The pace must have been killing and tremendous, more than fifty long miles, not only over hedges, over ditches, over gates, but over stiles; for it is on record that They followed him in chase six hours full cry And drink good success to fox-hunting boys. Or, if not inclined to the pursuit of Rey. pard, he might, as "the squire" and a magistrate, have tried to put down poach. ing, which, strange to say, is a favorite theme among the ballads; but of which, still stranger to say, Seven Dials seem to understand as much as they do about the meaning and management of the spectroscope. As to the sport itself, there can be no mistake; thus sings the bard, in Ballad No. 1: — Come all ye lads of high renown, But as to the motive and intent, the two ballads are at cross purposes. According to No. 1: Me and five more a poaching went Our money being gone and all was spent At length young Perkins fired He spilt the keeper's blood. In another Deep was the wound the keeper gave No mortal man his life could save, He now lies sleeping in the grave, Until the judgment day. But of the final issue of the fight — and to this we call special attention—there can be no doubt whatever. Thus runs the lofty invocation of the opening stanza: Young men in every station That live within this nation, Pray hear my lamentation, A solemn mournful tale. The five unwary young men of Oakham are all captured, and hurried off, dead or alive, to jail; doomed While locked up in their midnight cells, An awful stanza, indeed, which fully prepares the reader to join in the prayer of verse 7: May He Who feeds the ravens Ere they resign their breath. But according to the No. 2, a gang of While, if inclined to unlawful sports, it Oakham poachers,— warns him to remember the sad fate of the Oakhamites, and listen to the voice which cries, So all young men take warning We are cut off in our prime. It is difficult to pass from such a theme as this to the quieter domain of politics, but our lessening space bids us hasten on. Of the "Doings in Parliament," we have already spoken, and must now only note it as being both poor and vulgar, though popular; passing on to "Gladstone is the Captain of the Ship John Bull," the only other political ballad to be found in our long list, though during the ministry of "Disraeli "squibs of this kind were abundant. Having started, in flowing metre, with the fact There is a good ship afloat and John Bull is its name Throughout this world we know it's gained such a wide-spread fame, Of the fearful combat that ensued it is the bard proceeds with lusty voice to most difficult to glean any authentic de-chant the praises of Britannia as mistress tails. In one stanza we find that of the sea, the ship, her captain, and her crew. Not, however, with much heart, | other distinguished patriots of late have for presently we find Although no doubt some day we'll see the Tories back again, To steer the ship John Bull across the fierce and angry main, But Gladstone told us long ago the good he meant to do There's a light beaming o'er us from afar, If you listen unto me, I will tell you d' ye see, The sentiments of Pat of Mullingar. This seems promising; but like many another patriot, the hero of Mullingar has little comfort to offer, and even that of the dreariest kind. Having told us that in London "they boast of Parliament being lost," that "Gladstone may rave all idly o'er the wave," that O'Connell and Grattan vainly shouted for Home Rule, he has but to declare that the only hope of the nation is John Martin:— This hero ever bold her miseries to unfold Then let us all unite to drink this toast tonight, May happiness revisit Erin's shore, For the plan of Isaac Butt from the palace to the hut, Is Home Rule for Ireland evermore. What Isaac's plan really was the poet does not reveal; and with that final "evermore" the ballad suddenly ends, without a hint of dynamite, boycotting, or the other hideous weapons to which some clearly pointed. We commend to Messrs. Healey and Parnell the sober sentiments of Pat of Mullingar. With regret we have to pass, with the very scantiest notice, a host of miscellaneous ballads, all curious in their way, and each with a character of its own. Among these are "The Death of Sayers," the champion of England, who, after winning sixteen hard fights, and losing but one, has departed to a land where his knowledge of the manly art of self-defence will be useless: He is gone to that silent bourne Where he must lay till the Judgmt day, No more he can return. To that same land, also, we are glad to hear that another worthy has departed in "Robert Stephenson's gone, God rest him": He died like a lamb, did that wonderful man, Up