er have served us up that 
 
 Supper, 
 And half his Idylls are as dull as Tupper, 
 Yet he that In Memoriam hath writ 
 High o'er this age's bards enthroned shall sit, 
 Still reverenced by his country and his Queen, 
 A Laureate crowned with laurels ever green. 
 He is no caterer for the sensual herd 
 Whose pulses nothing noble ever stirred ; 
 No manufacturer of amorous ditties 
 Inspired amid the smoke and gas of cities ; 
 No Cockney lyrist of the street and square 
 Who hardly knows a harrier from a hare, 
 And moulds and mixes mediaeval ballads 
 As cooks concoct their sauces and their salads ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 49 
 
 No trickster toadying pressmen for critiques ; 
 No hanger-on of literary cliques ; 
 No charlatan with intellectual puzzles 
 Perplexing the dazed reader Fashion muzzles ; 
 But one of Nature's poets, mingling heart 
 Still with the music of elaborate art, 
 From Nature drawing all the sweets he brings us, 
 And still exalting by the songs he sings us. 
 
 This is involuntary admiration ; 
 He merits not my moral approbation. 
 Far better to my liking are the inborn 
 Rare virtues of the smaller poet Swinburne. 
 He was my willing servant for a time, 
 And somewhat prostituted English rhyme 
 To doubtful uses, and with sensual spice 
 Spoilt critic-palates, never over-nice, 
 So that the pure Castalian springs no more 
 They care to taste, nor heed though they should 
 pour 
 
 E
 
 5 o MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 In clear glad music and refreshful song 
 
 Down from the Delphian hollows all day long. 
 
 One says, " There was a little craft in this 
 
 Betrayal of the Muses with a kiss, — 
 
 A stroke of business in this best of ages 
 
 When half each book is advertising pages. 
 
 A bombshell of unseemly fancies hurled 
 
 Into its midst might rouse the listless world, 
 
 And make the hurler famous in a day, 
 
 Where modest bards are left to fade away. 
 
 This is an age when men attract attention 
 
 By doing things that some would blush to mention, 
 
 Then, having wallowed well in sloughs of shame, 
 
 Walk evermore serene the halls of Fame, 
 
 Become ' respectable,' — the people's leaders, 
 
 Great in the Senate, loved of lady readers ; 
 
 Demoralize at first, and then instruct, 
 
 And claim of Virtue's self the usufruct. 
 
 So Bradlaugh, having horrified Society, 
 
 Begins to pose, a preacher of propriety ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 51 
 
 And Chastelard. self-cured of ribald rabies, 
 
 Betakes himself to writing Odes to Babies."—. . 
 
 But no ! O'er all ambition's mean devices 
 
 The soul of Atalanla's bard arises ; 
 
 And he is still a poet and a true one, 
 
 Though milder now than when he was a new one ; 
 
 To whom, in scribbling (when I knew no better), 
 
 Myself in some degree have been a debtor, 
 
 Which freely I acknowledge, while repenting 
 
 Things rhythmic done without my will's consenting. 
 
 I saw poor Chastelard some time ago 
 
 Down somewhere toward the Seven Dials go. 
 
 He paused to peer into a printer's shop. 
 
 He looked autumnal, rather, at the top. 
 
 I touched him on the shoulder, and he started ; 
 
 He claspt my hand — then swift away he darted, 
 
 And down a lane the little poet ran on, 
 
 Followed at heel and pelted by Buchanan. 
 
 These Three the critics in the public sight
 
 52 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 The foremost places yield. Perhaps they 're right. 
 Morris, the "Singer of an empty Day," 
 Has seldom soothed me with his jolting lay. 
 He told a story well ; could wield his pencil, 
 And graphic pictures drew with that utensil ; 
 But something always seemed a little wrong 
 About his paces as he jigged along. 
 (His Muse is dead. The socialist upholsterer 
 Will hardly with anarchic ballads bolster her.) 
 That nursery-Dante, Morris of the Hades, 
 Is harmless reading for insipid ladies ; 
 The mild musician, with his silver medal, 
 Still plays his harpsichord with broken pedal, 
 And calls the toneless instrument his " harp ; " 
 And still he '11 play for folk that are not sharp 
 To notice that his melodies are tuneless, 
 His day-songs sunless and his nocturnes moonless. 
 Arnold — I mean Sir Edwin — must confess 
 He owes much to his brethren of the Press ; 
 And Arnold — I mean Matthew Arnold — owes
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 53 
 
 No more to modest verse than polished prose. 
 Amid the bowl of bards I might have tossed in 
 An Austin Dobson or an Alfred Austin ; 
 Buchanan these might join, to sink or swim, 
 And one or two whose lustre 's not more dim ; 
 But this my cup of riches soon would drain, 
 And if I pour the lees out, what remain ? 
 For who would noble Poesy degrade 
 By calling poets those whose dismal trade 
 Is forging verses void of thought and passion 
 (I wish some Jeffrey these would lay his lash on), 
 Those cliques of small persistent poetasters 
 Who of the trick of rime are would-be masters, 
 But never yet, for all their toil and dole, 
 Have touched the springs of any human soul ; 
 Who, though their rhythmic "lilt" correct and 
 
 terse is, 
 Have never got past writing " nonsense-verses " ; 
 Who love the poet's name, and purr, and paw it, 
 But would not know a poem if they saw it ?
 
 54 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 What man who Milton, Shakespeare, Byron loves, 
 Whom Dante, Goethe, Wordsworth, Shelley moves, 
 Could read without a smile their dusty stuff 
 That every petty critic 's learnt to puff? 
 Deluded by the weekly weak Reviews, 
 Whose whims our wiser Britons but amuse, 
 The honest Yankees now their praises shower 
 On these presumptuous froth-flies of an hour. 
 God help thee, Poesy, if men conceive thee 
 As nothing better than these nothings leave thee. . . 
 Still harping on the poets ? Well, I know it. 
 The noblest work of Heaven 's a true-born poet. 
 They fascinate, but yet disturb my bliss, 
 So once for all let me the tribe dismiss. 
 Of all the bards I know my say is said. 
 The works of Armstrong I have never read. . . 
 
 What, my good fellow ! Are you not aware 
 That I have paid already for the chair ? . . 
 A penny ? . . Though my fortunes are decaying,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 55 
 
 Excellent sir, I yet will go on paying 
 Penny on penny, so you '11 keep away 
 And let me feel heaven's breezes while I may. 
 And yet I do n't see why I should pay twice. . . 
 Do n't beg my pardon. Sir, you 're much too nice ! . . 
 Ha ! ha ! . . The righteous rascal ! How respect- 
 able ! . . 
 These English really are a race delectable. 
 They cheat and sin with such unruffled calm 
 That every wolf among them looks a lamb — 
 Ay, search the earth " from China to Peru," 
 No scoundrel, English scoundrel, equals you ! . . 
 
 How strange that none of all these million eyes 
 Has happened yet my form to recognize 
 In this my nineteenth-century disguise ! 
 Some dimly note in passing, little caring, 
 Something distinguished, doubtless, in my bearing ; 
 Some antiquated spinsters eye me queerly, 
 But that, no doubt, is maiden coyness merely ;
 
 56 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Some country parsons take me for His Grace 
 
 Of York, or that Great Statesman out of place, 
 
 Or Lincoln's Bishop (vinegar and nitre !) 
 
 Compelled in Town to go without his mitre ; 
 
 Some tinted ladies smile at me so boldly 
 
 I 'm forced to recompense their glances coldly ; 
 
 They seem to take me for a titled rip, 
 
 And go about to get me in their grip ; 
 
 Some giddy girls, whose morals and whose fancies 
 
 Alike are nursed on yellow-backed romances, 
 
 Perceive a something in me devilish, 
 
 And flirting with the Devil is their wish ; 
 
 Some take me for an actor off the boards, 
 
 And some a novice of the House of Lords ; 
 
 But, as I still am modest and discreet, 
 
 I 'm not much noticed yet in park or street. 
 
 I sat hobnobbing with invisible Sin 
 One Sunday in a Cambridge country-inn 
 While other (better) folk were on their knees,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 57 
 
 When in a party trooped in twos and threes, 
 A-dust with trudging many a country road, 
 Led by a broad-built man who stoutly strode, 
 Grey-eyed, grey-bearded, and with dusty curls. 
 They looked Bohemians, and they spoke like 
 
 churls, 
 But learned terms were mingled with their talk, 
 And learning seemed to dog them in their walk — 
 Indeed they could not call for beer and cheese 
 Except in symbols of the Sciences. 
 I thought it sport to watch them from afar, 
 So crossed my legs and lighted a cigar. 
 Silent they ate — it seems a Cambridge way 
 To be as gruff and graceless as you may — 
 Till one who looked less English than the rest, 
 A dark man in a velvet tunic dressed, 
 Blithe, flexile, and with mirth in either eye, 
 With some bright sally woke the company ; 
 And then there followed a disjointed chat 
 On many topics, while I, listening, sat.
 
 58 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 They rose to speculation's loftiest level, 
 
 And settled down at last upon the Devil — 
 
 I hid myself amid a cloud of smoke, 
 
 And bent an ear to each one as he spoke. 
 
 An orange-tawny-bearded man with glasses, 
 
 Who spake unmoved as monumental brasses, 
 
 With clenched teeth and face that looked one sneer 
 
 Of discontent and inward suffering drear, 
 
 A constant agonizing inanition 
 
 Of ravenous and insatiable ambition 
 
 (Or so to me appeared it— but I gauge 
 
 All men perhaps by mine own inward rage), 
 
 Gathered himself together, stern as Fate, 
 
 And in harsh accents thus addressed his plate : — 
 
 " The Devil served his purpose well enough 
 
 When barbarous Ignorance battened on such stuff; 
 
 But now he 's left no place wherein to dwell 
 
 Since Modern Science has abolished Hell." 
 
 Whereat those laughed who were for laughter able, 
 
 And I drew in my feet beneath the table.
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 59 
 
 The grey man, who his pipe had meanwhile lighted, 
 Smiled not, but smoked as if the jest he slighted ; 
 Then muttered drily, " Modern Science boasts 
 It has abolished too the Lord of Hosts." 
 " The House of Lords, no doubt, will follow next," 
 Said one who straightway blushed and looked 
 
 perplext. 
 (What though the others failed its point to see, 
 I liked this speaker's covert irony.) 
 Then one, who was a politician clearly, 
 And thought of governing (but not too dearly), 
 Suggested, " For the ignorant and the fool, 
 For women, and for children still at school, 
 The Devil is a useful institution, 
 Serving as a deterrent from pollution, 
 Perhaps preventing even revolution, 
 And for State purposes the worn-out fogy 
 Might still be kept together as a bogy ! " — 
 Naught hurts my feelings like an idiot's sneers. 
 I felt the blood rush tingling to my ears.
 
 60 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 I flashed a look of anger at the creature — 
 
 He only thought I must be some lay-preacher. 
 
 (The self-sufficient man is always blind, 
 
 And sees not what 's before him or behind). 
 
 The fool at his own fooling joined the laugh, 
 
 And called, with pomp, for some more shandy-gaff. 
 
 Then like a gust of wind they rose and passed 
 
 Quickly, as if each moment were their last, 
 
 Striding away in agonizing walk; 
 
 And, left alone, I mused upon their talk. 
 
 " The world," thought I, — " I say it not in grief — 
 
 Is simply perishing of unbelief. 
 
 Men that can't see their noses save with glasses 
 
 Presume to solve what human sight surpasses; 
 
 Even Science, that at best but dimly sees, 
 
 Will dogmatize about the Mysteries. 
 
