by degrees.' Many people used to crop up' at Lear's house to see his paintings and sketches, but such was his cloistered character towards the end of his life that he used to answer the door-bell himself, and if the visitor was unsympathetic (or a German) he or she was surlily refused admittance, whilst old friends received a genial welcome. All of which was very excusable, perhaps, but bad business, for which he ultimately had to suffer. When he was well his companionship must have been delightful, for he was prodigal in the exercise of his talents as an entertainer. He could converse on every subject grave and gay, could draw and extemporise rhymes with bewildering rapidity, could sing with an emotion which quite replaced his almost non-existent voice. He was also a mild politician-at least, so one would gather from some of the correspondence and was particularly interested in the fortunes of the Whig Governments when they included his friends Carlingford and Northbrook. But when the Irish apple of discord divided the Liberal party he turned with great animosity against Mr. Gladstone and all his works. 'I am so glad' (he writes to Lord Northbrook) that you will not take office under the Duke of Dulcigno, Marquis of Merv and Majuba, Count of Cairo and Cartoum. Though no Polly Titian, I should not be a bit surprised to know that the Isle of Wight was made over to Russia, and Ireland to America, with a Republic in England, even before I die.'

Such a man, then, was Edward Lear: great-hearted and good to man and beast whilst his strength lasted; a faithful friend in trouble, as I could prove from letters written by him to those in deep distress; a whimsical talented man, whose striking originality was strangely mated to his inordinate energies and capacity for taking pains. He died at San Remo in the early part of 1888, having outlived nearly all his contemporaries, and some time after the heyday of his popularity, yet leaving many friends in most parts of the world to mourn his loss. It was at the suggestion of Lord Northbrook that Mr. Lushington caused the following lines from Tennyson's poem to be written upon the stone that marks his grave:

All things fair

With such a pencil, such a pen,

You shadowed forth to distant men,

I read, and felt that I was there.'

Is there a niche for Lear in the Temple of Literature and Art? I am not critic enough to say, nor does anybody seem certain on

the point. This much, however, may be averred-that no subsequent writer has quite taken his place, though many have written brilliant nonsense since the Learics were published. This fact may not pass him on to the Walhalla of the mighty men of words ; but, if he be refused admittance there, he will certainly be found, like Francis Thompson, in the nurseries of Heaven amongst the children who were his heart's delight.

IAN MALCOLM.

37

THE BOOK ON THE TABLE.

A LITTLE more than six years ago there appeared a fascinating romance of the Sherwood Forest in the early days of the nineteenth century, which found here and there an ardent admirer, but for the most part attracted less notice than it seemed to deserve. The author, Mr. James Prior, laboured, indeed, under heavy disabilities. His manner and method were hopelessly English; his theme afforded no subject-matter of debate to young Bohemian clubs; his style had that quiet excellence one accepts complacently as a matter of course, and his outlook on the world and his fellowmen was tainted by optimism. Briefly, in the race against 'great' and 'powerful' and 'daring' competitors' Forest Folk,' though it possessed in a high degree many elements of popularity, was not the horse on which a public trained to look for inspiration from across the water only was likely to put its money. Merit, however, like murder, will out, and the work recently published, 'A Walking Gentleman,' has opened our eyes to good purpose. Mr. Prior, we are now informed in responsible quarters, is a new and hitherto unknown writer henceforth to be reckoned with in literature. How it comes about that the author of the remarkable and admirable Forest Folk' should, six years after its advent, still be regarded as a new writer, when the authors of and and (striking works, no doubt, but not conspicuously of immortal merit) are bright stars in the literary firmament, I cannot stay to inquire. Meanwhile, let us take the good the gods somewhat tardily provide us and be thankful.

To go afoot in days of monotonous mechanical speed is in itself a bracing change, and we have not travelled far before we realise that with the Walking Gentleman, whose other name is Lord Beiley, for companion our experiences by the way will be of no common order.

