grandparents at Denmark Hill." This is the house Domett describes in his "Song for a family party" which Browning also copied at Woodford :

By the house we've often shaken House where most of us were bornWhere the dance grew wild and romping

And we've kept it up till morn!

Not that shadows did not fall upon that home, for the same song speaks of "bereavements mourned in common," such as the death of Domett's mother when he was a boy of six, and that of his brother Edward, Browning's schoolfellow. Another great sorrow was commemorated in some hexameter verses addressed directly to Browning's Woodford hostess, which he would copy with peculiar sympathy. The lines are called "A soul of goodness in things evil," and tell of the sad days, in 1841, when blindness had fallen upon Domett's father, and of the sight-giving operation which ensued :

There in his darkness the Old Man, hoary with seventy wintersLionlike equal to all-lording it sternly o'er pain,

endured his anguish; and then followed the "triumph," when light once more Gladdened the eyes that of yore

gleamed as he oft would recount Feats of Sea-Captains,-our grand ones!

These are noticeable words; for the tales of "our grand ones," told by the truly "lion-like" Captain Domett, and by the brisk, dapper, little, grayhaired Captain Pritchard count for much in the evolution of Browning's stirring lines :

Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the

north-west died away;

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; "Here and here did England help me,how can I help England?"—say.

Is it to be wondered that when, in 1877, Domett collected and added to these early poems he desired to associate Browning with his volume? This he proposed at first to do by using as a title the words from "Waring"-Hedgeside chance-blades; but realizing that the bond between himself and his friend would be made more evident to his readers by means of a dedication, he wrote :

To (if ever there were one!) "a mighty poet and a subtle-souled psychologist" -to Robert Browning, this little book, with a hearty wish the tribute were worthier, is affectionately ascribed.

Browning was deeply touched by this dedication, and also by the memories awakened by the inclusion among the "Flotsam" of the lines Domett had sent to him in manuscript in 1841 "on a certain critique on Pippa Passes." These lines began with an expression of scorn for the small-mindedness of the unnamed critic, who is compared to a black squat beetle which

Has knocked himself full-butt with blundering trouble,

Against a Mountain he can neither double

Nor ever hope to scale. So, like a free, Pert, self-complacent Scarabæus, he Takes it into his horny head to swearThere's no such thing as any mountain there!

Domett's best poetry is undoubtedly to be found in his Ranolf and Amohia, which exhibits, as Tennyson truly said, "intellectual subtlety, great powers of delineating delicious scenery and imaginative fire." The poem is a long one of fourteen thousand lines-some four thousand longer than Paradise Lostand the narrative portion is neither

closely knit nor sufficiently impressive. Ranolf, a metaphysical Scotch student deeply read in philosophy, being wearied of the civilization of the West, sails to New Zealand, where he saves the life of the lovely Maori maiden, Amohia, and loves her. This is resented by the villain of the story, the wicked priest Kangapo, who desires to gain the hand of Amohia for the chief he serves: Ranolf therefore escapes. When the suit of the Maori chieftain is urged upon Amohia, she too flees-swimming across the lake by moonlight. The lovers are united, but the wiles of Kangapo secure their separation, and Ranolf, believing Amohia to be dead, is about to return to Europe alone, when he discovers her, and they take ship together.

Of the poem as a whole Mr. Hutton, in a long and sympathetic review in the Spectator, said, "It is hardly a complete poem, but it is full of poetry ... its author is a man of great originality and buoyant imaginative life. No one who really understands the book can help thoroughly enjoying it, whatever he may think of it as a work of art." With this judgment no one, I believe, could quarrel. Like many other long poems it will be appreciated in portions, and it will appeal or has appealed-to two kinds of readers: those who enjoy the treatment of what Browning termed "subjects of all others the most urgent for expression," subjects connected with the "development of a soul," and those who delight in beautiful description. The former readers will turn to passages such as the long and the very able account of the philosophical education of Ranolf in Book I., and its reflections upon the difficulty of choosing as a profession law, medicine or divinity. In connection with this last occurs a passage on Ritualism, much appreciated by the author of Christmas Eve, and pronounced by Tennyson to be "an

arrow that hits the bull's-eye." Who, asks Domett,

Would think to quell the Evil all about With candlesticks and censers? satisfy The crave for Infinite Good that cannot die

With trim and tinselled haberdashery?

Would any heart remorse had desperate driven,

Or milder sense of "Sin" abased, on heaven

In accents guided by the gamut call, And do-re-mi-sol-fa the God of all?