 'T is this that makes it easy, for my mirth, 
 
 To move about unnoticed o'er the Earth, 
 
 And, laughing at each Solomon I meet, 
 
 To play the Devil with his self-conceit." . .
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 61 
 
 Nay, I am Evil, I am Anarchy, 
 
 I am Confusion — have ye conquered 7ne ? . . 
 
 There goes a Bishop ! . . . Yes, that shovel-hat 
 Would guide me, were he ne'er so sleek and fat. 
 Stanley I 've heard, and Jowett, in my time, 
 Describe a Church ideal and sublime. 
 Among the cleric ranks — I must allow it — 
 There 's not a broader mind than that of Jowett. 
 Stanley's was wide, but Jowett's still is wider, — 
 So wide that out of sight there Truth might hide 
 
 her; 
 I do n't know what it holds, or what it does not, 
 And of its secrets that I know, I '11 buzz not. 
 In the grey Abbey oft I 've heard him preach, 
 And much approved what he 's assayed to teach — 
 A Church with all the elements of schism 
 Within it like the colours in a prism, 
 Though breaking up what Light it doth enrol, 
 Still, like the prism, one unbroken whole —
 
 62 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 A Church, in fact, was to mine eye presented 
 From all whose doctrines all her sons dissented, 
 Just brooked because men's freaks it would not 
 
 fetter, 
 And subsidized by State for want of better ; 
 A Church that reckoned as her faithful sheep 
 Whatever cared within her pale to creep, — 
 Wolves, bears, or jackals, lions, tigers, hogs, 
 Panthers, or hinds, or ladies' collie-dogs, 
 Frequenters of conventicles suburban, 
 Or any chutney-merchant in a turban, 
 The British Buddhist or the true Chinese, 
 The Zulus or the feathered Cherokees, 
 The ritualistic curate slight and sleek, 
 The Jew, the Turk, the Gallican, the Greek, 
 The man whose god is Gothic Art or Norman, 
 The wifeless priest or patriarchal Mormon ; — 
 A Church whose very basis of existence 
 Were yielding to dissent without resistance, 
 Where every wight should worship as it pleased him,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 63 
 
 Or worship nothing if the humour seized him, 
 
 And all should by their deeds and words admit 
 
 That Truth's attainment passes human wit. 
 
 Now, still there may remain an English Church 
 
 Till pious William grips it as a perch 
 
 To flutter up to power and place once more, 
 
 Striking it down in wild attempts to soar ; 
 
 And every year and month to me it seems 
 
 Assuming more the shape of Jowett's dreams. 
 
 Yes, Divine Service I have much attended 
 
 As up and down through English land I 've 
 
 wended, 
 And fifty petty churches seem to-day 
 Sprung fungus-like from one in its decay, — 
 Broad, High, Low, High-Broad, Low-Broad, High- 
 
 and-Dry, 
 Broad-Ritualistic, Ritualistic-High, 
 Dry-Low, or Evangelical-Hysterical, 
 Half-Plym., Whole-Slim, All-Square, and Semi- 
 Spherical,
 
 64 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Church-scouting-Everlasting-Punishment, 
 Church-holding-Hell-Heaven's-highest-ornament, 
 Church-Calvinistic, Church-distinct- Arminian, 
 Church- Arian, Church- Agnostic, Church-Socinian, 
 Church-looking-on-Religion-as-a-slow-thing, 
 Church-everything-you-like, or simply no thing ; 
 A chaos of all sorts of contradictories 
 Unreconciled by logic's nicest victories. 
 Now all these churchlets, from one faint Church 
 
 sprouting, 
 Each little shadowy cult the others flouting, 
 What are they but a sickly suppuration 
 Of Faith becoming morbid through prostration? 
 Which things to me, an old observer, point 
 To something in this kingdom out of joint. 
 Can Morals flourish where Religion dies ? 
 What shall uplift the mortal to the skies ? 
 Religion grown a luxury or whim 
 Which each man alters as it pleases him, 
 A thing to number with the " fads " and follies
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 65 
 
 And puppets infants dandle with their dollies, 
 
 Whatever compromising minds may plan, 
 
 Can work no miracle in bestial man. 
 
 And yet this Church a kind of sanction yields 
 
 Still to the State that still its being shields ; 
 
 Still throws the mantle of respectability 
 
 O'er morals, makes its service seem gentility ; 
 
 Encourages a social regularity ; 
 
 Teaches decorum ; organizes charity ; 
 
 Ay, even in suspended animation, 
 
 Is worth preserving by this mighty nation ; 
 
 For none can tell, when Faith is on the wane, 
 
 What touch may wake her into life again. 
 
 Meanwhile, I, Satan, drink to its confusion, 
 
 To all its votaries daily new delusion, 
 
 To Lincoln lasting strength, and health to Jowett, 
 
 Power to each hand that earthward helps to 
 
 bow it, 
 And force to Gladstone's axe that never fails 
 Uplifted now to strike its life from Wales ! . . 
 
 F
 
 66 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 My Lords and gentlemen, "The Church!" . . 
 
 Ta-ta ! . . 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! . . 
 
 I weigh with those who make this Church their 
 home • 
 The men who from it headlong run to Rome. 
 When to believe in nothing most are driven, 
 These in believing all things find their heaven. 
 Credulity and weakness both are human, 
 Yet neither surely taints the breast of Newman. 
 To rise to power most men are ever planning, 
 But who can prove ambition governs Manning ? 
 What wild confusion of the wistful heart 
 Made such from creed to creed impetuous dart, 
 What panic of the Spirit o'er them came 
 That, in sheer frenzy, plunged them into flame ? . . 
 
 Close by the pulpit in a chapel small 
 I sat to hear an English Cardinal.
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 67 
 
 Not like a foe I went, in rude invasion, 
 
 But simple, childlike, open to persuasion. 
 
 His eye, that seemed to look in all men's eyes, 
 
 Caught mine amid the rest without surprise ; 
 
 But when he saw my eagerness for light, 
 
 He gave me all his rede with all his might. 
 
 An eager, keen, lean face, without one ray 
 
 Of joy or rapture in its ashen grey; 
 
 An eye that, half suspicious, half defiant, 
 
 Seems loveless, lustreless, and uncompliant ; 
 
 A litheness of the body and the mind 
 
 That makes the man within them hard to find ; 
 
 A voice incisive ; an incisive finger 
 
 That lights on sores, but nowhere loves to linger ; 
 
 Some temper 'mid a studious calm betraying; 
 
 Some subtle shuffling of the cards in playing .; 
 
 Some yielding to unfairness toward a foe 
 
 In resolute straining for his overthrow ; 
 
 In language careful, measured, mathematical ; 
 
 In faith adopted almost full fanatical ;
 
 68 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Not swaying with the enthusiast's warmth and 
 
 boldness, 
 But penetrating with an east wind's coldness ; 
 Clear with the gleam and glassiness of ice, 
 And liberal in logical device. 
 If but his premises I could have granted, 
 My creed I should most surely have recanted. . . 
 
 I have not much affection for the Law, 
 So of the Men of Wigs I little saw — 
 At least in recent wanderings up and down 
 Among the doubtful places of the town. 
 The Church, although it fancies it eludes me, 
 Oft folds me to its heart. The Law excludes me. 
 Law, based on Faith, enforced where evil lurks, 
 Is death upon the Devil and his works ; 
 And English law, though now and then it blunders, 
 Sounds in mine ears like Heaven's eternal thunders. 
 Of Barrister and Judge I 've nought to say. 
 I think they do their work from day to day,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 69 
 
 Whatever motive actuates the breast, 
 
 Respectably, while feathering each his nest; 
 
 And, tolerant as I am of peccadillos, 
 
 I think they may recline upon their pillows 
 
 As peacefully as some of sacred station 
 
 Or any statesman who has " found salvation." 
 
 And, though there may be Judges too with flaws, 
 
 How ably all expound their country's laws ! 
 
 I hardly can recount the brilliant names. 
 
 There 's Herschell, Bramwell, and there will be 
 
 James ; 
 There 's Selborne — or there was ; there 's High- 
 Church Coleridge, 
 Fit to plough up false logic by the whole ridge ; 
 There 's Butt, who uses all a mortal's forces 
 (And needs them) to decide the world's divorces ; 
 There 's . . . really I forbear to think them over. 
 I envy all. Though none quite live in clover, 
 They 're happier here than in that Isle of Slaughters, 
 Out, where the sun sets, there, across the Waters. . .
 
 70 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 What 's he, now, with the eye-glass in his eye, 
 Perched on the four-in-hand that 's passing by ? 
 An actor ? Can an actor sit so high ? 
 Yes, yes, I 've seen the same that now I scan 
 Act also on the boards the gentleman — 
 Indeed he looked (I can't imagine how) 
 A good deal less the actor then than now. 
 I like the craft, have acted much myself, 
 And have not yet been laid upon the shelf; 
 And nothing would I think or say severe 
 Of actors that might hurt them should they hear. 
 But they themselves must think it rather curious, 
 When acted plays are paltry things and spurious, 
 When England's Drama stultifies the land, 
 That actors on a pinnacle should stand. 
 Yes, in the Drama's palmiest days, we know, 
 Despised they lived, their art was rated " low ; " 
 Now, when the Drama is a thing so base, 
 The world enfolds them in its fond embrace 
 (At least the lady-players it caresses),
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 71 
 
 And Royalty itself the boxes blesses. 
 
 You dine the players, ask them to your suppers, 
 
 Lend them your hacks, your saddles, and your 
 
 cruppers, 
 Invite them to your country-seats for sport, 
 Smile at their weddings, usher them to Court, 
 Purchase their portraits, treasure up their busts, 
 Make them dispensers of your children's trusts, 
 Nay, envy them the very boards they walk on, 
 And seek the Stage yourselves to rant and talk on, 
 Rear mimic theatres in private houses, 
 Or act your pastorals where the heifer browses, 
 Ay, all but set the Stage o'er Mother Church, 
 And meanwhile leave the Drama in the lurch. 
 
 The Drama is old England's brightest glory, 
 Her loftiest feat in literary story. 
 Each traveller a spectator 's sure to be at her 
 Finest performance in her foremost theatre — 
 "That 's the Lyceum," I was told, and so
 
 72 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 To the Lyceum I was bound to go. 
 
 I went, and saw Myself (with sundry thrills) 
 
 Caricatured by Irving and by Wills. 
 
 'T is clear there is no reverence in this age 
 
 Felt for the Devil on or off the Stage. 
 
 Goethe, though treating me not wholly well, 
 
 Remembered the Archangel ere he fell ; 
 
 But Wills and Irving vulgarize my part, 
 
 And mere scene-shifting strangles Goethe's art. 
 
 Outraged I sat. I could not choose but frown 
 
 At that lean Devil skipping up and down, 
 
 At travesties of Goethe's lordly rime 
 
 Mixed with tomfooleries of the Pantomime. 
 
 Think of the glories of Elizabeth ! 
 
 Say, is not this the Drama's lingering death ? 
 
 Garrick compare, his Shakespeare's tragic sock on, 
 
 With Irving kissing monkeys on the Brocken ! 
 
 Yet Irving 's scarce to blame. If all the Nation 
 
 Delight to watch him in that situation, 
 
 To see their ablest actor play the fool
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 73 
 
 And sink in Tragedy to rival Toole, 
 
 Why should he starve his purse or waste his wit 
 
 By playing Hamlet to an empty pit ? 
 
 Why not keep climbing still the Bracken's heights, 
 
 And kissing apes, for ten more thousand nights ? 
 
