the rich double blossoms and heavy hyacinth-like odors of a style so saturated with sentiment, till they learned to long for the beauty they had at first despised. The same may be said with even more obvious truth of the rugged humor and keen imaginative fidelity of Mr. Browning's muse. And so we cannot wonder that it is comparatively late in his career before Martin Farquhar Tupper has wrung for himself the vacant throne waiting for him among the immortals, and after a long and glorious term of popularity among those who know when their hearts are touched without being able to justify their taste to the intellect, has been adopted by the suffrage of mankind and the final decree of publishers into the same rank with Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning. Mr. Tupper is quite conscious that the critical moment of his fame has at length arrived. In a preface marked by his usual sententious wisdom, he explains why he asked the admission which has not been denied him to this brotherhood of poets:— A "It has occurred to me to request the famous poetical Sosii of Dover Street to authorize a Selection from my various Rhymes and Rhythms in Moxon's Miniature Series, and aware (as I needs must be by this time) that I have readers and friends in many nooks and corners of our habitable globe, I have done my best to fill this niche, and to answer my publishers' purpose as well as my own, by grouping as a Selection, not alone several such poems as the world has been kind enough heretofore to mint-mark with its approbation, but also some that have been found fault with, and others that are quite new. man who has run the gauntlet of so-called criticism fearlessly and successfully for wellnigh thirty years, is not at this hour careful to catch vain praises, or to escape from as vain censures. Let us all retain our opinions peaceably; and if any one will honestly judge an author, let him first read his works, the very last thing thought of by certain professional critics. Englishmen, however, of every class, are in the main lovers of fair play, especially when all that is asked of them is an open field and no favor. To such I commend this beautifully printed volume as a mere book specimen worthy of the Elzevirs. 66 MARTIN F. TUPPER. แ ALBURY, December, 1865." A man of less accurate mind would have thought it needless to point out that his popularity extends only to the habitable globe, but it is one of the distinctions which has endeared Mr. Tupper to his many admirers, that he brings out into clear view those universal and half-unconscious assumptions of human thought, the indisputable character of which is recognized as soon as they are put down in his massive and lucid English before the readers. The public will hail with satisfaction the award which assigns Mr. Tupper his place beside the great poets of our generation, and we cannot doubt that the noble company of the great poets who strove in vain for that recognition which Mr. Tupper has gloriously achieved, will rise up to ratify the judgment: "The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought 66 Rose robed in dazzling immortality. Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng.'" with his rich and sensuous but unhuman imaginings, If such a winged throne could be kept for Keats, how much larger and steadier a seat must be reserved for the graceful, intellectual embonpoint, the large, full-bottomed humanity of Tupper's cheery genius. Oblivion never "shrank like a thing reproved" as it shrinks beneath the accents we have sublimely mild" than Sidney's. Tupper indeed already quoted of our own domestic poet, no less has not yet left us, and long may his throne swing kingless in unascended majesty, if that soft vesper this is at least the moment which prefigures his light is to set for us before it rises for them. But reception among the immortals, and the fitting time therefore to say a word of his extraordinary powers. the taste which he satisfies. As we began by remarking, Tupper has formed To one not familiar with Tupper there is a certain disappointment at first, such as many complained of in reading, for instance, Wordsworth's lines written near Tintern Abbey, in the meditative egotism which may be observed in him no less than in Wordsworth. The disciples of Wordsworth are reconciled to this by the necessarily prophetic character of those who As a thoughtful critic wrote, "It came to pass in those days that bring new lessons to mankind. that no doubt suggested the true character of WordsWilliam Wordsworth went up into the hills." worth's poetic mission. With Mr. Tupper the explanation is somewhat different. He, too, as he sential to him is not a mere consequence of the simtells us, "magnifies his office," but the egotism esplest way of reporting the thoughts which came to the writer, as in Wordsworth's case, for he is not so much the mere canal of his thoughts, the aqueduct by which they reach us, as the very object and substance of most of his finest thoughts, the vision itself, no less