aloft he has gone, never more to return, Generations to come will long bless him, The Father of Railways, God rest him. Signed, John Morgan Orchd St. S.W. A stanza worthy of note, not only because we have a new simile instead of the invariable "silent bourne," but because it is the only ballad which bears the author's name. We must also pass in rapid survey, "God Bless the Women," though it opens with so admirable a sentiment as I sing in praise of woman, and it will not you surprise, I can prove that lovely woman is an angel in disguise, and with equal rapidity “Be kind to Your Wife;" tho' A woman's the blessing the pride of our life down the room. line from "The Temperance Alphabet," | Take warning by a wretched creature, which, among other wise and witty truths, tell us that S stands for Signs of the Crown or the Rose, The drunkard he carries his Sign on his nose; Who now in sorrow her death doth wait, While tears are streaming down every feature, No one will pity her awful fate. While as for the crafty poisoner Lamson, these are the poet's tenderest words: or to mourn over the "Awful Calamity at For the sake of paltry money this murder you Bradford," although Bradford lies in mourning, For her sons and daughters now, Who, without a moment's warning, To a fearful fate did bow. For young and old in the grave lie cold, But from this wide domain of sentiment, war, politics, and religion, we now finally come to the ghastly regions of crime, especially that of murder. Of these "Dying Speeches and Confessions" there are about a dozen before us, stretching from the hideous murder of Maria Martin in the Red Barn," (1825), down to that of poor Percy M. John by G. H. Lamson, his brother-in law. These constitute a distinct class of ballads; being printed on a larger sheet, fully illustrated, and selling at a higher price. In the old days of Rush and Manning, when the hangman did his ghastly work in public, these sheets at once attained an enormous circulation, which has gradually dwindled down from hundreds to tens of thousands. They are all pretty much alike; each containing a grim woodcut of the murderer and of the victim; but, above all, in the centre of the sheet, a still grimmer outline of the wretch himself, standing on the fatal drop, the parson in full canonicals, and a stern warder at hand bearing a bunch of keys. Below, in newspapery English, follows a brief account of the trial, the demeanor of the prisoner, his passage to the gallows, and the hoisting of the black flag; succeeded by six or eight stanzas of the poorest doggrel, but doggrel in which there is both good sense and right feeling. For the wicked crime of murder George Lam son now must pay, And with his life upon the gallows end, And unprepared to meet his Maker send. over his head and a rope round his neck, but only stern, rhadamanthine justice. Even for the infamous Kate Webster there is not a grain of mercy: have done, No doubt thinking the crime you could con ceal, But the eye of God was watching, and Justice it has come, And to all people's eyes it does reveal. This may be sorry rhyme, and still sorin it a voice of sound, right feeling, to rier verse; but beyond all doubt there is which Seven Dials is not deaf. Throughout the whole dozen of dying speeches, etc., the same spirit is to be traced. "It's the same poet as does 'em all," says one street patterer,* and "no more nor a bob for nothing." This was paltry pay under any circumstances, but still more so when it is remembered that a golden harvest is reaped out of every terrible murder-to the tune of at least fifty thousand copies. Our survey of Seven Dials literature has been hasty, and not so complete as could be wished; but, taken as a whole, it proves that the moral tone of the ballads, if not lofty, is not low. There is not a word in praise of vice or drunkenness, but there are many words in praise of right feeling, honor, truth, and friendship. There is not the faintest sympathy with the filthy school of atheism, of which sounds are now to be heard in the House of Commons and the law courts, but which, if Northampton † cobblers glorify it, the heart of England repudiates. There is a clear recognition of an Almighty ruler of the world, a love of fair play, an oldfashioned liking for what is true and brave, a keen sense of the ludicrous, and a deep current of loyalty to the throne and to old England. These are hopeful and good signs for the future. If the poets of Seven Dials are sadly profuse in faulty rhymes, metre, and spelling, it is not because their hearers have any peculiar relish for such enormities, but simply because they have no chance of any better diet. If any real poet