 It is the world's fault if your art is bad ; 
 
 Art follows public taste or sane or mad. 
 
 The English-speaking public vaster grows, 
 
 And all must see the latest London shows ; 
 
 No spectacle must ever be withdrawn 
 
 Till all the population 's come and gone ; 
 
 Then, when the folk at home have ceased to laud it, 
 
 Remains that all America applaud it ; 
 
 And so the same false art from shore to shore 
 
 Moves round the earth until it pays no more. 
 
 I 've gone about by gaslight to and fro 
 To theatres from Kensington to Bow ; 
 The inside and the outside have inspected ; 
 A member of the ***** * been elected ;
 
 74 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 With Negroes danced (in dances quite informal) 
 On frosty days to keep my blood-heat normal ; 
 And when, at night, the longest play was over, 
 Supped at the ****** * like a midnight rover ; 
 With actors over wine have cracked a filbert, 
 Talking of Hebrew Sullivan and Gilbert ; 
 Seen Ellen Terry in her Doctor's dress, 
 And mourned with her in Gretchen's dire distress ; 
 Heard Beerbohm Tree to Bernard-Beere once sigh 
 
 on knee, 
 And worshipped Anderson in fair Hermione ; 
 Laughed till my sides have ached at Thorne and 
 
 Toole, 
 And under Hermann Vezin gone to school ; 
 From melancholy musings grown too merry 
 In looking at the face of Edward Terry ; 
 Felt passionate Eastlake all my senses daze, 
 And wept with Barrett at his latest plays ; 
 And, after days of weariness, to end all, 
 Sat happy, watching charming Mrs. Kendal ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 75 
 
 And all I have to say of England's stage is, 
 Its tale is writ in bygone history's pages. 
 Brilliant and many talents on it shine ; 
 Of comic actors England is a mine ; 
 But poetry from Britain's stage has faded ; 
 For noble art men's minds are all too jaded ; 
 Shakespeare himself, if living in these days, 
 "Would leave Augustus Harris to write plays, 
 Would let the critics about roundels rave on, 
 And fatten sheep at Stratford-upon-Avon. . . 
 
 But pause, my brain ! Might not this stage- 
 distraction, 
 Before there comes a still more mad reaction, 
 Yet lead the public taste to fairer ways, 
 And bring again the Drama's halcyon-days ? 
 Then, when the people yearned for loftier art, 
 Some mightier poet from the gloom might start, 
 Some Shakespeare dealing with the deeds sublime 
 And vaster knowledge of the later time,
 
 76 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 To rouse, to help, to chasten, to entrance, 
 With dreams divine and gorgeous circumstance ! . 
 Pshaw! . . What Utopian vision blinds mine eye ! . 
 Enough. The Drama 's dying. Let it die. . . 
 
 The English Novel too, it seems agreed, 
 Like many English things, has run to seed. 
 Who wears the mantle now of Dickens, pray ? 
 Where is the genius of a Thackeray ? 
 Where the fine power of Lytton when he drew 
 Rienzi underneath the Italian blue ? 
 In worthy Wilkie Collins must we seek 
 A Trollope, though poor Trollope was but weak ? 
 Is Black or Blackmore worthy to unloose 
 The latchet of immortal Eliot's shoes ? 
 Who hears an echo now of all the cant 
 About John Shorthouse and John Inglesant? 
 Behind the times I 'm far too great a laggard 
 To kneel to Payn, Besant, or Rider Haggard ; 
 The innumerable horrors of Miss Braddon
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 77 
 
 Might suit the taste of Moloch or Abaddon, 
 
 But, for myself, however dark my mind, 
 
 I hope my palate still may be refined. 
 
 As to the rest, in truth I have not read them. 
 
 I really cannot open them. I dread them. . . 
 
 But peace ! What " noticeable man " comes by, 
 Who sees nor dog nor horse nor earth nor sky, 
 Wandering amid the concourse unaware, 
 With drooping lips that seem to move in prayer ; 
 Tall ; pale ; his face in sad appeal upraised ; 
 Intent on nothing outward ; calm, yet dazed ; 
 With arm uplifted and its hand suspended, 
 As if to drop an alms it were extended ? 
 Quaint picture for the Devil's contemplation — 
 Historic Lecky lost in meditation ! 
 I read his gentle histories now and then 
 When I am weary in my fiery den ; 
 He cools my lips and tenderly bedews 'em 
 Like Lazarus come. from Father Abraham's bosom ;
 
 7S MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 He soothes my troubled mind with tranquil story 
 
 Told softly with no straining after glory ; 
 
 Sweet, temperate, impartial, conscientious, 
 
 Not pompous, or disjointed, or sententious ; 
 
 Not eager, like the late-lost gifted Green, 
 
 Who paints as one red sunset every scene ; 
 
 Not saying things aggressive and unpleasant, 
 
 Like Freeman, with the brusqueness of a peasant — 
 
 Freeman the foe of Kingsley, now a tool 
 
 Of hot-brained faction clamouring for Home 
 
 Rule; 
 Not dealing in the startling and surprising, 
 Like Seeley, brass in beater's-leaf disguising ; 
 Not bungling in his very happiest mood, 
 And doomed to bungle still, like luckless Froude — ■ 
 Poor Froude who made the Irish hate him so 
 By telling what they did not wish to know, 
 And telling it without the tact that kills 
 Ill-flavoured truth's harsh taste as jam the pill's ; 
 No quack historian with his syllabubs ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 79 
 
 Surpassed in breadth and strength by only 
 
 Stubbs. . . 
 I heard an Irish critic named O'Brawley 
 Declare he was the " Irish Lord Macaulay." 
 If "Irish" means serene and equable, 
 That epithet might fit him passing well. 
 But what poor praise Irish from Irish meet ! 
 Can nothing Irish stand on its own feet ? 
 Must Connemara be "the Irish Highlands" 
 Wild Arran only " Irish Western Islands" 
 Killarney just " the Irish Tay or Leven" 
 And loveliest Wicklow but " the Irish Devon ? " 
 Say Goldsmith, then, but flaunts in Johnson's 
 
 socks, 
 And Edmund Burke declare "the Irish Fox.'" 
 Nay, Irish things in Irish raiment deck ye. 
 Let Irish Lecky be " the Irish Lecky. . ." 
 I say, this mild historian soothes my soul, 
 And yet he 's done me damage on the whole. 
 His European Morals and his Rationalism
 
 8o MEFHISTOPHELES 
 
 Disturb me like his Anti-Irish-Nationalism — 
 
 Yes, 'mid the turmoil of our stormy weather 
 
 They fret me like the tickling of a feather. 
 
 He certainly has dealt a hurtful blow 
 
 At that fast-melting Home Rule Man-of-Snow, 
 
 And, after Stephen's giant club's assay, 
 
 Has helped, with Froude, to shovel him away. 
 
 But yet this overthrow I scarce lament — 
 
 There always must be Irish discontent ; 
 
 And if through Lecky poor Religion gains 
 
 One convert, she may take him for her pains. . . 
 
 What ! Millais ? Leighton ? . . 'T is a sight to 
 charm — 
 Apollo and Adonis arm-in-arm ! . . 
 The wordless arts, that do n't assail the ear, 
 Amid this world of noise to me are dear, 
 And very pleasant to my weary sight 
 A passing vision of their men of might. . . 
 But hang it ! Wherefore should they look at me
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 81 
 
 With such a close and puzzled scrutiny ? . . 
 
 Yes, gentlemen, I much admire you both, 
 
 But to be stared at I am something loath. 
 
 I thought I looked quite sleek and commonplace. 
 
 What, pray, can ye decipher in my face ? . . 
 
 'T is but their painters' study — so, no matter. 
 
 They care but for the outside of the platter. 
 
 They paint the lights and tints of hair and skin, 
 
 But seldom show without the man within. 
 
 To paint the Soul 's beyond your art's ambitions, 
 
 Ye two most famous Royal Academicians ! 
 
 But then we 've learnt that men have now no souls 
 
 ( Vide the Nineteenth Century of Knowles), 
 
 And so ye can't be blamed if ye omit it, 
 
 And paint the Body that was made to fit it. . . 
 
 To Piccadilly's Gallery I turned in — 
 The rooms great England's artist-genius burned in. 
 A chaos of wild paint on endless walls, 
 Saints, poultry, portraits, sea- views, waterfalls, 
 
 G
 
 82 MEPH1ST0PHELES 
 
 A blinding blaze of wood, street, sky, storms, lake — 
 One gazes at it till the eyeballs ache, 
 Squeezed by stout ladies, elbowed by stout men, 
 Pressed, packed, and poked, like cattle in a pen, 
 Tangled in flounces, trodden on with boots 
 By boors that beg your pardon when it suits, 
 Driven sideways from the point at which you aim, 
 And out, in sick confusion, blind and lame — 
 Unless you go there when the world 's in bed, 
 And then it 's empty as an aesthete's head. 
 Then to that sanctuary of Art's high priests, 
 The Grosvenor, to taste ambrosial feasts, 
 I hurried, eager to behold the pictures 
 Proved great by earning Academic strictures, 
 Or paintings which their painters deemed too fine 
 To set before Earth's ordinary swine. 
 And there I found no crowd, but ample space — 
 The world forgot that there was such a place. 
 And from the Grosvenor up and down I went 
 From gallery to gallery, intent
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 83 
 
 On satisfying my religious feeling 
 
 By means of Art, without the pain of kneeling — ■ 
 
 On feeding the deep spiritual emotions 
 
 With paint, according to the newest notions ; 
 
 Till, having stood and gazed in almost all 
 
 (A shower of rain had now begun to fall), 
 
 My soul found peace where these sweet words were 
 
 seen : — 
 " Arrangement by one Whistler, here, in Green." 
 
 It was in Bond Street, and the rain was spitting. 
 To enter in and rest was most befitting — 
 And pity 't was no chair was there for sitting. 
 A servitor in green my shilling took, 
 And in my hand he placed a greenish book, 
 And through a curtain green I passed, and found 
 Myself within a room, green, green all round, 
 Hung with green pictures all in frames of green, 
 Pale green, grass-green, pea-green, and green of 
 bean.
 
 84 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Green were the pictures in their greeny frames, 
 Green skies, green seas, green coals, and greener 
 
 flames, 
 Green moons, and sunsets green, and green sea- 
 fishes, 
 And medleys of green plates and cakes and dishes, 
 Green men with legs of superhuman thickness, 
 And green girls dead, or dying, of green-sickness — 
 Or what seemed girls and men and cups and 
 
 cakes 
 And moons and suns, but might be ducks and 
 
 drakes, 
 Or anything you please ; for, as for drawing, 
 That was beneath the godlike painter's pawing — 
 Just as it is beneath your bards of light 
 To put one word of sense in what they write. 
 " O Art, Art, Art," I cried, " I feel indeed 
 Thou satisfiest my spiritual need ! 
 Farewell all dreams of Heaven, all childish cults ! 
 This is the true Religion — for adults ! " . .
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 85 
 
 Fools ! . . Art, to gratify the Spirit's yearning, 
 Itself must from the Spirit's yearning spring. 
 With all their marvellous skill, technique, and 
 
 learning, 
 Your modern artists paint no noble thing. 
 Your fault again, O misbelieving World, 
 Not theirs, whose finer energies are furled, 
 Or hang as dead, amid the lifeless air, 
 But might like crowded sails o'er gorgeous seas 
 Waft them sublime, if ye but gave the breeze. 
 What might not Millais, Leighton, Poynter paint 
 If not quite crippled by your base constraint ? 
 Splendid the genius and the skill to-day 
 That England owns, but England's sons betray. 
 Painters, like actors, bend to social need — 
 They follow downward as the vulgar lead. 
 Delicate Leighton, fine and finer grown, 
 Paints merely flesh, omitting brawn and bone ; 
 And Stone and Millais (doubtless unawares) 
 Turn advertisers of the soaps of Pears !
 