than the stage on which the vision appears. This is the first stumbling-block to his disciples. But then, when they come to see what there is in that genial personality, that it is a sort of glorified Anglo-Saxon essence which frankly unveils itself under the mere appearance of egotism, the apparent stumbling-block becomes a step to genuine admiration. Take, for instance, the following gay and delicate verses on Mr. Tupper's 'beautiful brain," seeming to paint the first singing, as it were, of the kettle of genius before the evaporation of prose into verse begins,-lines which, with a significant meaning, which we shall presently understand, Mr. Tupper has named "Sloth." "SLOTH. "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, And By your wild whispers, my Fanciful train, And, like a linnet, be carelessly captured In the soft nets of my beautiful brain. "Touch not these curtains! your hand will be tearing Delicate tissues of thoughts and of things; Call me not! - your cruel voice will be scaring Flocks of young visions on gossamer wings: Leave me, O leave me! for in your rude presence Nothing of all my bright world can remain, Thou art a blight to this garden of pleasance, Thou art a blot on my beautiful brain! Saturday into his usual identification of that mind with his "Unflinching and unfearing, For sign by beck or nod, I always see the finger Of an onward-urging God!" "My energies ethereal, My gladiator soul." An "ethereal gladiator," that is what Mr. Tupper would make out of the strong Anglo-Saxon stuff of which his countrymen are made. That is what Mr. Tupper has already made out of himself. The seeming egotism of this poem, attributing, as it appears to do, beauty of a high order even to the whity-brown nerve-tissue of Mr. Tupper's brain itself, vanishes as soon as its extraordinary subtlety and boldness of conception are fully perceived. Mr. Tupper, dream-absorbed, and caught in the soft nets of his own beautiful brain,- Mr. Tupper, finding any disturbing agency, whether of domestic servant or of that "hind "elsewhere more than once referred to by him, or indeed of any other interrupting influence, a How fine is that contrast:blot on the intrinsic beauty of the brain in the network of which he is a struggling captive,- Mr. Tupper, half-lulled again by the "sweet vision" in that beautiful brain,—finally, Mr. Tupper's heart reeling in the swift waltz" of his beautiful brain,— are all, especially the last, metaphors so bold that the earnest student of his poetry is driven to look beneath the surface. And there he sees at once that But it is not only in teaching us to see really the poet sees really in himself the genius of Eng- broad and comprehensive thoughts in the apparent that he sees that it is the peculiar danger egotism of his reflections that Mr. Tupper has eduof England to be even too much ruled by her intel-cated the taste which he gratifies. As Wordsworth lectual class, to be caught, in short, "in the soft net educated us to appreciate truly the (almost naked) of her beautiful brain," that the agency which is simplicity which he always observed, so Tupper has most unpleasantly awakening her, and preventing educated us to appreciate truly a simplicity of anher from giving herself up to that influence, is the other kind,—a cooing, domestical simplicity, almost true "blot on her beautiful brain," namely, the la- dovey in its sweetness and innocence, which when boring class, giving rise no doubt to the condition-closely associated with the strong Anglo-Saxon feelof-England question, - that, in spite of this awakenings we have described, - the "gladiator-soul" elemakes a very rare ing blot on the brain, the voice of the intellectual ment of Mr. Tupper's poetry,siren is still in danger of prevailing,-nay, that combination indeed. Take, for example, the second finally, the very heart of England is yielding to the stanza in the poem called "Fons Parnassi," or "Solintoxication, and whirling madly about in the swift ace of Song": waltz of the intellectual thoughts which can neither sober it nor govern themselves. And now we see why he has named the lines "Sloth." It is moral sloth which prevents the will and heart of England from asserting themselves against the toils laid for them by the morbidly active brain. land, Mr. Tupper is often as impressive as this, but not often quite so subtle. You must study him indeed, like all great poets, to grasp his full greatness, but usually his apparent drift and his real drift are one and the same. And, as in this poem, he himself almost always stands, and usually without any sort of disguise, for the English character. Take, for instance, the grand lines on "Energy," beginning: "Indomitable merit Of the stout old Saxon mind, That makes a man inherit The glories of his kind, That scatters all around him Until he stands sublime, With nothing to confound him, : "Ah! thou fairy fount of sweetness, To my hot and thirsty heart, Frank as Sappho, as unsought, As a sister Ariel ought, - Or a bright Bacchante, reeling Through