of nobler tastes, and nobler rhyme, and nobler powers, were to arise, and sing to the listening thousands in good, plain ringing Saxon such topics as Seven Dials loves to hear - of men and women great in goodness or in vice, of life and death | Already it was certain that "the manes in their widest sense, of human sorrows are somewhat," and that annihilation is and human joys-whether in Monmouth the dream of people sceptical through Court or in Windsor Castle he would lack of imagination. The scene around achieve a swift immortality among those me now resolved itself into a high grey whose words die not. The sooner he upland country, bleak and wild, like the comes, the better. B. G. JOHNS. waste pastoral places of Liddesdale. As I stood expectant, I observed a figure coming towards me at some distance. The figure bore in its hand a gun, and, as I am short-sighted, I at first conceived that he was the gamekeeper. "This affair," I tried to say to myself, "is only a dream after all; I shall wake and forget my nightmare." From The Fortnightly Review. IN the drawing-room, or, as it is more correctly called, the "dormitory," of my club, I had been reading a volume named "Sur l'Humanité Posthume," by M. d'Assier, a French follower of Comte. The mixture of positivism and ghost-stories highly diverted me. Moved by the sagacity and pertinence of M. d'Assier's arguments, I fell into such an uncontrollable fit of laughter as caused, I could see, first annoyance and then anxiety in those members of my club whom my explosion of mirth had awakened. As I still chuckled and screamed, it appeared to me that the noise I made gradually grew fainter and more distant, seeming to resound in some vast empty space, even more funereal and melancholy than the dormitory of my club, the "Tepidarium." It has happened to most people to laugh themselves awake out of a dream, and every one who has done so must remember the ghastly, hollow, and maniacal sound of his own mirth. It rings horribly in a quiet room where there has been, as the Veddahs of Ceylon say is the case in the world at large, "nothing to laugh at." Dean Swift once came to himself, after a dream, laughing thus hideously at the following conceit: "I told Apronia to be very careful especially about the legs." Well, the explosions of my laughter crackled in a yet more weird and lunatic fashion about my own ears as I slowly became aware that I had died of an excessive sense of the ludicrous, and that the space in which I was so inappropriately chuckling was, indeed, the fore-court of the house of Hades. As I grew more absolutely convinced of this truth, and began dimly to discern a strange world visible in a sallow light, like that of the London streets when a black fog hangs just over the houses, my hysterical chuckling gradually died away. Amusement at the poor follies of mortals was succeeded by an awful and anxious curiosity as to the state of immortality and the life after death. But still the man drew nearer, and I began to perceive my error. Gamekeepers do not usually paint their faces red and green, neither do they wear scalplocks, a tuft of eagle's feathers, mocassins, and buffalo-hide cloaks, embroidered with representations of war and the chase. This was the accoutrement of the stranger who now approached me, and whose copper-colored complexion indicated that he was a member of the Red Indian, or, as the late Mr. Morgan called it, the "Ganowanian race. The stranger's attire was old and clouted; the barrel of his flintlock musket was rusted, and the stock was actually overgrown with small funguses. It was a peculiarity of this man that everything he carried was more or less broken and outworn. The barrel of his piece was riven, his tomahawk was a shard of rusted steel, on many of his accoutrements the vapor of fire had passed. He approached me with a stately bearing, and after saluting me in the fashion of his people, gave me to know that he welcomed me to the land of spirits, and that he was deputed to carry me to the paradise of the Ojibbeways. But, sir," I cried in painful confusion, "there is here some great mistake. I am no Ojibbeway, but an Agnostic; the after-life of spirits is only (as one of our great teachers says) an hypothesis based on contradictory probabilities;' and I really must decline to accompany you to a place of which the existence is uncertain, and which, if it does anywhere exist, would be uncon. genial in the extreme to a person of my habits." mere To this remonstrance my Ojibbeway Virgil answered, in effect, that in the. enormous passenger traffic between the earth and the next worlds mistakes must and frequently do occur. Quisque suos patimur