 86 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Most lovely are the visions of their minds, 
 And richer gifts my searching nowhere finds ; 
 But public whims from loftiest flights deter — 
 They bow to Liverpool and Manchester, 
 And bloated cotton-lords and city zeros 
 Usurp the canvas meant for gods and heroes. . 
 
 If I were man, I can't believe but I 
 Should greatly mourn o'er man's mortality. 
 Decay and Death, how dismal and how drear ! 
 How horrible man's losses year by year ! 
 How horrible to see each living face 
 Lose all its beauty, every form its grace ! 
 To see the mind that swayed you with its might 
 Grow feebler, languishing with mortal blight, 
 Till all that you have striven with tears to save 
 Drops down at last into a loathsome grave ! . . 
 These melancholy thoughts arise, no doubt, 
 From seeing intellectual lights go out 
 So often lately when I least expected
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 87 
 
 And where mine eyes for guidance were directed. 
 There was dear Ruskin. Where could any find 
 Upon die crust of Earth a fairer mind ? 
 His was a force that stirred the dullest heart 
 With love of Nature, and, through Nature, Art; 
 A lovely mind with shapes of beauty haunted, 
 Through which Thought moved as through a realm 
 
 enchanted. 
 I saw him first beneath those snowy heights 
 He hath illumined with such magic lights, 
 I thought to find their beauty in his face 
 Reflected with an archangelic grace. 
 Not so. On Leman's Lake of skyey blue 
 He came aboard a steamboat off Montreux. 
 He gazed upon the waters, and a sneer 
 Spread o'er his face, methought, from ear to ear ; 
 He gazed upon the mountains, and it seemed 
 As if of Whistler's pots of paint he dreamed ; 
 He gazed upon the blue unclouded skies, 
 And seemed to groan within, and shut his eyes.
 
 88 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 This disappointed me ; but even then 
 He was a seraph in this world of men. 
 But now, Art's hierarch, great Nature's priest, 
 What is he but a piteous sight and triste ? 
 Preacher of queer, fantastic, meaningless, 
 Dull dogmas, softening to his own caress, 
 God of a self-built temple, he is found, 
 His worshippers extended on the ground, 
 Fed with the fruits of vanity o'erblown, 
 By no heart, so adored as by his own. 
 
 These are the follies that are bread and wine 
 To Art's old foe, the wall-eyed Philistine, 
 That fatten those brute monsters dull and dense, 
 The Calibans of purblind Common-Sense, 
 And help my harpies, hovering under heaven, 
 To foul the fairest gifts that God has given. . . . 
 
 Enough, enough ! I 'm tired of all this musing ; 
 My thoughts are growing more and more confusing ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 89 
 
 Yes, the old torture of the mind is coming, 
 
 The old puzzles in mine ears again are drumming. 
 
 I, who have lived so many million ages, 
 
 Have found not out the riddles that these sages 
 
 Think they may solve in half-a-score of years, 
 
 In passing from their cradles to their biers ; 
 
 And still they come like fever-dreams and madness 
 
 To crush me down in endless, hopeless sadness. 
 
 Some little satisfaction here I find 
 In gazing at these blind that lead the blind, 
 Some triumph — it is little, it is brief — 
 In poring o'er this Chaos of Belief. . . 
 
 I thank thee, Darwin ! . . Those observant eyes 
 Saw men in monkeys, elephants in flies, 
 A crocodile in every cricket curled, 
 In every grain of dust a daedal world. 
 He saw, or thought he might with reason see ; 
 Too strong that mind for swift credulity.
 
 9 o MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 What with suspended judgment he had hinted 
 
 His weak disciples clutched with faith unstinted. 
 
 So Spencer philosophic fabrics based 
 
 On faint foundations trembling hands had traced ; 
 
 So Huxley to the rough mechanic tells 
 
 The hopeless creed wherewith his bosom swells ; 
 
 So Alpine Tyndall, icier than the Alps, 
 
 His scalpel lays upon the Bishops' scalps, 
 
 Excites the public rage in furious blast 
 
 By preaching down the preachers at Belfast, 
 
 Till, having ended his atomic mission, 
 
 He is evolved into a Politician ; 
 
 So every whipster now his morals shapes 
 
 By the high cult of atoms and of apes ; 
 
 Sweet vicars-choral of the Godless Church 
 
 Atomic anthems pipe at every porch, 
 
 Aggressive spinsters ape the Ape opinion, 
 
 Andbeardlessfreshmenboast themselves Darwinian. 
 
 God, Herbert Spencer, immortality, 
 
 All in one clearance overboard must fly. . .
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 91 
 
 O soothing creed ! . . But why does Spencer doubt ? 
 What ! after all the riddle's not found out ? . . 
 Whence came the atom whence all atoms come ? 
 What force set force in motion ? Nature's thumb ! 
 By rule of thumb mechanic man was moulded, 
 By rule of thumb the worlds on worlds unfolded ! . . 
 
 It is an age that suits my humour well — 
 Jumble and tumble, everything pell-mell ; 
 An age agnostic, which with eager throat 
 Swallows new lies as old ones' antidote ; 
 Believes in palmistry and table-rappings 
 And demoniac wings of mystic flappings ; 
 Accepts the solar theory which unlocks 
 History's whole secret, with the help of Cox, 
 Who deems a revelation every yawn 
 Of mythic Muller blinking at the Dawn ; 
 Gulps esoteric Buddhism, and the Light 
 Of Asia in a European Night ; 
 Believes in that abstraction called " The People ; "
 
 92 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 In Gladstone sheltering 'neath the Church's steeple; 
 
 In sonnets, roundels, and sestheticism ; 
 
 In Drummond 's scientific symbolism ; 
 
 In Randolph Churchill ; and in charlatanism ; 
 
 In anarchy, and George, and nihilism ; 
 
 In all the little lights and poetasters 
 
 A fleeting Fashion with its praises plasters ; 
 
 In Whistler ; and in Ruskin gone to seed ; 
 
 In voters who have never learnt to read ; 
 
 In women's right to look and live like men ; 
 
 In the inspiration of Walt Whitman's pen ; 
 
 In ruling rebel mobs without a rod ; 
 
 In anything in Earth and Heaven but God. 
 
 An age of shams and mean mendacities 
 
 Through which the very fool they wheedle sees ; 
 
 Of scandal-mongers prompting vice to scourge 'it, 
 
 To fleece the wicked world, but never purge it ; 
 
 Of lies, invented just to float a journal, 
 
 Adopted as a regimen diurnal ; 
 
 Of purity societies that hatch
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 93 
 
 The impurities they lie in wait to catch ; 
 
 Of clubs established "for the People's good," 
 
 That just supply their Secretaries' food; 
 
 Of philanthropic movements with an art in them 
 
 Of screening sins of ladies that take part in them ; 
 
 Of social vice that only shocks Society 
 
 When brought to light and damned with notoriety ; 
 
 Of Belgian and Parisian bestialities, 
 
 And viler sins of viler nationalities, 
 
 And every kind of deed that should be un-done, 
 
 Acclimatized in England's centre, London ; 
 
 Of endless cheating and adulteration ; 
 
 Of scoundrels drunk with public adulation ; 
 
 Of guileless critics, and unbiassed Press ; 
 
 Of honest merit crowned with sure success ; 
 
 Of genius banned that never droops or dwindles ; 
 
 Of gold-mines and innumerable swindles ; 
 
 Of legislators glorying in the breaking 
 
 Of laws their very lives are spent in making ; 
 
 Of babes their mothers are too fine to nurse,
 
 94 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 And wives that deem their marriage-vows a curse. 
 
 An age when little boys of six are blase 
 
 From hearing things the maids of their mammas 
 
 say; 
 When parents put to grass each " little treasure " 
 In order to be free to sin at leisure ; 
 When Youth believes it 's sharper than a knife 
 Because it knows the seamy side of life ; 
 When acts that merit our rebuking cloak we 
 From dread of getting tript by a tu quoque ; 
 When Parliament tears contracts up like paper, 
 And Justice nickers like a rushlight taper; 
 When all who own must loss by Law endure, 
 And all securities are insecure ; 
 When servants itch to seize their master's places, 
 And all things governed kick against the traces. . . 
 
 Where are the heirs of that immortal band 
 Who strove to purer heights to lead their land, 
 Who dedicated art and skill and life
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 95 
 
 To Virtue's service in one ceaseless strife 
 With Evil, men who held a God of Light 
 Reigns o'er the vague and awful Infinite ? 
 "Who wears the armour now of Wilberforce ? 
 Or who with Howard purges Misery's source ? 
 Who now would rather die than prove a liar ? 
 What martyr for his Christ would brave the fire ? 
 What mummer mumbling " Stories of the Cross " 
 Would suffer for His sake a living's loss, 
 What ranter of Christ's pangs on Sabbath-morns 
 Bear one light skin-prick of His crown of thorns ? . . 
 
 Ye sneer at honour, praise the schemer's sleekness, 
 And hold straightforwardness a childish weakness; 
 Contemn the hero though for you he dies, 
 And laud a crafty rascal to the skies ; 
 Ay, kneel to every savage ye have warred om 
 And to save Gladstone sacrifice a Gordon. 
 Void of belief in either God or Devil, 
 Each life 's a sordid strife or filthy revel ;
 
 96 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 No hope of Heaven and no fear of Hell 
 
 To prompt to good, from Evil's paths repel ; 
 
 No vision of Eternity to fire 
 
 The spirit of man and lift him from the mire ; 
 
 No hope of vaster life in boundless spheres 
 
 To consecrate the loves of mortal years. 
 
 Let each man live his little life of sin 
 
 Just far enough from Crime to save his skin, 
 
 Gain place or power or gold or gluttonous ease, 
 
 Crawl up to fame by any base degrees, 
 
 Eat, drink, and sleep, till, choked with London's 
 
 fogs, 
 He dies unwept, to rot with apes and dogs ! . . 
 
 Yet, were I dwelling in this world of mist, 
 I scarce could be an ultra-pessimist. 
 Hell's pessimism 's mortals' optimism ; 
 If man, I' d lean to Sully's " meliorism." 
 For, ever through the weary circling years 
 I, struggling with the Power that sways the spheres,
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 97 
 
 I, the old Anarch, I that Chaos am, 
 
 I, the grim Wolf in clothing of the lamb, 
 
 I, subtil Serpent that through Eden crept, 
 
 Man's Enemy, whose hate hath never slept, 
 
 I, keen of eyes and base of heart, whose lot 
 
 Is to know Good and yet to choose it not, 
 
 I, Supreme Evil, who have warred on Good 
 
 Through age on age of horror and of blood, 
 
 I, who would mar the peace of Earth and Heaven, 
 
 Loose through the worlds Hell's thunders and its 
 
 levin, 
 All order, beauty, joy in ruin lay, 
 Roll darkness upon light and night on day — 
 Ay me ! I feel my weakness in His grasp, 
 The knees that press my limbs, the palms that clasp, 
 A moment risen, am backward flung as dead, 
 And still the Victor's heel is on my head. . . 
 
