the black tent-home! On, Antares! The tribe is waiting for us, and the master is waiting! 'Tis done! 'tis done! Ha, ha! We have overthrown the proud. The hand that smote us is in the dust. Ours the glory! Ha, ha!-steady! The work is done-soho! Rest!"

There had never been anything of the kind more simple; seldom anything so instantaneous.

At the moment chosen for the dash, Messala was moving in a circle round the goal. To pass him, Ben-Hur had to cross the track, and good strategy required the movement to be in a forward direction,- that is, on a like circle limited to the least possible increase. The thousands on the benches understood it all: they saw the signal given-the magnificent response; the four close outside Messala's outer wheel, Ben-Hur's inner wheel behind the other's car- all this they saw. Then they heard a crash. loud enough to send a thrill through the Circus, and quicker than thought, out over the course a spray of shining white and yellow flinders flew. Down on its right side toppled the bed of the Roman's chariot. There was a rebound as of the axle hitting the hard earth; another and another; then the car went to pieces, and Messala, entangled in the reins, pitched forward headlong.

To increase the horror of the sight by making death certain, the Sidonian, who had the wall next behind, could not stop or turn out. Into the wreck full speed he drove; then over the Roman, and into the latter's four, all mad with fear. Presently, out of the turmoil, the fighting of horses, the resound of blows, the murky cloud of dust and sand, he crawled, in time to see the Corinthian and Byzantine go on down the course after Ben-Hur, who had not been an instant delayed.

The people arose and leaped upon the benches, and shouted and screamed. Those who looked that way caught glimpses of Messala, now under the trampling of the fours, now under the abandoned cars. He was still; they thought him dead: but far the greater number followed Ben-Hur in his career. They had not seen the cunning touch of the reins by which, turning a little to the left, he caught Messala's wheel with the iron-shod point of his axle, and crushed it; but they had seen the transformation of the man, and themselves felt the heat and glow of his spirit, the heroic resolution, the maddening energy of action with which, by look, word, and gesture, he so suddenly inspired his Arabs. And

such running! It was rather the long leaping of lions in harness; but for the lumbering chariot, it seemed the four were flying. When the Byzantine and Corinthian were half-way down the course, Ben-Hur turned the first goal.

And the race was wON!

The consul arose; the people shouted themselves hoarse; the editor came down from his seat, and crowned the victors.

The fortunate man among the boxers was a low-browed, yellow-haired Saxon, of such brutalized face as to attract a second look from Ben-Hur, who recognized a teacher with whom he himself had been a favorite at Rome. From him the young Jew looked up and beheld Simonides and his party on the balcony. They waved their hands to him. Esther kept her seat; but Iras arose and gave him a smile and a wave of her fan,— favors not the less intoxicating to him because we know, O reader, they would have fallen to Messala had he been the victor.

The procession was then formed, and midst the shouting of the multitude which had had its will, passed out of the Gate of Triumph.

And the day was over.

EDMUND WALLER

(1605-1687)

HE life of Edmund Waller extended over a period of important change in English literature. When he began to write, in the early part of the seventeenth century, the great literature of the Elizabethan era had been written, the surge of inspiration and impassioned poetry of which Shakespeare was the heart had died away. The brilliant formalism which was to attain its apotheosis in Pope was already discernible. Edmund Waller made use in his verse of the classic iambic and distich. He first appears among the court poets of Charles I. In some respects most commonplace, he yet presents a singular figure among his associates,— Cowley, Crashaw, Lovelace, and Suckling. His poetry, like that of the other Cavalier poets, was more of gallantry than of love; he wrote with no great range of subjects, nor depth of feeling. But the form of his verse bears a closer resemblance to that of Dryden and Pope, and indeed to the poetry of to-day, than it does to the writing of Crashaw and Cowley. Later in his life Waller invariably confined the sense within the limits of the distich; making his verse somewhat monotonous, but giving to it a finish quite unusual in his time. The polish of his verse may have been due to French influence, exerted during his nine years' exile in that country; but Dr. Johnson declares that Waller wrote as smoothly at eighteen as at eighty,-"smoothness" being the particular quality ascribed to him.