the flights of thought and feeling, Whatsoe'er of spirit's fire, Beauty kindling with desire, Can be caught in Word's attire; The whole piece is unfortunately too long for quota- The unchastened mind, as yet uncultivated by Mr. tion, but we must show how simply and powerfully, Tupper's influence, will revolt against this, as the after this introduction to show us that he is really enemies of Wordsworth who composed the parody speaking of the English national mind, he glides | about "naughty Nancy Lake" rebelled against his UNDERGROUND PERILS. simplicity. But the dove of Mr. Tupper's muse will | That we should feel such a creature-yearning at all overcome them at last, and make them see the ex- while reading Mr. Tupper is the strongest proof we quisite taste and feeling of "an innocent wife-like" could bring of the rare generalizing power which Egeria, how completely it rids us of any of the belongs to his wise, genial, and innocent poetic ambiguous feelings excited by the story of Numa nature. and Egeria, an Egeria, too, who does not dance in Mr. Tupper's presence at all without having her sister with her. Even so, we may perhaps a little regret some of the last lines. We don't think "an innocent wife-like" Egeria should have been at all like a Bacchante, even a Bacchante in "Word's attire," though we have no doubt that is a very respectable attire. We don't think the allusion quite in Mr. Tupper's ordinary tone. Still the innocent sweetness of the general conception is perhaps even enhanced by the slip. IF the Apostle Paul had lived some centuries later on, he might have had occasion to add to the list of perils which he underwent those underground dangers to which so large a portion of our popula│tion are subject, and of which the Report of the Inspectors of Coal-Mines forms the instructive, though ominous, death-roll. People sitting before their cheerful Christmas fire have very feeble notions of the difficulty and risk that every nub of coal represents. They have a generally vague impression of the gloomy interior of a coal-pit, that rises to a certain degree of intensity when any particular tragedy on a large scale is The same exquisite purity of feeling shows itself in Mr. Tupper's love of crystals and all symbols of purity. The thoughts shooting through his brain when "the calm chaos-brooding dove" of Silence is present with him he likens to crystals, in spite of the partial painfulness of the suggestion of crystals dan-unfortunately enacted, such as those at the Hartley cing about in the soft net of a "beautiful brain." "SILENCE. "Dear Nurse of Thought, calm chaos-brooding dove, Mother of Fancy, friend and sister mine, "Rarer than Eloquence, and sweeter far Stronger than Music, charm she ne'er so well, "The rushing crystals throb about my brain, Their teeming imagery crowds my sphere, or the Risca collieries; but except on such occasions as these they have but little idea of the daily and hourly danger incurred by those whose province it is to procure that most essential article for carrying on British commerce and supplying warmth to the British population. The Reports, albeit they are blue-books, deserve to be studied attentively by every intelligent person; for though we are not all colliery proprietors or coal-merchants, we are all indirectly interested in the coal question; and even as a matter of humanity we cannot help feeling a certain amount of sympathy with the lives and fortunes of three hundred and seven thousand of our fellowcountrymen, that being, according to the Report, about the number of coal-miners employed during the past year. There is no doubt a certain intentional incongruity between the dove-like character of Silence and And when we come to consider that, even after her crystallizing modus operandi on the brain. The one is soft purity, the other hard purity; and Mr. years of diligent and stringent government superTupper means to teach us by the contrast how vision, when every possible rule has been made for really consistent is the soft cooing of domestic peace tific investigations, for every 109,000 tons of coal the protection of life, founded upon the most scienwith the hard and luminous brilliance of poetic conception. He is very happy in conveying moral les- brought to the light of day, one life is lost, what sons by these metaphors. In an address to the fly-underground in the days when it was nobody's must have been the hecatombs annually sacrificed ing years he says, "EHEU! FUGACES. "The flying years! the flying years! How rapidly they wing away, where every one will feel at once the originality But we must conclude arbitrarily, or we should never conclude at all; and as Tupper finely says, a truth which, like all his truths, has grown upon us more and more the more deeply we study his works, - "All created yearnings tend business to look after the safety of the collier, when he was nothing but a wretched troglodyte, unknown and unnoticed save by those whose policy it was to get as much as they could out of him! It really is a