 I know not for what end the Universe 
 Sustains me thus, who am its scourge and curse, 
 
 H
 
 9 3 MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 Why the Almighty with one final blow 
 Hath struck not and for ever laid me low. 
 Methinks it would be sweet to sleep. Ah me, 
 Far sweeter than to strive perpetually 
 In failures on through centuries of woe, 
 Foreknowing nothing save mine overthrow, 
 No higher joy than what a sneer may yield 
 At human foibles every hour revealed, 
 No hope of vaster triumph, richer gain, 
 Than just some increment of mortals' pain ! . . 
 
 So bestial Man appeareth from his birth, 
 So base in grain, so cumbered with his earth, 
 I marvel not that he so low can fall, 
 But that he soars so high, or soars at all. 
 But upward, onward still, in Hell's despite, 
 He struggles, yearning toward his gleam of light ; 
 The Good prevails, the surging floods of Sin, 
 Still threatening, still are held their bounds 
 within ;
 
 IN BROADCLOTH. 99 
 
 Earth's charioteer still curbs Earth's wanton steeds, 
 And guides them where the angel Virtue leads. 
 Ay, though I die not, Victor never yet 
 Have I my throne on Earth unshaken set, 
 Nor shall I while this orb about the sun 
 By the Invisible Hand in light is spun. . . 
 
 Eh, my good fellow ? Once again the chair ? 
 Have I not paid my penny ? Pray, be fair ! . . 
 Well, I have lingered here perhaps too long. 
 Methinks I 've not escaped the prying throng. 
 That shrewd observer, yonder, turns again ; 
 He is a poet yet unknown to men. 
 The ladies, too, are gazing all together — 
 They smell a little sulphur in the breeze ; 
 They seem to search about for foot and feather, 
 And test me as they would a Stilton cheese. 
 Were they but certain of the thing I am, 
 I should not know on Earth one moment's calm. 
 Good Lord ! I should be plagued with invitations
 
 ioo MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 To breakfasts, dances, cold and hot collations, 
 
 To tete-a-tetes and private conversations, 
 
 And amateur confessions, and ovations, 
 
 Afternoon-teas, and plays, and recitations, 
 
 And East End concerts, ritualist oblations, 
 
 Salvation armies, temperance orations, 
 
 Clerical meetings, ministerial dinners, 
 
 And mild retreats of melancholy sinners, 
 
 And crowded parties where you make your way 
 
 Half up the staircase ere the dawn of day ; 
 
 And, by my faith, I 'd rather lose my reason 
 
 Than be the Lion of a London Season. . . 
 
 But hark ! . . Time 's up ! . . Farewell, my 
 
 children ! . . Pah ! . . 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHISWICK I'RESS I — C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE.
 
 WORKS OF 
 GEORGE FRANCIS ARMSTRONG. 
 
 fiDpiniong of tlje press. 
 
 STORIES OF WICKLOW. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. cloth, price 9^. 
 
 " His book is very welcome." — Saturday Review. 
 
 ''These ' Stories of Wicklow ' are all conceived and written in the true 
 spirit of poetry. They abound in descriptions of natural scenery in 
 which the eye and heart of the poet seem to be accompanied by the hand 
 of the painter ; and they give forcible expression to some of the deepest 
 and most complex feelings of the human breast. The passion of remorse, 
 in conflict witb other and more terrible passions, has seldom been more 
 vividly depicted than in the grim story, ' The Wraith of De Riddles- 
 ford's Castle.' 'The Fisherman,' which is stated to be a true narrative 
 taken from the lips of a Wicklow seafarer, enshrines, with an altogether 
 natural pathos, the loving sorrows of one of a class of men whose natures 
 are often as tender as their lot is hard. Nearly all the poems in the 
 volume are narratives, containing incidents which connect them with 
 Wicklow; but the reader will find interest less in the events of the stories 
 than in the descriptive and thoughtful passages which exalt the stories 
 into poems. . . . The following is unexceptionable for its inspiration and 
 its finished beauty of form." — Academy. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong is a skilful and conscientious literary craftsman, and 
 his hand has lost none of its cunning. Every poem in this volume is 
 well wrought out, and is good in its degree. The author's blank verse 
 is at once strong and supple. In lyrical measures his touch is firm 
 and strong. . . . There is plenty of warmth, plenty of colour, much 
 thought, and some humour. . . . He communicates to us a pervading 
 sense of hill and lake, and brown, tumbling tarn, — he makes us breathe 
 Wicklow air. ... In our judgment, however, the special value of this 
 book resides in those poems or passages which deal with the great 
 scientific and theological problems of the day. ' Lugnaquillia ' is a 
 delightful colloquial poem in blank verse, in which deep feeling and 
 charming humour play into one another like light and shade. Many a 
 man will start to find his unconscious 'religious convictions' laid bare in 
 the following lines. . . . Mr. Armstrong feels with great intensity those 
 scientific and moral difficulties which are the special burden of this tran-
 
 sitional age or stage. But he does not lose heart or hope. His hope, 
 indeed, is not always sure and certain, but it is always deep-rooted and 
 clinging. The opening section of ' De Verdun of Darragh,' though in it 
 the author does not speak in his own person, may with safety be set down 
 as the utterance of his personal thoughts. It is a lofty and impassioned 
 defence of the reasonableness of those eternal hopes which the soul needs 
 and will not let go. . . . Hardly any one who is weighed down by the 
 burden of the age's problems could read this section, practically an 
 independent whole, and other similar poems and passages in Mr. 
 Armstrong's book, without feeling braced and cheered." — Spectator. 
 
 " From long excursions into the domains of Hebrew and classic poetry, 
 Mr. George Francis Armstrong returns to the steep hills and green 
 woodlands of Wicklow. Like Antaeus, he seems to gain fresh vigour from 
 contact with his native soil. . . . The ' sounds of tree and stream,' 
 'the clearness of the mountain air,' and 'the fragrance of the sea,' all 
 mingle with the legends of the Wicklow glens and lakes. They make 
 the book a delightful and inspiring companion for any one who loves to 
 ramble, in the flesh or in the spirit, on dewy heights above the smoke and 
 bustle of the work-a-day world. Another element is present, a pathetic 
 undertone that is seldom absent from Irish poetry. In the blithest mood 
 of the poet and his muse, there steal in, amid the sighing of the leaves 
 and the noise of wind and waters, the ' voices of the Lost Ones,' and most 
 of all the voice of his highly gifted brother, Edmund J. Armstrong, so 
 often his companion in earlier climbs to the summit of Lugnaquillia, or 
 in loiterings in Luggala, the 'Hollow of Sweet Sounds.' Of these 
 metrical stories ' De Verdun of Darragh' is the longest ; but there are 
 others in the collection that may be preferred to it. ' The Fisherman,' 
 'The Wreck off Mizen-Head,' 'The Bursting of Lough Nahanagan,' 
 and 'The Glen of the Horse,' are founded on local incidents or legends 
 of comparatively recent date ; in the latter three great skill is shown in 
 adapting the rhythm to the stirring theme. In 'The Wraith of De 
 Riddlesford's Castle,' a command of the gruesome is shown which 
 Hoffman, or Burger, or any other of the German masters of the horrible 
 need not have disdained to own." — Scotsman. 
 
 " Mr. George Francis Armstrong's ' Stories of Wicklow ' are most 
 pleasant reading. Mr. Armstrong is already well known as the author 
 of ' Ugone,' ' King Saul,' and other dramas, and his latest volume shows 
 that the power and passion of his early work have not deserted him. 
 Most modern Irish poetry is purely political, and deals with the wicked- 
 ness of the landlords and the Tories, but Mr. Armstrong sings of the 
 picturesqueness of Erin, not of its politics. He tells us very charmingly 
 of the magic of its mists and the melody of its colour, and draws a most 
 captivating picture of the peasants of county Wicklow. . . . The 
 most ambitious poem in the volume is ' De Verdun of Darragh.' It is 
 at once lyrical and dramatic. . . . All through it there is a personal and 
 individual note." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Let haste be made at once to express the most cordial agreement 
 with the opinions enunciated melodiously in ' An Invocation,' and to 
 assure the writer that the mountain-muse, with her waving hair and 
 venturous mien, and tameless woodland ways, with her wild-wood 
 flowers and garlands green, with sounds of stream and tree, with clear- 
 ness of the mountain air and fragrance of the sea, is certainly far more 
 likely to 'assuage the deeper want than seas of sensual art.' ... In 
 the mountain it is you must seek her, and to the mountain, after she has 
 descended and exchanged sweet whispers with you, and breathed her 
 inspiration into you, depend upon it she will ascend again. So at least,
 
 any muse that respects herself will be sure to do ; and so she will 
 preserve her freshness, her vigour, her buoyancy. To this fact the 
 author's own productions bear ample witness, whether he be telling a 
 long romantic eventful tale, in four parts and in many varieties of lyric 
 verse, or exhibiting his dashing powers of description, as in the piece 
 entitled ' The Glen of the Horse,' or in the spirited lay of the flood and 
 of the maiden rescued from death, or in the two parts of ' Luggala,' or 
 in other poems long or short." — Illustrated London News. 
 
 " By far the best poem is ' Luggala,' a version of the world-old swan- 
 legend, most picturesquely and sympathetically given in such Spenserian 
 metre as it is seldom our good fortune to meet with ; the descriptions of 
 natural scenery in this are really beautiful. . . . We have been charmed 
 by ' Autumn Memories,' ' An Invitation,' and above all by ' Song-Time 
 to Come.' In these Mr. Armstrong is seen at his best, as a tuneful and 
 thoughtful lover of Nature." — Graphic. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong's straightforward and vigorous writing is a refresh- 
 ment after the sickly and introspective dreamings that most minor poets 
 think fit to indulge in. The volume before us does not offer much that 
 can well be quoted, as its strength lies in the narrative poems, which are 
 full of rapidity and life, and extracts would give a very inadequate 
 impression of them. But any one who wishes for exciting incidents well 
 told, should read ' The Glen of the Horse,' or ' The Bursting of Lough 
 Nahanagan.' Mr. Armstrong has the most genuine and irrepressible 
 love of the scenes of his native district, and none can read his descrip- 
 tions without catching some of his enthusiasm. He has the unfailing 
 charm of reality. He writes of what he knows and loves, and does not 
 pretend to any emotions that he has not really felt." — Guardian. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong is undoubtedly one of our most versatile and finished 
 poets. Themes classical and homely, elevated and commonplace, he 
 has alike treated with felicity and finish. He has succeeded, too, in 
 tragedy. His trilogy of Israelite dramas — ' King Saul,' ' King David' 
 and ' King Solomon ' — is marked by rare force and variety. In the present 
 case he has found subjects nearer home, amid localities endeared to him 
 by residence and made familiar by many journeyings and rambles. No 
 one could deny his vigour in narration. He touches the core of human 
 nature here and there, . . . and relieves the narrative by reflection 
 couched in glowing language. . . . This volume will undoubtedly add 
 to Mr. Armstrong's reputation as a poet." — Nonconformist. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong is a genuine poet. His sympathies with nature are 
 strong, and his love for his Wicklow home intense. His opening invo- 
 cation breathes all the freshness and loveliness of Wicklow scenery. 
 The stories are always interesting, and for the most part of a very healthy 
 tone."— Tablet. 
 