EDMUND WALLER

The poet's life was more varied than his poetry, furnishing him an abundance of subjects to overlay with his light play of fancy. He was born in Hertfordshire, March 3d, 1605. His family were wealthy land-owners, and his mother, although related to Cromwell, was an ardent royalist. He followed whichever side was victorious. At sixteen he was in Parliament, but kept becomingly silent, merely using the advantages of his position to marry a young heiress; and with her fortune joined to his, he retired to the country to give himself up to

literary pursuits. Just when he began to write is not known. The date of the subject of his first poem, 'His Majesty's Escape,' is 1623. Some of his best poetry was written in an effort to win Lady Dorothea Sidney, his Saccharissa, between the death of his wife in 1634 and the marriage of Lady Dorothea in 1639. Meeting him years after, the lady asked him when he would again write such verses to her. "When you are as young, madam, and as handsome, as you were then," replied the poet. This remark furnishes a key to his character. He was facile and witty, but cold, shallow, and selfish.

In 1643, when the struggle between the King and Parliament grew hotter, Waller was implicated in what was known as Waller's plot. He was discovered, and behaved with the most abject meanness; immediately turning informer, and saving himself by giving up three others to death. He was let off with a fine of £1000, and was banished to France. From France he directed the publication of his first volume of poems. Here he lived in high reputation as a wit for nine years; when, at the intervention of anti-royalist friends, he was allowed to return to England. He immediately wrote a 'Panegyric to my Lord Protector, which is one of his best poems. Cromwell was friendly to him; and on the Protector's death, Waller wrote another poem to him, which under the circumstances must appear somewhat disinterested. However, when Charles II. came into his kingdom, Waller was ready with a series of verses for him. Charles, who admitted the poet to his intimacy, complained that this poem was inferior to Cromwell's. "Sire," responded the quick-witted Waller, "poets succeed better in fiction than in truth."

His

Waller was in Parliament up to the time of his death in 1687. He was said to be the delight of the Commons for his wit. poems went through several editions, and he continued to write. Long before his death he saw the end of the romantic and irregular school, and the full establishment of the classic and regular. John Dryden has been called the first of the moderns. But Edmund Waller," said Dryden, "first showed us to conclude the sense most commonly in distichs; which, in the verse of those before him, runs on for so many lines together that the reader is out of breath to overtake it." Thus Waller becomes the founder of a school, the influence of which extended over a hundred and fifty years; though as a poet he sinks into insignificance beside Dryden and Pope, who gave the school its character when they stamped it with their genius.

Fenton calls Waller "maker and model of melodious verse." In the sense that he revived the form of a past age, and gave to it a greater precision than it had ever possessed, he is a maker of verse. Moreover, in 'Go, Lovely Rose,' he wrote one of the most perfect lyrics in the tongue; and one such poem will embalm its writer. But

Waller's art was limited; the form was not new: and the popularity of the poet exists chiefly through the praises of greater men, who having too much to say to take time for the invention of a method of their own, used the form to which he had directed their attention.

FROM THE POEM

OF THE DANGER HIS MAJESTY (BEING PRINCE) ESCAPED IN THE ROAD AT ST. ANDERO

ITH painted oars the youths begin to sweep

W. Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding

deep;

Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war
Between the wind and tide, that fiercely jar.
As when a sort of lusty shepherds try
Their force at football, care of victory

Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast,
That their encounter seems too rough for jest,-
They ply their feet, and still the restless ball,
Tost to and fro, is urgèd by them all,-

So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds,
And like effect of their contention finds.

Yet the bold Britons still securely rowed:
Charles and his virtue was their sacred load;

Than which a greater pledge Heaven could not give,
That the good boat this tempest should outlive.
But storms increase! and now no hope of grace
Among them shines, save in the prince's face.
The pale Iberians had expired with fear,
But that their wonder did divert their care,
To see the prince with danger moved no more
Than with the pleasures of their court before:
Godlike his courage seemed, whom nor delight
Could soften, nor the face of Death affright;
Next to the power of making tempests cease,
Was in that storm to have so calm a peace.