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SHORT ARTICLES: Jasper, 638. Fanny Fern's Literary Success, 650. Golden Hair, 672.

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PEACE.

KNOCKING AT THE HEART.

Is this the Peace of God, this strange sweet.

calm ?

The weary day is at its zenith still,

Yet 'tis as if, beside some cool clear rill, Through shadowy stillness rose an evening psalm,

And all the noise of life were hushed away, And tranquil gladness reigned with gently soothing sway.

It was not so just now. I turned aside With aching head, and heart most sorely bowed :

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ONE bid me turn aside,

Saying He had a message I could hear
Best in some quiet place; but as I went
I heard the busy voices of the world,
And, listening to them, answered in my pride
That I had ears for both, and was intent
On keeping all my old companions near.

He called me once again,

Pleading that He had precious things to say, Which He desired that I should understand;

Around me cares and griefs in crushing Things which He might not tell to other men. I said, that if I were too long away,

crowd;

While inly rose the sense, in swelling tide, Of weakness, insufficiency, and sin,

And fear, and gloom, and doubt in mighty flood rolled in.

I could not join my company, and then Should lose my place of honour in the land.

He told me I was ill;

That rushing flood I had no strength to That He this time had chosen for His call

meet,

Nor power to flee; my present, future, past,
My self, my sorrow, and my sin I cast
In utter helplessness at Jesu's feet;

Then bent me to the storm, if such His will.

He saw the winds and waves, and whispered, "Peace, be still!"

Because He saw my labour was too much,
And that I greatly needed to be still.
I answered, I was strong enough for all
That I had planned that morning to fulfil;
And so again shook off His gentle touch.

And yet I suffered sore:

And there was calm. O Saviour, I have My eyes were dim with weeping all the night;

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From the Quarterly Review.

1. The Nightingale in the East, 1854. 2. John Bull and the Taxes, 1865. 3. The Reform Battle in Hyde Park, 1866. 4. Stop the Beer on Sunday, 1860.

5. Be Merry on Christmas Day, 1866.

6. Grand Conversation on Napoleon, 1830. 7. The Lakes of Killarney, 1840.

8. Spencer the Rover, 1827.

9. Work, Boys, Work, 1861.

10. The Oakham Poachers, 1819.

11. Müller's Lament, 1860.

on the crowd of hungry savages who hasten-
ed to The Feast of Pikes;' with what lusty
throats, when King Henry came back from
Agincourt, the men of London city shouted

'Owre kynge went forth to Normandy
With grace and mygt of chivalry,
The God for him wrought marvelously,
Wherefore Englonde may call and cry
Deo gratias: '*

or, how, one and all, throughout Cornish
land, the brave hearts and sturdy lips of the

12. What do you think of Billy Roupell, 1861. people, when their favourite Knight was in

13. The Road Hill Murder, 1861.

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ANDREW FLETCHER of Saltoun once said he knew a wise friend who believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make the laws.'* Ingenious M. Meusnier de Querlon, too, once seriously projected the writing of the history of his country by a chronological series of Songs and Ballads; and, beyond a doubt, honest Andrew's words contain a considerable amount of truth, however difficult his more airy Gallic neighbour might have found it to make his history a complete one. We can well imagine the effect of such glowing impassioned words as

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durance vile, made the country-side ring with

'And shall they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen, And shall Trelawney die?

Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why.'

There have been Ballads and Songs in every age of every civilised country, which gave utterance, not simply to the noble thoughts of some rapt minstrel or inspired bard, but to the deep and passionate longings, the undying patriotism, the heroic patience, the invincible courage, the sublime self-sacrifice, the rapture or the agony of a whole people; and it was this that lent immortal fire and music to the lips of the singer; though his verse may have lacked the martial splendour of Macaulay, or the smooth and subtle strength of Aytoun. So far, therefore, we may well endorse the dictum of worthy Mr. Fletcher; and still be a long way from making Acts of Parliament out of Ballads. But there comes a time in the history of every highly-civilised people, amid all the golden fruits of Religion, Philosophy, Art, Poetry, Science, Discovery and Wealth, with the baser results of Luxury and Refinement, when the Nation no longer speaks as a whole. The classes that in a simpler age were more or less one, or bound together by the tie of common duties, needs, and pleasures, become selfish and distinct. Each begins to have its own heroes, poets, teachers, maxims and favourite rules; and

on the hearts of a band of Scotch patriots; then, amid the clash of conflicting creeds,

or of the

Marseillaise'

'Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons,

the jargon of schools, the cries of hungry ambition, the lofty reasonings of the philosopher, the proud flights of science and of

Marchons, marchons, qu'un sang impur song, the insatiable cravings of increasing

abreuve nos sillon'

These well-known words have been variously attributed to men as different and as wide apart in every respect as Robert Burns and William Cobbett.