 "Mr. Armstrong is without doubt a poet; and these 'Stories of 
 Wicklow ' are both impressive and exhilarating productions. He belongs 
 to a family in which poetry forms an essential element of existence. 
 When he thinks he thinks in poetry. It is not possible for him that it 
 should be otherwise. . . . Poems all more or less indicative of Mr. Arm- 
 strong's fine poetic faculty and genius." — Literary World. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong is better known to the poetry-reading public than is 
 the author of either of the two works we have just reviewed, and these 
 ' Stories of Wicklow ' will certainly maintain the reputation he has won 
 among discriminating critics. Mr. Armstrong may ' claim applause of 
 none ; ' but whether he claims it or not, he will assuredly win it from 
 those whose applause is best worth having. These romantic legends of 
 Wicklow County are conceived so imaginatively, and told with such
 
 passionate vividp.ess and with such expressive music, that they take us 
 captive at once, hold us in their spell, and will not let us go until the 
 conclusion has been reached. Mr. Armstrong is a master of varied 
 versification. . . . He is always strong, sinewy and virile. His handling 
 of character and incident is admirable, and the book has therefore not 
 only an artistic but a strong human interest, the very thing which is so 
 markedly missing in so much of the poetry of the period." — Mancliester 
 Examiner. 
 
 "This is a volume of stories told in verse, and the reader will find in 
 them a charm that irresistibly allures him on from stanza to stanza. 
 Mr. Armstrong ranks among the first of our living poets, and the reputa- 
 tion he has achieved is well sustained in these poems, which are rich in 
 mellow harmonies, graceful rhymes, graphically drawn scenes full of 
 swift and varied action, marked by the gloom of tragedy, the sunny rays 
 of light-hearted joyousness, and the tenderest and sweetest pathos. He 
 is a master of musical verse and something more. He possesses that 
 sympathy with man and nature without which no poet can move his 
 reader to a common confession of joy and sorrow. ... In the other 
 ' Stories ' there are passages of equal beauty with those we have selected, 
 and altogether the volume is full of delightful reading." — Liverpool 
 Courier. 
 
 " ' Stories of Wicklow ' . . are told in flowing verse. . . ' The Wraith 
 of De Riddlesford's Castle ' . . tells of the fearful remorse and the dis- 
 ordered imagination which peoples the air with accusing shapes when 
 unlawful love has culminated in murder. It is hardly possible to read 
 the story without a creeping of the flesh. . . Although all the selections 
 breathe deep sentiment, the one to which special reference has been 
 made is solitary in its superlative gruesomeness." — Liverpool Daily Post. 
 
 " 'The Glen of the Horse' is a spirited ballad of the terrible death of 
 a mounted rebel chased over a precipice in the Wicklow mountains by 
 his pursuer, who found too late that the enemy he had ridden to death 
 was a friend of former years, and his kinswoman's betrothed. This poem, 
 and ' The Bursting of Lough Nahanagan,' are founded on fact, as also is 
 ' The Fisherman ' a simple but pathetic tale of the sea. . . . The finest 
 poems in the volume are ' The Wraith of De Riddlesford's Castle ' — a 
 romantic ghost-story of the good old-fashioned style, containing some 
 really thrilling incidents and scenes of spectral horror — and ' Luggala,' an 
 Irish-Keltic fairy story of an Argonaut-like voyage in search of a land of 
 rest beyond the sunset, one of those charming Swan-legends that delight 
 old and young alike. The poem is filled with rich and beautiful passages. 
 . . . These poems glow with a patriotic love for his Wicklow mountains and 
 glens, the scenery of which he here depicts. . . . His language through- 
 out is graceful, his verse always unexceptionable in rhyme and rhythm, 
 no mean achievement in these days, when there is so much bad ' prose 
 and worse.' " — Birmingham Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. George Francis Armstrong's ' Stories of Wicklow ' will maintain 
 the reputation which former poetical works have gained him, and which 
 was shared by his brother Edmund, whose biographer and literary 
 executor he has been. These new Stories are mostly narratives in 
 varied metre, and are marked by a strong love of Nature, a lively fancy, 
 and an elevation of thought and tone." — Leeds Mercury. 
 
 " This is a volume of genuine poetry, full of stately music, noble 
 thoughts, and genuine passion. It would be a mercy .to admirers of 
 Walt Whitman to submit them to the influence of a poet like this by 
 reading one of these volumes to them aloud. Here is no hurry, no 
 coarseness of epithet or vulgarity of idea, no straining after effect or
 
 singularity, but genius under the perfect control of sanity, and polish 
 without weakness. We recommend all lovers of poetry of the first class 
 to this glorious book." — Sheffield Independent. 
 
 " In 'The Glen of the Horse' we have a vigorous rendering of the 
 legend that haunts the valley of Glenmalure— a legend in itself terrible 
 in pathos — and although it would be unjust even to seem to disparage 
 the poet's deeper, subtler verse, we commend it to the general reader 
 as stirring the blood and moving the sympathies. To avoid comparison 
 we refrain from selecting other individual contributions for particular 
 mention, and will content ourselves with the general observation that 
 the poems are of exceptional excellence, and that while some more than 
 others impress us with their superlative merit, there is no instance in 
 which good qualities can fail to be discerned. The collection will be 
 widely read . . . hereafter perhaps the book may be presented at a 
 cheaper cost. One hopes as much, because a good book cannot be too 
 extensively distributed." — Western Daily Alereury. 
 
 " In a volume of over 400 pages, G. F. Armstrong gives us some de- 
 lightful verses in which the brilliant and thoughtful writer, who a few years 
 ago gave us an unfading ' Garland from Greece,' surpasses even that most 
 finished collection of Lyrics. The title of the new volume is ' Stories of 
 Wicklow.' The leading poem is a descriptive piece, ' De Verdun of 
 Darragh,' which is as full of rich harmonies as it is varied in metre and 
 cadence. ' The Glen of the Horse ' is graphically and powerfully 
 written. One of the gems of the collection, ' The Living and the Dead,' 
 we have already printed in The Courant. In poetic narration, in 
 vivid description of scenery, and in the art and mastery of language 
 some of the pieces are exquisitely beautiful, and cannot fail to add to 
 the solid reputation of the writer." — Newcastle Courant. 
 
 "Mr. George Francis Armstrong is one of the most pleasing, musical 
 and graceful of our modern poets, and admirers of his verse will 
 welcome these 'Stories of Wicklow,' poems which, though not, like the 
 ' Garland from Greece,' speaking with the warmth and richness and 
 colour of a southern clime, are yet marked by the same love of Nature, 
 and by the same power of sympathizing with and portraying her many- 
 changing moods. There is a breezy freshness about Mr. Armstrong's 
 verse which, in these days of second-hand and pumped-up enthusiasm, 
 is very grateful to one's susceptibilities. He sings of the rivers and 
 lakes, the woods and the heaths, the valleys and the mountain-peaks, the 
 jutting headlands, and the storm-beaten coasts of his native Wicklow. 
 He sings as one who knows them well, and by the sympathetic spell of 
 his genius he brings his readers to love them also." — Nottingham Daily 
 Guardian. 
 
 " The product of a poetically constituted mind of the first order. The 
 author . . . belongs to a literary family who have splendidly contributed to 
 the great Republic of Letters. . . . Mr. George Francis Armstrong is a 
 sincere lover of his country, as his 'Stories of Wicklow' abundantly 
 prove. . . . He is a student of human nature, but of external nature as 
 well, and the latter he loves very truly, and his study is profound and 
 appeals directly to the heart. These ' Stories of Wicklow ' are the 
 product of a wayfarer, wandering amidst the loveliest hills and dales of 
 Ireland, filled with the rarest fancies that their exquisite scenic grandeur 
 could beget. . . . He is a painter from nature, and owes to nature the 
 best part of his inspiration. He had rather sing her music. His 
 poetry is spontaneous. . . . These ' Stories of Wicklow ' are enchanting 
 to every reader. They are inspired by the rarest spirit of poetry, and 
 appeal in particular to the native sentiment."— Irish Times.
 
 "His work proves him no minor poet, but abounding in the perpetual 
 beauty, the unfailing metrical charm, the enduring enthusiasm, the 
 temperance, wisdom, and moral goodness that only the great poets 
 possess. . . . This volume should be treasured while there is anyone to 
 be proud of the true glories of Ireland, while there are lovers of true 
 poetry and of what is best in Man and Nature." — Dublin University 
 Review. 
 
 " He has given us a Garland from Ireland worthy and more than 
 worthy to match with his 'Garland from Greece.' In the volume 
 before us there is at least one tragedy — ' Altadore' — more affecting than 
 the author's Hebrew Trilogy. That he should have gathered such a 
 harvest from Irish soil to-day is a wonder to be ranked with Horrocks's 
 Observation of the Transit of Venus amid the commotions of Charles I.'s 
 time. . . . We think the present volume places Mr. Armstrong very high 
 indeed among the poets of the Victorian age." — Dublin Evening- Mail. 
 
 " Here we have traditions old and new, tales of modern life, descrip- 
 tions of scenery, and the bracing and joyous rambles of loving friends ; 
 some of the poems long and elaborate, others consisting of a stanza or 
 two of simple spontaneous emotion, mere breaths of poetry, as brief as the 
 windflaw that runs purpling over the level sea on a day of perfect calm, 
 or that in ' tranced summer nights,' passes through the woods in a single 
 sigh. . . . We hope our readers will regret that we are unable to give 
 more varied examples of the lofty and passionate poetry of this noble 
 volume. Not a phase of the loveliness of the Wicklow glens and seas 
 but will be found portrayed there, and associated with thoughts and 
 images that make it even dearer than before." — Irish Fireside. 
 
 " The author is one of the most prolific of later English poets 
 
 His previous books have been much praised by competent British critics. 
 In this book he treats of a variety of themes, and in many metres. One 
 is impressed by his facility, and a capacity for descriptive writing which 
 is apparent throughout his work. . . . They are all gracefully written." — 
 Boston (U.S.A.) Herald. 
 
 " The political condition of Ireland makes it inevitable that the lyre 
 attuned to national themes shall evoke the quickest response from the 
 popular heart. But the true realm of the poet is larger than any 
 country ; his place is above the world, whence he may see all that is in 
 it, not merely a part. It is well to make the songs of a people, but it is 
 also well to give poetical voice to the emotions, passions and aspirations 
 of mankind. Mr. Armstrong's poetry belongs in the main to what is 
 
 generally acknowledged to be the higher order of verse The 
 
 ' Stories of Wicklow ' are better calculated to make Mr. Armstrong 
 known among his own countrymen than any of his previous productions. 
 The stories are full of interest, and the descriptions of places and scenery 
 are admirable. . . . This book alone, if the others had never appeared, 
 would be sufficient to stamp Mr. Armstrong as a true poet. . . . What 
 would be called in stage phrase the scenic effects of all these poems are 
 rich, harmonious and vivid. There appears to be hardly a spot in 
 Wicklow which the poet does not know, and he has the rare gift of being 
 able to make others see with his own eyes. His descriptions of places 
 are as remarkable for detail (always difficult in verse) as for their com- 
 pleteness as finished pictures. ... In one respect Mr. Armstrong's verse 
 differs from that of nearly all other Irish poets. Nothing in its form or 
 style indicates the nationality of the writer. In quality, however, it 
 ranks among the best poetry of the present time, and it cannot fail to be 
 enjoyed by all persons of good literary taste. It is fresh, vigorous, and 
 varied, and it has the special merit of not possessing any of the charac-
 
 tenstics of the hasty, exotic school, which has found too much success in 
 England, and been imitated to some extent in America. It is all clean, 
 and fit for the young as well as for the old to read."— Boston (USA ) 
 Pilot. * 
 
 "M. Armstrong abonde en descriptions eclatante et finement nuan- 
 cees, en effusions lyriques d'un magnifique essor. Et son vers ne le 
 trahit pas ; se pretant aux rhythmes les plus varies, il reste toujours 
 ample, elegante et cadence. Fascine. par les merveilleux spectacles de 
 cette terre et enflamme d'une foi ardente le poete a puise aux sources les 
 plus pures de l'inspiration : la Nature et Dieu. A chaque page, ses 
 stropnes^aile'es, qui yiennent de nous peindre quelque ravissante vision 
 et de jjreter une voix a la cre'ation muette, s'en volent sans effort vers 
 une region plus lunrneuse encore et nous entretiennent du Cre'ateur, de 
 sa providence, de la vie future. M. Armstrong est un vrai poete: il 
 joint a la delicatesse des sentiments et a Iele'vation de la pensee, la 
 richesse du coloris et la perfection de la forme."— Polybiblion (Paris). 
 