The lover of descriptive poetry will rejoice in the splendid description by the son and brother of a sea-captain, of furling the ship's sails, and will perhaps almost echo the words of Domett's friend, Joseph Arnould, "Your descriptions of scenery are the most real and vivid I know of in any poet, and by your attention to form and color you place your readers in the very midst of the lakes, forests and mountains of New Zealand. What a lovely land it must be!" As one who has visited many of the spots described by Domett, and who was privileged to see the lovely pink and white terraces in all their exquisite beauty and glory, I can endorse much, but not quite all, of Arnould's eulogy. What Browning felt on reading his friend's poem he has himself expressed :

I don't know, though I cannot but care a good deal, how the poem may have been received and valued; but I am sure it is a great and astonishing performance, of very varied beauty and power. I rank it under nothing-taken altogether-nothing that has appeared in my day and generation for subtle, yet clear writing about subjects of all others the most urgent for expression and the least easy in treatment: while the affluence of illustration, and dexterity in bringing to bear upon the story every possible aid from every imaginable quarter, and that with such treasures new and old of language and

such continuance of music in modes old and new-well, I hope I am no more surprised at the achievement than is consistent with my always having held to the belief that whenever "Waring" reappeared, some such effect would follow the phenomenon. . . . In fine, the Poem is worth the thirty years' work and experience and even absence from home, and whether people accept it now, or let it alone for a while, in the end appreciated it is certain to be. I shall wait a little and read it again— in no fear but that what I believe now will be confirmed hereafter: meantime my hearty congratulations.

The Contemporary Review.

This cordial letter is dated October 18th, 1872, and in Domett's Diary is the following entry for October 24th, but six days later: "To Browning's. He was out. Had a long chat with Miss Browning. When I alluded to the good-natured partiality with which he had written about my book, Sarianna said she knew he gave his sincere opinion of it, because she had heard him say precisely the same things about it to a friend of theirs-I think a sister of Leighton the R.A."

W. Hall Griffin.

A boat was rowing quietly along the shore of the Sogne Fjord, near its mouth and looking toward the sea. In its stern sat the owner, holding the tiller, whilst a boy and a girl, his son and daughter, pulled at the oars. It was evening, and the mountains on either side of the Fjord were reflected for miles into the distance. Far away could be seen the edge of the open sea, with its strips of low-lying land and islands. Over these hung a golden haze, the day's last gift. The man in the stern was a robust and happylooking bearded man. His daughter was a typical Norwegian girl, strong, broad-chested and broad-waisted, with a healthy, beautiful complexion. son looked like an English boy. On the stern of the boat, just behind where the owner sat, were painted the words -"J. Holloway-Sandener." The boat quitted the shore, and made across for the other side, where Sandener could be seen. It was a little wooden village, close beside a rushing river; it possessed a wooden hotel, and a wooden church and tower. Above it rose the mountains, with waterfalls

His

streaming down their shadowy sides. J. Holloway was an important man in his town, and had a flagstaff in his garden. He could see his little house and flagstaff, somewhat separate from the rest, beyond the church tower. His eye wandered from this to the open sea and the golden light beyond. In that direction lay England and Hull. He became meditative. The still waters, the mountains, the sound of the oars, the evening light, and the occasional talk of the rowers-these things faded from his mind, and he journeyed back into the past, across the sea to Hull. This was what he remembered.

James Holloway had been out of work for ten weeks. During this period he had "eaten nothing," as we say of invalids or persons of abstemious temperament. He had not drunk as much as usual either; but he had drunk more than he had eaten. He had a theory that beer was as nourishing as bread to a man of his constitution. It was all a matter of

constitution. Some men grew fat on the drink, others grew thin; this was proved in every walk of life. He was one of those whom it nourished; and he was grateful to Nature for this mark of her favor. As he stood this morning in the road outside the docks at Hull, in the company of several hundred others of his kind, this peculiar constitution of his did not mark him out as being above the general average. The average was not a high one. The men were waiting to be hired, standing together in groups. It was 6 o'clock in the morning, and drizzling. The circumstances were depressing, yet there was an air of composure about the crowd. They sucked their pipes of foul tobacco, with an early morning relish; most of them had had some breakfast. They spat on the ground with decision, and when they did speak-for the most part they were silent-they spoke out loud and bold, or short and sharp, with a jest and an oath. The chins were bristly throughout. They all shaved once a week. There was not a collar amongst them, but a great variety of knotted neckcloths; and there were great-coats of some kind or another, procured somehow or other, on the backs of all. There had been a long period of slackness in the Docks, and a slump in trade all through the town. The greater part of the men had earned next to nothing for two or three months past. Most of them had wives and families at home. A specialist in sociology could have passed an interesting morning, enquiring how these men and their families had lived during this period. But the results would not have worked out on paper. For none of these men knew how he had lived; and even their wives could not have explained the secret. According to all reasonable statistics, they ought not to have lived at all. It was a most peculiar state of affairs. James Holloway was a bachelor; but