But there is no doubt that they belong to honest
Andrew. Vide Political Works, 266: and Whately's
Bacon,' p. 175. Fletcher died in 1716.

wealth, and the dreams of self-indulgence,among the great, the mighty, the rich, and the prosperous, the words of the lower and poorer classes pass unheeded and almost unknown beyond their own immediate circle.

*Percy's Reliques,' ii., 22.

been selected, of which two dozen are named at the head of this Article. No mere selection, indeed, can give a true idea of all their varied beauties, or even of the innumerable topics on which they touch; so lofty is the flight of genius, so various are the themes which poesy seizes on, ennobles, and makes her own for ever; but we have done what we could in the difficult task, and those ardent readers whose thirst shall be still unquenched must go themselves to the fountain head.

And yet this very circle, narrow as it comparatively is, in the midst of a great country like England, and in the heart of the mightiest city in the world, has its own pet heroes, poets, and teachers, its own favourite maxims, sayings, and rules; and, above all, its own Literature; with which few but the multitude of ardent disciples have any real acquaintance. Of that Literature Mr. Catnach * and his successors, Disley and Fortey, are the High priests; Seven Dials is the shrine; while the question of authorship in the majority of cases is as great a mystery as that of the Homeric poems themselves. As to the shrine, it was known and famous as long ago as the days of delightful old Vinny Bourne'as Cowper affectionately calls him and even then as the seat of treatment are so curious, the metres emSong

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Qua Septem vicos conterminat una Columna, Consistunt Nymphæ Sirenum ex agmine binæ. '†

The Column' has long ago given way to a far more sightly and useful building, and the ragged sirens with their cracked voices and wearisome importunities must be row looked for in the crowded recesses of the New Cut. But the ground is still sacred, Catnach is still the presiding genius of all the neighbouring grimy streets, and the L.terature, though somewhat fallen from its ancient glory, includes that wonderful domain of Halfpenny Ballads' to which we are now about to introduce our readers; forming, more or less, a separate class by themselves; distinct, as will be seen, in subject, style, and beauty. We have now before us a catalogue containing five or six hundred of these Ballads, and out of them, with considerable care-as choice flowers out of a dainty garden about a hundred have

* The most elaborate production of Jemmy Catnach, as he was popularly called was, 'An Attempt to Exhibit the Leading Events in the Queen's Life, in Cuts and Verse,' price 2d.; printed on a folio sheet adorned with 12 cuts, interspersed with verses of descriptive poetry, and bearing date Dec. 10, 1821. Catnach was then at the height of his

fame as a printer of ballads in Monmouth-Court,
Seven Dials, where he spent a hardworking, busy
life, and died in 1840, ætat. 49, having amassed a for-
tune of 10,000l. He was the son of a decent north
country printer, and began at first with a small
shop, and a small trade in halfpenny songs, relying
for their composition on one or two of his bards,
and when they were typsy, being driven to write
himself. During the Peninsular war, and specially
at the time of Queen Caroline's trial, his business
had increased so enormously as at times to require
two or three presses going night and day to keep
pace with the demand. At a later period he turned
his attention to the Gallows' Ballads, and here he
reaped a golden harvest. He retired from business
in 1839, and was succeeded by a Mr. Fortey.
↑ Vin. Bourne, Poemata,' p. 61.

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The Ballads may he roughly divided into about eight classes, Famous Men and Women,' Historical,' Modern Events,' Religious,' 'Miscellaneous,' 'Murder,' Political,' 'The Royal Family.' The modes of

ployed so lawless, the beauties and the blots sɔ many and so unexpected, that the difficulty is where to begin and what to select. The critic is fairly distracted by the infinite variety that besets and captivates him. The only way, therefore, in such a garden of roses, is to begin boldly, pluck the first flower that comes to hand, and arrange the bouquet as we best may. We turn, therefore, to Famous Men and Women,' and light at once on the fair name of Florence Nightingale, as The Nightingale in the East.' It's a far stretch from Seven Dials' to the Crimea, but the poet, nothing daunted by the greatness of his subject, thus plunges boldly in medias res,

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'On a dark lonely night on the Crimea's dread shore

There had been bloodshed and strife on the morning before,

The dead and the dying lay bleeding around, Some crying for help there's none to be found;

do rise;

Now God in his mercy he pityed their cries,
And the soldier so cheerful in the morning
So forward, my lads, may your hearts never
fail,

You're cheered by the presence of a sweet
Nightingale.'