 VICTORIA REGINA ET IMPERATRIX. 
 
 A JUBILEE SONG FROM IRELAND, 1887. 
 
 "Mr. G. F. Armstrong's Victoria, a 'Jubilee Song from Ireland,' 
 takes high rank among the many odes and hymns that celebrate what 
 ought to be an inspiring event with our poets. It is finely modulated 
 and distinguished by a sustained elevation of sentiment that befits the 
 dignity of the theme." — Saturday Review. 
 
 " There seems something especially graceful in a Jubilee song of 
 exultant loyalty which comes from County Wicklow. Such is Mr. George 
 F. Armstrong's 'Victoria,' a poem vigorous and musical in expression 
 and breathing a lofty spirit of pride in faithful allegiance to Her Majesty! 
 Mr. Armstrong's merits as a poet of strength and skill have been exhibited 
 in a series of stirring works, but if evidence of them were wanting, it would 
 be found in abundance in his fine Jubilee ode."— Scotsman. 
 
 " The ' Song ' is, in fact, an ode, and full of elegant passages in 
 measures appropriate to that form. This is indeed one of the most 
 successful celebrations of the Jubilee in verse." — Globe. 
 
 "This Jubilee Ode, composed near Bray, on the mountain shore of 
 Wicklow, whence he sees the mountains of North Wales, appeals to the 
 heart of every true Briton with the expresed consciousness of a patriotism 
 shared by loyal men on both sides of St. George's Channel. The ' Wild 
 Harp of Erin ' makes good music in this strain. It is fine in thought, in 
 diction, and in versification." — Illustrated London News. 
 
 "A book, the author of which is already known as a poet of marked 
 ability, and who now worthily represents the loyal spirit which recognizes 
 with gratitude the obligations of Ireland, and breathes its aspirations for 
 the welfare of that country under the rule of our Gracious Queen."— 
 Queen. 
 
 " It differs from the poems on the same theme by some other dis- 
 tinguished writers of verse, inasmuch as it will not detract from the high 
 reputation of its author."— Christian Leader.
 
 8 
 
 " It is decidedly refreshing to find that even the 'Wild Harp of Erin' 
 has strings, which can be touched in sympathy with that wave of loyalty 
 which has just passed over our kingdom. . . . Versatile and finished, 
 Mr. Armstrong never sinks to anything approaching the commonplace, 
 and here, as in other works, he is at home in his beloved country which 
 passionately inspires him." . . . — Bristol Times. 
 
 " George Francis Armstrong, whose poems, 'A Garland from Greece,' 
 and ' Stories of Wicklow,' placed him in the front rank of living poets, 
 has written a Jubilee Song from Ireland. ... It is written in the form of 
 an ode, and characterized by all the remarkable vigour and precision of 
 expression of his best work. This Jubilee ode should more than maintain 
 the high reputation which Mr. Armstrong's preceding poems gained for 
 him." — Newcastle Courant. 
 
 "Mr. George Francis Armstrong's Jubilee Ode is a work of a very 
 different class from those we have noticed. They are necessarily of but 
 ephemeral interest. It deserves to live, and we trust will live. . . . 
 Mr. Armstrong has written much that is worth reading, but he has never 
 written a piece of more eloquent declamation than this Jubilee Ode." — 
 Daily Express (Dublin). 
 
 "There is much spirit and high sentiment in this poem, and it will 
 compare favourably with the best that has appeared under the muse's 
 inspiration." — Manchester Courier. 
 
 " It is earnestly to be desired that Mr. George Francis Armstrong's 
 poem 'Victoria' may be read by every well-wisher to Ireland. . . . 
 True poetry is lasting and will live when Jubilees are forgotten. This 
 poem of Mr. Armstrong's deserves to live and be remembered. . . . 
 Mr. Armstrong is that happy combination — a true poet and a true 
 Irishman."— Nottingham Guardian. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong's masterly ode, an opportune and welcome addition to 
 the Jubilee literature of this Jubilee year of grace." — Allen's Indian 
 Mail. 
 
 " The offering is certainly an attractive one, both as to its sentiments 
 and its poetry. . . . He has exhibited true poetic genius and enthusiastic 
 loyal feeling, and these two qualities are enough to give a high value to 
 his Jubilee offering." — Sydney Morning Herald (Australia). 
 
 "An ode which breathes a very lofty and loyal spirit, and therefore is 
 doubly welcome as coming from Ireland. . . . Of all the Jubilee odes it is 
 by far the best tribute that has been paid to-day 
 
 ' To her who through the fifty summers flown, 
 Has worn her lucid diadem unstained.'" 
 
 — Melbourne Argus. 
 
 " Of all native attempts to celebrate the event in verse, Mr. Armstrong's 
 song from Ireland is decidedly the best, as it is undoubtedly the most 
 ambitious." — Dublin Evening Mail. 
 
 "Among the many poems which have been inspired by Her Majesty's 
 Jubilee, by no means the least honour must be paid to Mr. George 
 Francis Armstrong's 'Jubilee Song from Ireland.' This song is an 
 admirable composition, and will further increase Mr. Armstrong's 
 reputation." — Northern H'hig (Belfast).
 
 WORKS OF 
 GEORGE FRANCIS ARMSTRONG. 
 
 A GARLAND FROM GREECE. 
 Fcap. 8vo., cloth, price gs. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong maintains, and even improves, his position among 
 the English poets of the day .... No writer of the time, except 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold— and, if we are to take his 'Transcripts' into 
 account, of course, Mr. Browning — has so thoroughly imbibed the 
 classical spirit." — Spectator. 
 
 " We may confidently recommend the volume to all readers who may 
 wish to realize so much of physical Greece as a book may convey. The 
 variety of subjects and treatment is remarkable. But nowhere does 
 Mr. Armstrong appear otherwise than at his ease .... Mr. Armstrong 
 is under the marked influence of no particular school. His writing 
 possesses individuality both of thought and expression, and he has at his 
 command an abundant flow of melodious verse .... A very charming 
 volume." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " It consists of a medley of poems, all dealing with the subject of 
 Greece from topographical, historical, legendary, political, and other 
 points of view. As might be expected, the legendary and antique poems 
 are the best, especially ' Selemnos,' a poem which would give more than 
 one good subject to an artist, and the ' Closing of the Oracle.' All the 
 book is scholarly and thoroughly readable."— A cademy. 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong has drawn enthusiasm from several sources. The 
 actual scenery of Greece does not seem to impress him with the sense of 
 desolation which it produces on some spectators. He is enthusiastically 
 Phil-Hellenic as to the present inhabitants of the country ; and he has 
 the classical sympathies and associations which might be expected from 
 a cultivated Englishman. These various motives find expression by 
 turns in his verse." — Athenaum. 
 
 "A delightful book .... A large part of the merit of this work lies 
 in the choice of subjects ; but the treatment is very vigorous, and the 
 ' Brig»nd of Parnassus' and 'The Last Sortie from Mesolonghi] are 
 especially fine .... There is one poem which is not of Greek origin, 
 but has an extraordinary depth of analysis and emotion ; it is entitled 
 ' Time the Healer.' "- -New York Evening Post. 
 
 "Whatever may be the subject dealt with, it is always treated with 
 delicacy and taste. The reader feels that not only is the local colouring 
 true, that the places alluded to are accurately as well as picturesquely 
 described, but that the characters introduced are real flesh and blood, 
 and not merely lay-figures in a Greek dress .... A volume of poetry
 
 which may not only be glanced at, but studied, with pleasure." — 
 Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 " Mr. George Francis Armstrong's name and works will be familiar to 
 all real students of the English poets of the day. He is the author of 
 several volumes of really noble lyric and dramatic poems, which in the 
 opinion of the judicious hold a far higher place than a great deal of verse 
 that happening to be in accord with the superficial moods of the time, 
 commands a greater temporary popularity .... Graceful word-pictures 
 of Greek scenery, echoes and versions of old myths, and stirring ballads 
 and tales in verse of the struggles of the modern Hellenes with their 
 Mussulman oppressors, make up its contents. Mr. Armstrong employs 
 many metres and shows himself a master of them all." — Scotsman. 
 
 " [He] has long been placed high amongst living poets by all who can 
 appreciate earnest thought and a worthy choice of subjects wedded to 
 thoroughly good technical treatment .... Contains some of the 
 Author"s finest work .... Hardly any praise could be excessive for 
 such musical and stirring songs as the 'Agoyat' and the ' Klepht's 
 Flight '....' The Death of Epicurus ' must be read; selections from 
 this noble poem could only do it injustice .... These lines have not 
 been surpassed by any living writer." — Graphic. 
 
 "A volume of poems from Mr. Armstrong is always sure of a welcome 
 in the literary world. [He] has so often and so successfully proved his 
 power of producing strong and musical verse appealing directly to the 
 highest poetic sentiment, that his claim to distinguished notice amongst 
 contemporary poets cannot be disregarded." — Irish Times. 
 
 "The present volume has merits quite distinctive and exceptional. 
 But for the occasional apostrophes to England, the love of English 
 ideals, and the purity of the English idiom we might take the book for 
 the work of a native Greek .... Old tales and legends are charmingly 
 revived in 'The Satyr,' 'Orithyia' and 'Selemnos;' Marathon and 
 Chaeronea receive their meed of loyal remembrance ; and the modern 
 struggles of the Greeks for liberty are fitly pictured and sung in the 
 'Brigand of Parnassus,' 'The Last Sortie from Mesolonghi,' and 'The 
 Chiote. ' With nature as with man the poet feels a full and friendly 
 sympathy, and the humblest phases of the world's life are reflected in his 
 song." — Boston (-V..9) Literary World. 
 
 POEMS : Lyrical and Dramatic. 
 
 A New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. , cloth, price 6r. 
 
 " Mr. G. F. Armstrong, whose genuine poetical abilities have still, we 
 hope, to bear good and lasting fruit, has re-issued his ' Poems Lyrical and 
 Dramatic,' for the most part early works, full of the exuberant promise 
 and vitality of youth." — Guardian. 
 
 " Son livre le fait connaitre pour un esprit sincere, profondement reli- 
 gieux, mais n'accordant sa confiance a aucune des eglises ou des sectes de 
 son pays, pour un cceur aimant qui s'epanchait dans des vers plutot ten- 
 dres que passionnes." — Revue des Deu.x Mondes.
 
 UGONE : A Tragedy. 
 
 A New Edition. Fcap. 8vo., cloth, price 6s. 
 
 " We notice with pleasure a new edition of this tragedy, which has been 
 vigorously conceived, and written with sustained spirit and elegance . . . 
 The explanations in the closing scene are spontaneous and thoroughly 
 animated, the circumstances have been judiciously prepared, and the 
 spectacle becomes absorbing and magnificent." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " A composition of really remarkable performance and of genuine pro- 
 mise." — Saturday Review. 
 
 KING SAUL. 
 