terrible thing to think that every 109,000 tons demands a life, and that during the year 1864 for every 354 persons employed one was struck down, and it fully justifies the pressure put on coal-masters to prevent by every possible means such a lamentable state of things. It will always happen, however, that whatever rules are made, whatever improvements effected, they will be frequently rendered nugatory by the stupidity and carelessness of those for whose protection they were adopted, and it is surprising what a large proportion of accidents is due to this cause. Some of them read almost like acts of suicide; the worst of it being that the one who is to blame is seldom the only victim, but that others are generally included in the fatal results. It might be expected that the more recently a coal district has been worked the smaller percentage would there be of accidents or deaths, owing to the increased appliances and better working ar rangements of the newer collieries, as compared with those which have been at work for some time. -- ways to control the fiery element so as to prevent its stamping in burning letters a certain individuality on the district. Against this, however, it may be said that the more fiery a coal is known to be, the greater care is taken to guard against danger. But this rule does not hold good. For instance, that is usually tolerably free from this misfortune, West Scotland-which comprises the Lanarkshire may all of a sudden be the scene of a widespread and Ayrshire districts, one of the oldest coal-produ- catastrophe, which numbers its victims by hundreds. cing localities that we have- is far more free from Yet, as a general rule, the character of the coalaccident than South Wales, which is more recently seams may be ascertained by consulting the black developed than any other; and even Northumber-list; since, let what will be done, it is impossible alland ranks above the latter in immunity of life. For whereas South Wales, raising (in round numbers) 6,900,000 tons, has one man killed for every 277 colliers working, and for every 66,000 tons of coal raised; East Scotland, raising very little less coal, has only one man killed for every 622 colliers, and every 188,000 tons brought to the surface. Northumberland, which produces more than 10,000,000 of tons, loses only one man for every 147,000 tons; and yet the Newcastle coal-field has been in working order centuries before South Wales was thought of. One great reason for this unpleasant superiority of South Wales in adding to the death-roll, is the fiery nature of the coals, especially in the Merthyr and Aberdare seams; on account of which it often happens that, when an explosion does occur, it is the means of destroying a great number of men at the same time. As many of my readers probably know, an explosion of fire-damp arises from the presence of carburetted hydrogen in such a quantity in the air of the pit that it becomes explosive when a light is introduced. Nor is the danger over when this crisis happens; for one of the results of the explosion is to generate an enormous quantity of carbonic acid, indifferently called after-damp, choke-damp, or black-damp, which surely suffocates those whom the scorching flame has spared, unless they have been fortunate enough to reach purer air. When such a frightful calamity as this overtakes a pit, it may easily be conceived what numbers are swept off at one blow; and how hopeless it is, generally speaking, for any one to escape who comes within the radius of its influence. Nearly all our most fatal colliery accidents have happened from this cause. No one who has not lived in a colliery district can have the slightest conception of the dreadful panic and terror that seizes on all concerned at the very suspicion of an explosion; although it has happened, in extensive mines, that one section of colliers working in a far-off place was unaware of the sad havoc going on in another part. Above ground, the excitement is intense; at the first intimation that there is anything wrong, too often heralded by a dull, deep boom issuing from the pit's mouth, hundreds of those residing near, principally women and children, rush to the scene of action, each bewailing the possible loss of a parent, husband, or child. Of all the districts, that of West Lancashire and North Wales are the most destructive in the proportion of death to the number of colliers working, being 1 to every 221; while South Wales has most deaths in proportion to the number of tons of coal raised, being 1 to every 66,000. Yorkshire heads the list in freedom from accident, although it will be seen, in referring to the list, that the number of colliers employed in each district does not always bear the same relation to the number of tons of coal raised. Thus, Northumberland and North Durham employ 24,400 men, and yield more than 10,000,000 tons; whereas the next to it, South Wales, employs 29,000, and yields not quite 7,000,000 tons. This may be accounted for in two or three ways; it partly depends on