manes, as the Roman says, is the rule, but there are many exceptions. Many a man finds himself in the paradise of a religion not his own, and suffers from the consequences of the fact that all religions are equally true. This was, in brief, the explanation of my guide, who could only console me by observing that if I felt ill at ease in the Ojibbeway paradise, I might, perhaps, be more fortunate in that of some other creed. "As for your Ag. nostics," said he, "their main occupation in their own next world is to read the poetry of George Eliot and the philosophical works of Mr. J. S. Mill." On hearing this, I was much consoled for having missed the entrance to my proper sphere, and I prepared to follow my guide with cheerful alacrity, into the paradise of the Ojibbeways. happy women I had known on earth, who were inconsolable because their babes had died before being sprinkled with water by a priest. These babes they, like the Ojibbeway matrons, "could not expect to meet again in paradise." To a grown up spirit the jump across the mystic river presented no difficulty, and I found myself instantly among the wigwams of the Ojib beway heaven. It was a remarkably large village, and as far as the eye could see huts and tents were erected along the river. The sound of magic songs and of drums filled all the air, and in the fields the spirits were playing la crosse. All the people of the village had deserted their homes and were enjoying themselves Our track lay, at first, along the "path at the game. Outside one hut, however, of souls," and the still, grey air was only a perplexed and forlorn phantom was sitdisturbed by a faint rustling and twitter- ting, and to my surprise I saw that he was ing of spirits on the march. We seemed dressed in European clothes. As we drew to have journeyed but a short time, when nearer I observed that he wore the black a red light shone on the left hand of the garb and white necktie of a minister in way. As we drew nearer this light ap- some religious denomination, and on compeared to proceed from a prodigious ing to still closer quarters I recognized strawberry, a perfect mountain of a straw- an old acquaintance, the Rev. Peter Mcberry. Its cool and shining sides seemed Snadden. Now Peter had been a "jined very attractive to a thirsty soul. A red member" of that mysterious "U. P. man, dressed strangely in the feathers of Kirk" which, according to the author of a raven, stood beside the fruit, and loudly" Lothair," was founded by the Jesuits for invited all passers-by to partake of this refreshment. I was about to excavate a portion of the monstrous strawberry (being partial to that fruit), when my guide held my hand and whispered in a low voice that they who accepted the invitation of the man that guarded the strawberry were lost. He added that, into whatever para dise I might stray, I must beware of tasting any of the food of the departed. All who yield to the temptation must inevitably remain where they have put the food of the dead to their lips. "You," said my guide, with a slight sneer, "seem rather particular about your future home, and you must be especially careful to make no error." Thus admonished, I followed my guide to the river which runs between our world and the paradise of the Ojibbeways. A large stump of a tree lies half across the stream, the other half must be crossed by the agility of the wayfarer." it's just some terrible mistake. For Little children do but badly here, and "an Ojibbeway woman," said my guide, "can never be consoled when her child dies before it is fairly expert in jumping. Such young children they cannot expect to meet again in paradise." I made no reply, but was reminded of some good and un These details are borrowed from Kohl's account of the Ojibbeway faith. the greater confusion of Scotch theology. Peter, I knew, had been active as a missionary among the Red Men in Canada; but I had neither heard of his death nor could conceive how his shade had found its way into a paradise so inappropriate as that in which I encountered him. Though aever very fond of Peter, my heart warmed to him as the heart sometimes does to an acquaintance unexpectedly met in a strange land. Coming cautiously behind him, I slapped Peter on the shoulder, whereon he leaped up with a wild, unearthly yell, his countenance displaying lively tokens of terror. When he recog nized me he first murmured, "I thought it was these murdering Apaches again; " and it was long before I could soothe him, or get him to explain his fears, and the circumstance of his appearance in so strange a final home. "Sir," said Peter, twenty years was I preaching to these Where congregations ne'er break up |