 (THE TRAGEDY OF ISRAEL, PART I.) 
 Fcap. 8vo., cloth, price $s. 
 
 " The violent, but always unsuccessful, efforts of remorse to find 
 oblivion in a deliberate attitude of defiance, the sense of the hollowness of 
 kingship when severed from the reality of influence, and the king's still 
 eager love of his people, though blurred always by despair, and sometimes 
 by the brute impulse of impotent jealousy against the foredestined suc- 
 cessor, have been taken up one after another in Mr. Armstrong's drama in 
 a really masterly manner .... We can scarcely find a higher commen- 
 dation for the tragedy of ' King Saul ' than to say that in choosing his 
 subject its author did not overtax his legitimate strength."— Saturday 
 Review. 
 
 KING DAVID. 
 
 . (THE TRAGEDY OF ISRAEL, PART II.) 
 Fcap. 8vo., cloth, price 6s. 
 
 " There can be no doubt as to the imaginative vigour, and persistent 
 
 intellectual power with which Mr. Armstrong pursues his task . . _. . 
 
 The sequence of events sweep along in his pages with a grand impressive 
 
 roll, having the deep music of passion and imagination for an appropriate 
 
 mpaniment." — Guardian. 
 
 " Mr- Armstrong's right to be numbered among our poets is conceded." 
 — Sunday Times.
 
 KING SOLOMON. 
 
 (THE TRAGEDY OF ISRAEL, PART III.) 
 
 Fcap. 8vo., cloth, price 6s. 
 
 " Dramatic poems which can claim to have captivated the critics, not 
 of this country only, but of France, Germany, and America."— Edinburgh 
 Review. 
 
 " There can be no doubt that this is in various ways a production dis- 
 playing genuine power and original thought .... A vivid dramatic 
 poem, dealing with various problems of human passion, suffering, and trial. 
 The language and often the ideas, are entirely modern, but this only helps 
 to bring out the essential humanity of the men before us, and the reality 
 of their flesh and blood." — Saturday Review. 
 
 " To the energy of purpose necessary to approach and grapple with a 
 theme so gigantic, there has been joined a patience in execution which has 
 allowed of no slovenly work to the best of its judgment ; no mean skill in 
 the mechanism of verse ; a fancy fertile in conceptions which not seldom 
 reach grandeur ; and a remarkable descriptive faculty . . . . ' King 
 Solomon ' is in the portraiture of the hero the best of the three plays." — 
 A cademy. 
 
 "Quite uncommon mastery of language and much melody of versifica- 
 tion distingui-h it [' The Tragedy of Israel ']. For energy of rhetoric, for 
 the really poetical beauty of the lyrical portions of it, for the richness of 
 imagery which adorns, even over-adorns it throughout, it takes high rank 
 among the poems of the present day." — Spectator. 
 
 "We must designate the attested powers of the poet as extraordinarily 
 great — so elevated is his imagination ; so full of idealism his representa- 
 tion of powerful emotions ; and, finally, so perfectly beautiful his lan- 
 guage." — Magazinfiir die Literatur des Auslandes (Berlin). 
 
 " Poete comme son frere Edmund, mort ll y a quelques annees, M. G. 
 F. Armstrong s'etait fait connaitre par un recueil de Poemes lyriques et 
 draiuati /lies et par une tragedie d' ' Ugone, quand il donna le Roi Saul, 
 qui a justement augmente sa reputation, accrue encore par le Roi David 
 et le Roi Salomon." — Polybiblion (Paris). 
 
 "As contributions to modern classics these work are destined to hold 
 high rank and be universally admired." — Boston (U. S.) Commonwealth. 
 
 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF EDMUND 
 J. ARMSTRONG. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo., with Portrait and Vignette. Price "]s. 6d. 
 
 "There was a fulness of life, and of Irish life, in Edmund Armstrong, 
 
 of which the years he lived afford no measure The laculties, 
 
 elements, and activities which went with it were very various ; it was a
 
 life abounding in happiness and hope, with seasons of gloom and sore dis- 
 turbance ; abounding in loves and admirations — love and admiration of 
 nature, love and admiration of books, and other and still more passionate 
 loves and admirations ; full of reflection and emotion, giving out at one 
 time 
 
 ' Hyblaean murmurs of poetic thought, 
 
 Industrious in its joy ; ' 
 
 Giving birth at another to battles of the spiritual instincts with their intel- 
 lectual persecutors and destroyers ; and passing through all forms and 
 phases of belief, unbelief, disbelief, and misbelief, though happily finding 
 
 its way at last to faith and peace In the biographies ot these times 
 
 the merit of all merits which is rarest is ' the tender grace of not too 
 much.' To this merit, as well as many others, the biography of Edmund 
 
 Armstrong may fairly lay claim His life wasa poem." — Edinburgh 
 
 Review. 
 
 " His life had in it material enough for two lives of the same length — 
 frolics of boyhood, the growth of a passion for external nature, ardent 
 friendship, an unsatisfied love, the loss and restoration of a faith, author- 
 ship in prose and verse, all these filled to the full the narrow count of his 
 
 years The editor has done his work well, with all reverence and 
 
 love for his dead brother, and with many lively and tender touches of his 
 own.'' — Academy. 
 
 "Mr. George Francis Armstrong's memoir of this remarkable youth is 
 full of deep interest for all who care to follow the mental throes and ex- 
 perience of a nature at once highly intellectual and exceedingly emotional 
 — its struggles towards development, its yearnings and efforts in search of 
 
 truth It is the growth of his mind, the influences under which it 
 
 was shaped, and the processes through which it passed which his brother 
 depicts with a literary grace all the more enjoyable because of its entire 
 freedom Irom artificiality, and with a sympathy and insight inspired by 
 his deep affection for his subject." — Scotsman. 
 
 "Armstrong had a varied, turbulent soul-life within himself, and he 
 could truly be ranked with those among whom Georges Sand's happy re- 
 mark finds application, ' II y a des gens qui vivent beaucoup a la fois et 
 dont les ans comptent double ' . . . . By the adoption of many of the 
 charming original letters of the deceased, George Armstrong has, as far 
 as the construction was possible, fashioned an autobiography out of a bio- 
 graphy ; and by this means he has attained his object, to give the reader 
 a vital picture of the poet. We fancy that we see before us the highly- 
 gifted youth, to whom in an unusual measure it was given to awaken in- 
 terest and sympathy, and make himself the centre of a circle of loving 
 friends. His joyous inspiration works contagiously through his vivacity, 
 and his nimble, merry fancy brings us in a moment from tears to laughter ; 
 while on the other hand the daring with which his youthful spirit plunged 
 into the darkest depths of the human soul, and the fortitude with which 
 he bore severe bodily suffering, fill us with true reverence."— Magazin 
 Jiir die Literatur des Auslandes (Berlin).
 
 EDITED BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF 
 
 EDMUND J. ARMSTRONG. 
 
 A New Edition, containing many Poems not before published. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo., with Portrait on Steel by C. H. Jeens, 
 
 and Vignette. Price $s. 
 
 "Of course his powers in descriptive as well as in other poetry are 
 seen to more advantage in his twenty-first than in his eighteenth year ; 
 and a few lines from ' The Prisoner of Mount Saint Michael," written in 
 1863, will show not only his gifts in that kind, but something more. . . . 
 The impressions from nature in such passages as these are skilfully inter- 
 posed to afford the reader a short and very needful rest in the somewhat 
 headlong course of a tumultuously tragic story ; and in this the skill is 
 seen in the rhythm as well as in the change of scene. There could 
 hardly be found elsewhere an example of blank verse written at so early 
 an age with such happy measurements in its structure, and with move- 
 ments so easy and so graceful The story is wildly frightful, but 
 
 not at all beyond the bounds of what human nature can find room for in 
 the way of possible guilt and crime on the part of the heroine, and possible 
 
 weakness and bewilderment on the part of her lover As a plot 
 
 for a melodrama no story could be better. . . . The power evinced [in 
 its treatment] is very rare ; and it may be observed with equal truth that 
 in these days the skill by which a good story is constructed is also rare. 
 .... Into the extant lyrical poems of Edmund Armstrong — the extant 
 miscellaneous lyrical, that is — as well as into the non-extant dramatic, 
 the element of humour found its way ; not, however, into those which 
 are lyrical in the stricter sense, not into the songs. These spring from 
 an unmixed emotion, simple and sad ; and as in the case of Kingsley (to 
 whose noble nature and wide range of faculties and feelings those of 
 Armstrong have rather a singular resemblance), his saddest songs may be 
 said to be born of the sea ; and his saddest are, of course, his sweetest." 
 — Edinburgh Rci'iew. 
 
 "Lyrical, dramatic, and narrative, they exhibit considerable mastery 
 of verse ; they betray a passionate temperament (often craving repose) 
 and a vigorous, if sometimes unchastened, imagination." — Academy. 
 
 " Poems lit by the fire of genius, beautiful in form, deep and lofty in 
 thought, and displaying especially that intense love of nature and en- 
 joyment of her mysteries and charms, the possession of which in full 
 
 measure is accorded only to very few Of the poems the longest 
 
 and most ambitious is the ' Prisoner of Mount Saint Michael,' a wild 
 story of passion and crime, which is full of unmistakable power. But 
 it is in some of his shorter poems and lyrics that Armstrong's genius is 
 most fully revealed." — Scotsman. 
 
 " Among these [poems] ' The Prisoner of Mount Saint Michael ' stands 
 
 preeminent. It is a narrative in blank verse The conflicting 
 
 passions are powerful and vivid, but also tender and rich in sensitiveness. 
 Some descriptive passages, especially descriptions of landscape, are very 
 
 delicate. A melodious tone runs through the whole Every verse 
 
 of his breathes healthfulness, and has an effect as refreshing — a rarity in 
 this age." Magazinfiir die Literatur des Auslandcs (Berlin).
 
 ESSAYS AND SKETCHES OF EDMUND 
 J. ARMSTRONG. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo., price $s. 
 
 "The prose is the prose of a poetical mind. And it is the more and 
 not the less poetical in being free from the incongruous embellishments 
 
 which so often force their way into the prose of youthful poets 
 
 [In the essay on ' Essay-writing'] he exemplifies, whilst he teaches the 
 
 principles by which an essayist should be guided Young as the 
 
 teacher was, his teachings are not juvenile. And in some of the essays 
 which follow the disquisitions on essay-writing, though they are of 
 earlier dates, the practice of the author does not stand far apart from 
 
 the principles he inculcates Those on the life and writings of 
 
 Coleridge and the writings of Wordsworth may be conjectured to belong 
 to the author's latter years ; and if the love and admiration of books is. 
 as has been said, to be numbered amongst the abounding loves and 
 admirations by which Armstrong's life was enriched and animated, 
 assuredly his love and admiration for these two great men may be 
 regarded as of all such sentiments the most fervently felt as well as the 
 most deeply founded. But Shelley, Keats, Goethe, and Edgar Poe 
 have each their ample share. And the life of each poet is considered in 
 relation to his works, without bringing the mortal to bear too heavily 
 upon the immortal part, or mixing too much the flowers and the fruits 
 with the earth from which they spring." — Edinburgh Review. 
 
 " His prose-writings are very interesting. Most of them are critical 
 
 essays There is abundant evidence of the extent of his culture, 
 
 his candour, his subtlety of thought, and his faculty of critical insight. 
 The essays on Coleridge, Shelley, and Wordsworth, for example, will 
 well repay study, while their style is singularly vigorous and polished." 
 — Scotsman. 
 
 LONDON: LONGMANS AND CO.
 
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