the geological formation of the country, the character of the seams, and so on. The collieries in Northumberland are only 165 in number, against 332 in South Wales; but, on the other hand, they are infinitely larger in staff and matériel, some of them forming perfect colonies of themselves, and very few being as small as most of the establishments in South Wales. The latter district, too, is of a very extensive area, and the pits are much scattered; whereas, in the former, which is much less extensive in acreage, every square | yard is made available for mining purposes, al-ceeding, and an apparatus is soon rigged up for the though the separate collieries are fewer in number. In South Staffordshire it appears that there are no less than 540 collieries, which nevertheless do not employ so many men as South Wales does with 200 less pits; and this arises from the thickness of the seams, the extreme value of the ground, and the consequent crowding together of numbers of collieries into a very small compass, as indeed must be evident to any traveller by railway through the Black Country. For a brief period men's wits seem to have deserted them; but that soon ceases, and with the pluck and presence of mind that characterizes the true Englishman in time of danger, a cordon is soon established round the pit's mouth, and the thronging crowd kept off; the doctors hastily appear with the necessary appliances for restoring suspended animation; the viewers and managers of neighboring collieries hurriedly consult on the safest mode of pro purpose of descent, if, as often happens, the usual machinery is injured. Then a brave band of men, disregarding aught but the fact that their fellowmen are dying or dead underground, cautiously descend, the first great object being to restore some degree of ventilation to the workings, in order that the earliest possible exploration may be carried out in safety. While some are effecting this object, others are proceeding carefully amidst the almost overpowering gases, to the locality where it is known Let us now glance at the various forms in which that the colliers were at work; and soon they come death usually appears to the collier, as tabulated upon the horrible traces, - men, who have flown by the Inspectors' Reports. Perhaps the one best with the wings of fear towards the shaft in the hopes known to the public, and certainly the most dreaded of escaping from the demon behind, but who having by those liable to it, on account of the wholesale been overtaken, lie either gasping for breath or slaughter so frequently involved, is that of explo- senseless. As they approach the scene of the exsion; from which cause we see that 257 perished in plosion, the horrors assume a different aspect. Here the years 1863-64. It is scarcely fair to estimate the victims lie in every possible attitude, scorched, any one district as regarding explosion by any one blackened, mangled, and unrecognizable, even by year, as, from some fatality or mischance, a coal-field | the fond relations waiting at the pit's mouth. I know nothing more solemn and distressing than to form one of that crowd, as soon as it is known that the first ghastly cargo has started from the bottom. As the chain winds slower and slower, every head cranes forward with horrible dread, to see what the next turn of the wheel will reveal. Up comes the cage, with, may be, a couple of dead bodies in charge of the living, when there is one eager look, and straightway some wretched wife or mother rushes forward, shrieking and wailing to see the hope and stay of the family, who, only a few hours before, left the home in health and spirits, now brought up a corpse. The whole scene, when the explosion has been of any great extent, is enough to haunt one to one's dying day ;- the never-ending stream of bodies carried to their homes, the rows and rows of coffins, and lastly the funerals with their thousands of mourners, stamp such an occurrence with an indescribable gloom and horror. And to think that all this death and destruction has possibly arisen from the carelessness of one man, who, may be, has gone into a place into which he had no business to go, or who has lighted his pipe in defiance of rules. and can no protection be devised for those who are thus daily working over a barrel of gunpowder? The only protection is summed up in one word,"Ventilation"; and, thanks to the mining schools, the physics of ventilation are pretty well understood. As Mr. Brough well says in his report for Monmouthshire:Furnace "There are no secrets in ventilation. power in excess, so that less or more wind may be had as required, and when wanted; great sectional area wherever air travels underground, splitting it judiciously; abundant supervision and complete discipline, - these are the simple methods by which approximate safety may be arrived at and relied on. It matters but little which may be the prevailing danger, fire-damp or black-damp; thorough searching ventilation, never neglected, will sweep both or either harmlessly