For there is in this moody, silent, and, if the truth must be told, very inert aristocrat some virtue which discovers precious metal in the veriest clods of humanity. By what process? Who shall say? We only know that there are in life men and women, often the unlikeliest, who have this enviable gift, and that the author has caught one of them and imprisoned him within the pages of

his book. Mr. Prior has inevitably been compared to Borrow. Both take to the open road; each has a curious and insatiable interest in the thoughts and ways of unsophisticated men and women, and here perhaps the likeness ends. If you are hungry for a chapter of Lavengro,' the whole of this later book will not content you instead. You will miss the wind-swept space of 'Lavengro,' and the high detachment that in the varied press of life keeps Lavengro himself a thing apart and alone, and gives the much-wandering book its inimitable unity. You will miss, in short, Borrow himself and the sharp edge of his mind. But something perhaps you will get here that you will not find so well in Borrow. In this author of our own day, who sends us tramping with a runaway lord, there is no trace of bitterness. His irony-and there is much irony in his book-is not more hurtful than the irony of sunshine on some patched and faded garment. He has no desire to do righteous murder on even the most despicable of humankind. Mr. Prior is at no pains to separate and classify, with labels of judgment, the intricate strands of social life composing that strangely intermingled fabric we call the English nation. He will not in many pages of minute sarcastic realism prove to us by painful demonstration that the life of an English squire is dull. Nor will he blame him overmuch for the accident of his birth. Instead, he will lead his aristocrat beyond the prison-like walls of his park, and will plunge him straightway into a merry unwashed company of Whitsuntide beanfeasters. So opens the book. And how admirable is the description of the cloudless mid-summer day and its strenuous, perspiring pleasure-makers, who receive the 'counterjoomper,' as his clothes and speech, they think, so clearly proclaim him to be, with open-armed, hilarious hospitality and a measure of good-humoured contempt. The day's events include an impromptu cricket match, a piece of grim bucolic comedy which should start the reader on his way with his spirits weather-proof. That ideal umpire of the Yorkshireman of whom the late Dean Hole tells us : a fairish man, but not too fair,' would have been over-punctilious for these intemperate cricketers, whose game is one long wrangle, punctuated by more casualties than may befall in a week a marching regiment in time of war :

'Stick yer bat i' th' block-hull, man, an' pray or oat as keeps yer from thinking o' the baowlin', while th' oad fool of a hoompoire out "Toime." . . . The batsman was going, however, ruefully rubbing the injured joint.

'I've gen yer in, Tom,' said the umpire.

'I know yo've gen me in, thank yer,' said the batsman, but I've gen mysen out.'

No less excellently humorous is the feast, with the usual toasts,' which follows next, though the humour here has darker shades. There is nothing romantic about the latter end of British feastings. The members of the Watford Preservative Club,' tradesmen, colliers, countryfolk of all sorts, their wives and belongings, with all that they have of native wit, sound sense, and fatuous absurdity, sink submerged in swinish, somnolent repletion. Beiley's disgust with himself and with them is complete. And below the disgust lurks dissatisfaction deeper still. He is conscious that his time would have been spent even more futilely, if less grossly, with his habitual companions.' In a moment the prison-like walls of the park and the purposeless life behind them rise before the mind, and we understand why Beiley is where he is, and why as yet it is not possible that he should return.

Much, indeed, and much that is painful, must happen first. It is painful mostly, unendurable sometimes, to see ourselves as others see us, and this is Beiley's fate. He must hear the crude comments of working men on the rich idler who has broken faith with an unoffending woman; he must bear the brutal truthtelling of the banker who will not take the mere signature of an eccentric and untrustworthy person' as security for his money; he must endure the veiled but challenging insult of his equals, and, harder still, the veiled compassion of his equals. The cup of disillusionment is filled on the day when the tramping peer and his companion, the professional tramp, stand together, charged with vagrancy, before the magistrates. In the chairman Beiley recognises one well known to him.

And you, my man, what is your occupation?' asked his lordship of his lordship. Beiley felt as though he were hung up between earth and heaven, as though nothing remained to be concealed. 'I don't know,' he answered.

If he had had his wits about him he might have answered: a self-indulgence that was too vapid a thing to be called amusement, a languor that was too wearisome to be called ease, a doubt that was too futile to be called scepticism, a dissatisfaction that was too inert to be called revolt.

'Do you mean,' asked the chairman, that you have never earned any money at any trade whatever?'