he did not thank his stars for it. He was not of a grateful mind, and he was too full of theories. If he had had a wife, he theorized, she might have picked up a six-pence or two, now and then, and the children might have got something out of the church and after school hours; together, he thought, they might have got along better than he was doing singly. There were men who had found it so. He had a theory, too, that money was always money, however many there were to spend it, and that one and six-pence was always better than a shilling, whatever the company. This had been proved again and again to his satisfaction when clubbing together with his pals.

He waited and waited, with his hands in his great-coat pockets, now and then jogging his elbows against his sides. He had lived all his life, 25 years, in Hull, alternately working and loafing, either by inclination or compulsion. But he had a theory that his life had not yet really begun. Some day he was going to do better than he had done so far. That was quite certain. He never allowed himself for an instant to believe that the distressed and irregular condition was a permanent thing. It was merely temporary, and therefore supportable. He talked and laughed with two or three others, as they waited for work. There was a faint blueness and bitterness, a touch of solemnity, lingering round the corners of his mouth and eyes, but scarcely noticeable, owing to the strong look of life and sense which animated his countenance, and those of his friends, as they talked and laughed in their abrupt, rapid, jerky manner. Discontent appeared chiefly in the filthy adjectives with which every substantive was heralded.

After several hours of the morning had thus passed, it became apparent that no more work was to be had that day. He went off into the town, walking

up the street courageously as if he were in regular employment, and going home to dinner. He spent the middle of the day as usual; that is to say, he did not know how he spent it; it spent itself. As usual, he was busy with his thoughts and theories, thinking over his prospects. He must do something-that was certain. It would not do to go on living in this way any longer. This sort of thing must come to an end. In was time he made a new start, struck out a new line. He had said the same for years past; he had said it oftener and oftener, and now he said it once every ten minutes. When he was not talking to himself in this way, he was talking to his pals. They talked of every imaginable subject under the sun, but they arrived at no fixed opinions on any. At least the opinions were all fixed, but they were all conflicting. For instance, all were agreed that the life they were leading was a dog's life, not fit for a Christian man, and that something must be done to better themselves. This was one fixed conviction, and its friend and companion was that a man could not better himself, that there was nothing to do, and nowhere else to go. Both these opinions were clear and certain. Again, when politics came up for discussion, Jim Holloway was convinced that the Government were not doing their duty to such as himself; that they were allowing the blood and muscle of the country to be drained away; that they only talked, never did anything, and had got their posts through the influence of society women, and that the condition of the people in his town was a scandal to the country. Simultaneously, if properly aroused, he was always ready to swear by the good old British Constitution, the Flag, the Throne, the Army, Navy and the sporting Aristocracy. So, too, with religion, which was frequently discussed in the lodging houses of an evening. He was

perfectly convinced that it was all a humbug, a got-up affair-Noah's Ark and the Flood and all. The clergy and the bishops did it all for money. "Religion was civilization." This was the idea of one of the talkers in the lodging house; and he had succeeded in making his meaning clear to all. God could not be good, if He sent evil and suffering. The whole thing was a lie; but civilization needed it. This was perfectly clear to the unsophisticated reasoning of all. Truth had only to be stated to be understood and believed. This was one opinion. The other was that something good, some fatherly power or destiny, which understood things, lay at the back of his life. This was also quite certain. Apart from the direct knowledge of the fact, it had been proved again and again. For he would certainly have died for various reasons, chiefly for lack of nourishment, long before, if life had not been constantly supplied to him-and so would they all have done. All the middle of the day he spent outside a public-house, cogitating these contradictory opinions, but especially about what he was going to do. For some reason he asked himself this question to-day with greater frequency and with more vital emphasis than before. "Must do something-this can't go on," he reiterated. He ran through all his old rejected schemes again for the thousandth time-emigration, enlisting, tramping into the country, going round the town once more.

In the midst of these thoughts, impelled by the certain conviction that something must be done, he found himself wandering down the street again. It was afternoon, and during all the period of the last ten weeks he had never before felt so empty and cavernous within. A crowd of people were going into a public hall, off one of the principal streets. Admission appeared to be free, and Jim drifted in with