and speedily away." Of course, it is not to be expected that so much ventilation can ever be applied as to render every portion of the workings safe at all times and seasons. We have seen that it is the practice to wall off disused workings, in order that no one might venture in; and it is the duty of the firemen thoroughly to One would have thought that the very knowledge inspect every stall and leading morning and evening, that there was gas in any particular place would be so that no workman is allowed to enter any place sufficient to deter a workman from going there with where gas is reported to exist, until it has been the naked light, i. e. without a safety-lamp, even were subject of special attention. The air of some pits, there no special rule to prevent his doing so; but however, is always at a point at which explosion is the reports show a number of cases in which this more or less liable to occur. Apropos of which, Mr. has happened, the transgressors not being boys or Evans, in his Derbyshire report, strongly shows the strangers to the underground arrangements, but old, care which should be taken under these circumexperienced men, and in one case, the owner of the stances, and debates upon "The impropriety and pit himself, who was engaged in surveying, and who danger of continuing to work even with a safetywas perfectly well aware of the dangerous locality. lamp in an explosive mixture. The feeling among By another rule no collier is allowed to have a safety-some is, that, when gas is discovered and men are lamp unless it is locked, the key being in the hands of a proper officer, whose place it is to see to them; but it unfortunately happens that the overt act of picking the lock, to get a light for the pipe, is only too easy and too common. When discovered, the offence is severely punished; but it is too usual an occurrence for the punishment to come in a terrible and sudden form, and carry off the culprit in a single second beyond the reach of any earthly tribunal. In pits where the fire-damp is at a minimum, and where the ventilation is very good, it is at the discretion of the manager to allow the men to work with naked lights, as is often done in some of the bituminous pits of South Wales. Even then the presence of the gas may easily be tested by applying a light to the roof, when a sheet of pale tinted flame instantly runs along, as if warning one that the playing with such edged tools must not be carried too far. furnished with safety-lamps, all is done that is necessary, and that it is safe to continue to work with a lamp, which in fact means nothing more or less than substituting these instruments in lieu of ventilation, a practice most dangerous to life and property, and one too common in Nottinghamshire." North Staffordshire heads the list from deaths by explosion during the year 1864, with a total of 22, being exactly double the number of the year previous. The fluctuations, however, are better exemplified in the case of the South Wales basin, which, in the last year, only lost 6 men from this cause, but in 1863, 66. This enormous increase was mainly owing to the terrible explosion at the Morfa Pit, near Neath, which was generally looked upon as the best conducted and ventilated colliery in the district. Nevertheless, at a moment's notice, 39 were sacrificed; and it may be mentioned as an instance of the destructive force, that although the accident happened in the early part of October, the last body was not discovered till the end of November, owing to the blowing away of all the timbers that supported the roof, and the consequent choking up of the works. The number of deaths from explosion in this single district, which does not include Monmouthshire, during the last nine years, has been over 1,100! A very common occurrence in firing pits is the presence of "blowers," by which is meant a cavity in the coal that has served as a receptacle for all the gas around it, which, of course, is instantly liberated by the stroke of the pick, doing more or less damage according to the size of the hollow. The same thing is occasionally repeated on a much larger scale by the chance breaking in upon old workings which have been closed up for years, and upon the walls of which a too incautious approach has been made But notwithstanding this formidable array of figeither from carelessness or a misapprehension as to ures, death by explosion is not the most common the proximity of the dangerous locality. Such a form that occurs. The greatest number of casualmistake is most terrible and fatal in its consequences; ties arise from falls of the roof or of the coal itself, for sometimes water, and sometimes gas, is evolved and 400 deaths are attributed to this cause in 1864, in such prodigious quantities that destruction infal- South Wales again taking the lead with an obituary libly overtakes everybody working in that quarter. of 67, closely followed by South Staffordshire with Is there no guaranty against this hidden danger, | 51, and West Lancashire with 43. |