There is a fine abruptness in the three
opening lines, but in spite of the rough mu-
sic of the second, the whole picture is at
once before the reader's eye; and in the
midst of dead and dying heroes, some silent
for ever, and some crying madly for help
in their last agony, is the poet's fit occasion
for obeying the great canon of Nec deus
intersit, &c.,' and making a bold dash for

*In every extract from these ballads care has been taken to quote most exactly, verbatim, literatim, and if it were lawful to say so,-punctuatim.

the heroine in the closing line. Stanza II. tells us that this woman was sent' from Heaven to succour the brave, that her eyes beam with pleasure, as some wounded ones are brought in with fever and life almost gone,' while

'Some with dismantled * limbs, some to frag

ments is torn:

but, all keeping up their spirits, and hearts that never fail, in the presence of their sweet Nightingale. Yet, in utter defiance of this horrible scene of carnage and confusion, the grim woodcut at the head of the Ballad represents our fair countrywoman as seated cosily by the side of a downy fourpost bed, and handing a Basin of Hot Gruel (with Brandy in it beyond all doubt) to a stalwart but dismantled' Dragoon, propped up with pillows and looking the very picture of easy comfort.

The name of Florence Nightingale is graven deeply on the hearts of the English people, and far and wide over the world, wherever the English language is spoken, goodness, and valour, and beauty are proud to claim kindred with her; but we doubt whether she ever reached a prouder apo

theosis than

The soldier's they say she's an angel from Heaven,

Sing praises to this woman, deny it who can, And all women was sent for the comfort of man!'

Our next hero is Mr. Spurgeon, who for the last few years has probably preached more sermons, in better English, in spite of their slang, with a mightier voice, to a greater number of thousands, in a larger Rotunda, than any other young man of the age. All ages, ranks, and classes, have been found among his audience, from the days of the front rows and half-guinea reserved seats at the Surrey Music Hall, to the present free seats at the Tabernacle; critics, embryo orators, profound admirers, and ungodly scoffers, ladies of fashion, unbelievers, and Christians of every known shade, have all sat under' him. So great is his eloquence, that in the words of our poet

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'He can please the duke, the lord, the squire,
And ladies with gold lockets,
He can make the very sovereigns jump
Out of old women's pockets.'

* Another version of this ballad here has mangled,' but dismantled is clearly the true reading.

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In the great days of his Exeter Hall performances, when the Tabernacle was not yet built, Mr. Spurgeon is said though the story is probably mythical delighted and amazed his great band of admiring disciples by sliding down the balusters of the rostrum (from which he preaches), from the top to the bottom, to illustrate the fatal ease with which man slides into the pit of destruction, while sliding up again' was to symbolize the difficulty of winning his way back to the path of virtue. Action, gesticulation, and frantic ejaculations of the freest kind, were among the favourite weapons of these oratorical displays, and it is probably to some well-known and favourite resort of this kind that the bard alludes when he says,

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'He can look above and look below,

He can deeply sigh and groan, ah! He can shake the rocks and swallow the whale, He's a greater man than Jonah.'

No wonder, therefore, that

This wonderful man surprises the land,
Parson, lawyer, snob and surgeon,
From every place they run a race

To the wonderful man call'd Spurgeon.'

At the head of this Ballad, there is a facetious woodcut, which to Mr. Spurgeon must have been a bitterness beyond that of aloes itself. For, if there be anything in this life which Mr. Spurgeon hates, despises, and holds in pious abhorrence - it is a bishop; and here he is, at the top of this half-sheet, arrayed in full episcopal robes, in all the atrocious splendour of a full-bottomed wig, crowned with a mitre, lawn sleeves, a pastoral-staff in his right hand, and a bag of 30,000l. in his left;

* Sed revocare gradum Hic labor, hoc opus est.'

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