same. I think you will see what I mean if you consider it. There is only

one way that I can be your true protector and guardian, and that is if you will consent to marry me, Alice. Will you ? You know I have nothing to offer you; but I can work for you, and take care of you, and with me you would not be alone."

It was a strange way of putting it, certainly very different from what Colin had intended to say, strangely different from the love-tale that had glided through his imagination by times since he became a man; but he was very earnest and sincere in what he said, and the innocent girl beside him was no critic in such matters. She trembled more and more, but she leaned upon him and heard him out with anxious attention. When he had ended, there was a pause, during which Colin, who had not hitherto been doubtful, began himself to feel anxious; and then Alice once more gave a wistful, inquiring look at his face.

If

"Don't be angry with me," she said; "it is so hard to know what to say. you would tell me one thing quite truly and frankly-Would it not do you a great deal of harm if this was to happen as you say

"It can

No," said Colin. When he said the word he could not help remembering, in spite of himself, the change it would make in his young prospects, but the result was only that he repeated his negative with more warmth. do me only good," said Colin, yielding to the natural temptations of the moment, "and I think I might do something for your happiness too. It is for you to decidedo not decide against me, Alice," said the young man; "I cannot part with you now."

"Ah! " said Alice with a long breath. "If it only would not do you any harm,” she added a moment after, once more with that inquiring look. The inquiry was one which could be answered but in one way, and Colin was not a man to remain unmoved by the wistful, sweet eyes thus raised

No. 61.-VOL. XI.

to him, and by the tender dependence of the clinging arm. He set her doubts at rest almost as eloquently, and quite as warmly, as if she had indeed been that woman who had disappeared among the clouds for ever, and led her home to Sora Antonia with a fond care, which was very sweet to the forlorn little maiden, and not irksome by any means to the magnanimous knight. Thus the decisive step was taken in obedience to the necessities of the position, and the arrangements (as Colin had decided upon them) of Providence. When he met Lauderdale and informed him of the new event, the young man looked flushed and happy, as was natural in the circumstances, and disposed of all the objections of prudence with great facility and satisfaction. It was a moonlight night, and Colin and his friend went out to the loggia on the roof of the house, and plunged into a sea of discussion, through which the young lover steered triumphantly the frailest bark of argument that ever held water. But, when the talk was over, and Colin, before he followed Lauderdale downstairs, turned round to take a parting look at the Campagna, which lay under them like a great map in the moonlight, the old apparition looked out once more from the clouds, pale and distant, and again seemed to wave to him a shadowy farewell. "Farewell! farewell! in heaven nor in earth will you ever find me," sighed the woman of Colin's imagination, dispersing into thin white mists and specks of clouds; and the young man went to rest with a vague sense of loss in his heart. The sleep of Alice was sweeter than that of Colin on this first night of their betrothal; but at that one period of existence, it often happens that the woman, for once in her life, has the advantage. And thus it was that the event, foreseen by Lauderdale on board the steamer at the beginning of their acquaintance, actually came to

pass.

To be continued.

A WRITER in the July number of Fraser's Magazine, who has described most of the living Judges of England, has, under a mistake about one of them, introduced an allusion to a Cambridge Society to which, not by itself, the name of 'Apostles" has been given. He says of Mr. Justice Blackburn that "he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, where he took a creditable degree in mathematics. His friends thought highly of him, and he was enrolled a member of the club or society called The Apostles,' which boasts of having 'worked wonders in the domains of thought and imagination. It may lay claim to a man of genius or two, and several men of talent, as having belonged to the fraternity; but, as regards national thought or progress, its annals might be cut out of the intellectual history of England without being missed."

Mr. Justice Blackburn was eighth wrangler in 1834, and was not a member of the Society to which his name has served as a pretext for this allusion. His abilities are accredited to the world by something stronger than his college honours or the opinion of friends, for there is probably no more remarkable instance of a high appointment given entirely from disinterested conviction of ability and learning than the selection by Lord Campbell, when Lord Chancellor, for the first judgeship he had to give, of Mr. Blackburn, a political opponent, known to him only as a member of the bar, and not suggested for promotion by precedence, for he was not a Queen's Counsel, or by popular opinion, for to the general public he was unknown. It so happens, however, that the learned Judge did not belong to the fraternity which, according to this writer, "boasts of having worked wonders in the domains of thought and

imagination," and whose annals, strange to say, though the writer asserts that it has comprised one or two men of genius and several of talent, might yet, he thinks, be "cut out of the intellectual history of England without being missed." The mistake has perhaps originated in a confusion with a younger brother of the Judge, the Professor of Mathematics at Glasgow, who was a member of the Society.

This Society has existed for forty-four years in the University of Cambridge. Its own name is Conversazione Society. It is limited in number to twelve actual members in residence, undergraduates or bachelors of arts. Hence the name of "Apostles," given at first in derision. Thirty years ago, the fame, then already considerable, of one, of whom few would now say that his works, if lost, would not be missed, or that he had not done wonders in the domains of thought and imagination,-the fame of Alfred Tennyson, and a band of his friends and contemporaries, all members of the Society, among whom may be named Arthur Hallam, Milnes, Trench, and Alford, had made for the Society in Cambridge a name which has never since departed from it. Poetry was not its sole or special pursuit. In 1834, the actual members had the advantage of the continued presence in Cambridge, and friendly counsel, and familiar companionship, of a large number of college tutors and lecturers, who had taken high University honours, and had already, according to the rules of the Society, become honorary members. Among these were W. H. Thompson, the present Regius Professor of Greek, Blakesley, now a Canon of Canterbury, Charles Merivale, the historian of Rome, G. S. Venables, and Edmund Lushington, the Professor of Greek at Glasgow. In this year, 1834, an agitation and

controversy having arisen about the admission of Dissenters to degrees in the Universities, and great fears having been expressed by Mr. Goulburn in the House of Commons, and by Dr. Turton, then Regius Professor of Divinity, in a pamphlet, of mischievous theological controversies among undergraduates, that giant in learning and intellect, Connop Thirlwall-then an assistanttutor of Trinity, soon after made Bishop of St. David's-scouted the alarm with a reference and a tribute to this Society. Addressing Dr. Turton, Mr. Thirlwall said, "If you are not acquainted with the fact, you may be alarmed when I inform you that there has long existed in this place a society of young men, limited indeed in number, but continually receiving new members to supply its vacancies, and selecting them by preference among the youngest, in which all subjects of the highest interest, without any exclusion of those connected with religion, are discussed with the most perfect freedom. But, if this fact is new to you, let me instantly dispel any apprehension it may excite, by assuring you that the members of this Society, for the most part, have been and are among the choicest ornaments of the University, that some are now among the ornaments of the Church, and that, so far from having had their affections embittered, their friendships torn and lacerated, their union has been one rather of brothers than of friends."

Names have been mentioned which may already suggest that this Society might have been spared the remarks by which an anonymous writer, led to mention it by mistake, has accompanied his admissions of praise. "It may lay claim to a man of genius or two, and several men of talent, but, as regards national thought or progress, its annals might be cut out of the intellectual history of England without being missed." Well, genius does not grow on hedgerows, and rare always have been the spirits which are, in Tennyson's words, "full-welling fountain-heads of change," governing national thought and progress.

Well,

Among those who, in academic youth,

were members of this Society, are three distinguished living ornaments of the House of Commons, to two of whom it has been given to be members of the Cabinet, or again as Tennyson says,

"To mould a mighty state's decrees

And shape the whisper of the throne,"

and the other of whom is one of our ablest parliamentary orators. The three are Mr. Walpole, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Horsman.

Of a fourth who attained eminence in public life I will speak more at large, for death has closed his distinguished career, and in his last years I had peculiar opportunities of knowing him. The name of Charles Buller, by several resemblances-by his wit, by his death at a moment when his fame was culminating and higher political honours had begun to come to him, by many qualities described in Burke's famous eulogy on Charles Townshend-involuntarily recalls to mind that more eminent but less estimable politician. For of Charles Buller it might have been as truly said in the House of Commons, when he had ceased to adorn it, as it was said by Burke of Charles Townshend: "In truth, he was the delight and ornament of this House, and the charm of every private society which he honoured with his presence. Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of a more pointed and finished wit, and of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so great a stock as some have had, who flourished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, he knew better by far than any man I ever acquainted with, how to bring together within a short time all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the question he supported. He stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. He particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation and display of his subject. His style of argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the House just between wind and water." Burke qualified his praise of Towns

was

hend's judgment by a few words which I have omitted-"where his passions were not concerned." These words do not apply to Charles Buller, and here lay one point of superiority. Charles Buller also was not a trimmer or a waverer. He was an earnest, singleminded, consistent politician. It is believed that his political advancement was for some time retarded by the character which he had acquired of a joker; but whoever thought that under that bright pleasant surface of playful humorousness there was a character wanting in solidity or strength of purpose, was greatly mistaken. He was never a seeker of office; for a considerable time, indeed, while it was within easy reach, he avoided it. The secretaryship of the Board of Control was offered to him by Lord Melbourne, in 1839, when Lord Melbourne's government was strong, and he declined it. Later, in 1841, after Lord Melbourne's government had taken the first step towards free-trade by proposing a moderate fixed duty on corn, and the early fall of the Ministry was certain, the very same office was offered to Charles Buller, and he accepted it, casting in his fortunes with a falling Ministry. When the Liberal party returned to power in 1846, under Lord John Russell, as Premier, Charles Buller was appointed JudgeAdvocate. This is never a Cabinet office, and many thought that there should have been then an ampler recognition of Charles Buller's abilities, long-tried political steadfastness, and self-made parliamentary standing. But his was not a grasping or self-asserting nature, and he himself was contented. He took the office of Judge-Advocate, but he declined its usual accompaniment, the rank of Privy Councillor. He was by profession a barrister, and had latterly been often employed in cases before the Privy Council, and he desired to retain the power, when he might lose his office, of practising as a barrister, which would have been contrary to rule or usage, if he were a Privy Councillor. And here appeared both the simplicity and

the prudence of his character. He was the eldest of three children of a retired civil servant of the East India Company, who was still alive, and who indeed survived him; and, though he might have looked forward in the ordinary course of nature to a not remote possession of a fortune which to him, whose ways were frugal and unostentatious, would have been a complete competency, and though he had in his ready and happy pen a source of income on which from experience he might count, he preferred to waive a rank which is the general object of honourable ambition, that he might preserve the security of an additional means of pecuniary independence. He used to like to call himself a "political adventurer;" and, being not a man of wealth or title, but a man of talent and political convictions, he belonged to that class of "adventurers" from which the House of Commons and the great aristocratic parties of England have derived lustre,-the class of Burke, Sheridan, Canning, Horner, Praed, and Macaulay. In the autumn of 1847, he received from Lord John Russell an offer, which he declined, but the handsome terms of which gave him great satisfaction. It was the offer of the seat of Legislative Member of the Indian Council, which had been first held by Macaulay, and was then vacated by Mr. Cameron, whose term of office had expired. Lord John Russell wrote to him that he could not allow the office to be offered to anyone else before giving him the refusal, and that it was with regret he should lose him from England, where high office must soon present itself for him. He was chiefly moved to decline this office by his unwillingness to separate himself from his father and mother, neither of whom, if he went to India, he could expect to see again. On the meeting of the new Parliament in November, 1847, he was appointed President of the newly constituted Poor Law Board. In a short twelvemonth he was dead. His fame was rapidly ripening when he died at the early age of forty-two. It had been finally arranged very shortly before his

death that he should be made a Privy Councillor; but he died before he could be sworn in. The most eminent of all political parties joined to commemorate his worth and brilliancy by a bust, placed in Westminster Abbey, bearing an inscription written by one of his oldest and most admiring friends, another "Apostle," Richard Monckton Milnes. When Macaulay, excluded from the House of Commons in 1847, was re-elected for Edinburgh in 1852, he referred in the speech which he addressed to his constituents to some of the eminent men who had vanished during his absence; and he began with Buller:-"In Parliament I shall look in vain for virtues which I loved, and for abilities which I admired. Often in debate, and never more than when we discuss those questions of colonial policy which are every day acquiring a new interest, I shall remember with regret how much eloquence and wit, how much acuteness and knowledge, how many engaging qualities, how many fair hopes, are buried in the grave of poor Charles Buller." Later, another distinguished politician and man of genius, reviewing the celebrities of St. Stephen's, has given Charles Buller a due place in his gallery of fame.

"Farewell, fine humourist, finer reasoner still,

Lively as Luttrell, logical as Mill,

Lamented Buller: just as each new hour Knit thy stray forces into steadfast power, Death shut thy progress from admiring

Charles Buller, before he went to Cambridge, had been the pupil of one of our greatest writers and worthiest men, Thomas Carlyle, who always loves to speak of the fine endowments of his pupil, and who, immediately after his death, testified publicly to his virtues and capacity. The author dwelt characteristically on the truthfulness and simplicity of Charles Buller :"There shone mildly in his whole 1 "St. Stephen's, a Poem," known to be Sir E. B. Lytton's, though his name is not on the title-page.

conduct a beautiful veracity, as if it were unconscious of itself: a perfect spontaneous absence of all cant, hypocrisy and hollow pretence, not in word and act only, but in thought and instinct. To a singular extent, it can be said of him, that he was a spontaneous, clear man. Very gentle, too, though full of fire; simple, brave, graceful. What he did, and what he said, came from him as light from a luminous body, and had thus always in it a high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could appreciate fully."1

Is it not time that some friend should collect the scattered remains of Charles Buller's wit and wisdom, and present them to the world, with one of those Memoirs with selected correspondence which in later times have made so numerous and valuable a department of historical biography?

This Cambridge Society may feel a just pride in one whom all its members, from the oldest to the youngest, from the most distinguished to the humblest, regard with affection-the poet, the excellent prose-writer, the temperate and thoughtful politician, who, with general public approval, has lately been made Lord Houghton. If Richard Monckton Milnes had not been a man of the world and busy politician, and if he had been able to concentrate his energies on poetry, and gird himself to the building up of some great poem, none who know what poetry he has written, can doubt that it was in him to be a great poet; and none who know his "Life of Keats," or any of his many pamphlets and articles in Reviews and Magazines, will deny that he presents another example of what he has himself lately proclaimed, and supported by much proof, that a good poet makes himself a good prose-writer. To give examples of Tennyson's poetry is needless, but there may be readers who will wish now to see a specimen of Milnes. 1 Examiner, December, 1848.

Introductory Address in the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, by Lord Houghton, 1863.