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MRS. GASKELL.

To

THE deaths of our friends are like milestones on the road of life. So somebody has said before; and, I think, the metaphor is just enough, save that, as we get well forward on our life journey, the milestones succeed each other so rapidly that we lose our reckoning. The number of dead men we have known becomes so large that, at times, we grow confused as to who is living and who is dead. In the first blush of youth there is-pardon the apparent cynicism of the remark-a sort of not altogether unpleasing sensation in being able to speak of your dead friend. have known one who occupied some place in the world's notice confers upon us a kind of brevet of full manhood. I am speaking, be it understood, not of those lost loved ones-of whom all men, not cruelly cursed by fate, can say that as to their lives, they themselves were "pars magna," but of those common acquaintances whom we know neither more nor less than scores of others. Of such friendships-if I may so call these acquaintanceships-persons with whom literature is a profession or pursuit have, I think, more than most people. Authors, artists, editors, reviewers, newspaper writers, are brought much together by the necessities of their position, and form, naturally enough, those kinds of relations which entitle them in common parlance to call one another friends. Thus it becomes one of the privileges or pains, as you choose to consider it, of a literary life, that you are not allowed to pass in quiet to the grave with no tribute save the tears of those who have known and loved you. Nemesis compels your associates to write of you on your death, as you would have written of them had they gone before. I remember once being present at the funeral of one whose lot had brought him into contact with those who live by writing. All of us, who were assembled on the sunny slopes of

that pleasant Highgate burying-ground, were men connected in some way with literature. Many, perhaps most of us, were unknown by name to the public for whom we wrote; but still one and all were so far known behind the scenes, if not upon the stage, of literature, that we knew, if we died tomorrow, our deaths would be recorded in newspaper paragraphs. For some might be reserved the typographic glories of leaded print, of the black lines round the notice, of a place on the leader sheet; for others there might be afforded only the obscure paragraph in minion type, buried in some odd corner of the newspaper; but still for each there would surely be somewhere or other an obituary notice. And, as we were turning away from the grave where our friend lay buried, one of the mourners said to me, "Do you know "what we are all thinking of in our "hearts? We are wondering, in case this "funeral had been ours, what our friends "would have written of us to-morrow." Such thoughts must be present surely to all who write. We can tell pretty well what our own record will be ; we know it almost by heart, from the expression of deep regret at the beginning, to the very enumeration of our names at the close. But yet, though we may moralise on the hollowness of the custom, I suspect few of us would like to know that our friends would not follow our body to the grave, would not honour us with some passing record of our works and lives.

The world of English letters has just lost one of its foremost authors. Another of the writers I have known has passed away in the person of Mrs. Gaskell ; and I think this magazine would scarcely be worthy of itself unless it contained some short notice of the authoress of "Mary Barton," from one to whom, however slightly, she was known as a living woman, not as a writer only. It is that

which encourages me to say these few words in honour of her memory.

She

Of her private life it would not only be unbefitting to speak, but I believe that its record, even if it could be fully told by those to whom it is known, would throw but little light on the literary aspect of her character. Thus much may be fairly said, that it differed from those of most women who write novels, in being more calm and less eventful. Neither necessity, nor the unsatisfied solitude of a single life, nor, as I fancy, an irresistible impulse, threw her into the paths of literature. wrote, as the birds sing, because she liked to write; and ceased writing when the fancy left her. And the result of this was, that all her works have, in their own way, a degree of perfection and completeness rare in these days, when successful authoresses pour out volume after volume without pause or waiting. For some eighteen years she had held a position amongst the first class of English novelists; and yet, during the whole of that period, she only published five novels of the threevolume order. She was a mother with many children, a wife approaching middle age, when she first became an authoress. It was, I have heard, to try and drown the memory of a dead child, an only son, that Mrs. Gaskell first thought of writing; and "Mary Barton" was the solace of a mother's sorrow. It always seemed to me that her face bore the impress of suffering; that her smile, sweet as it was, was sad also; that death, according to the saying of a French writer, had passed by her, and touched her in passing. Throughout her works there breathed something of the same gentle sadness. Her view of life was a cheerful one enough. One of the chief charms of her writings is the enjoyment she shows throughout in all the pleasures of home and family; but still, in all her works, there is a certain subdued weariness, as though this world would be a very dreary one if we were not all to rest ere long.

I take it that the fact of her literary life having begun so late explains, to a

great extent, both her strength and her weakness as a novelist. There is no sign of haste and immaturity about any of her novels. Her style was never slovenly; her word-painting was perfect of its kind; and her characters had none of the exaggeration so universal almost amidst women writers. Everybody who ever read "Cranford," knows the inhabitants of that little sleepy town as well as if he had been in the habit of paying visits there for years. We are on speaking terms with all the personages of "Wives and Daughters;" we can see the Gibsons, and Hamleys, and Brownings, as well as if we had called upon them yesterday. But, somehow, we never get further than an intimate acquaintance; we never quite learn to know them as we know the Père Goriot, or Colonel Newcome, or Jane Eyre, or Adam Bede. I doubt if any man, no matter what his genius, could rise to the highest rank of painters, if he never handled a brush till he had reached middle age; and in the same way an authoress, the passion time of whose life had gone by before she began to write fiction, must always lack something of that dear-bought experience which, for good or evil, is to be acquired only in the spring-tide of our existence.

Seldom has any author attained celebrity so rapidly as Mrs. Gaskell. Like Byron, she might almost say that she awoke one morning and found herself famous. Of all recent literary successes, "Mary Barton," with the exception perhaps of "Jane Eyre," was the most signal. During the period that its authorship remained a secret, there were few people, even amongst her own friends and neighbours, who suspected the quiet lady, whose home lay in Manchester, of having written a book of which the world was talking. With the celebrity that ensued on the success of the work there came trouble also. "Mary Barton" gave natural, perhaps not unreasonable, offence to the millowners and cotton lords, who formed the leaders of the society in which her position caused Mrs. Gaskell to live; and she was of too sensitive a nature not

to feel censure deeply. In truth, if I were advising an incipient authoress, and if I did not know that my advice was absolutely certain not to be taken, I should tell any lady who thought of writing novels, that she had far better not do so, for her own happiness' sake. I have known now a great number of authoresses, but I never yet have known one who could bear hostile criticism or ill-natured comment with equanimity. Somehow or other, the intense personality-if I may use the word-of female nature causes women to identify their private with their literary reputation to an extent unintelligible to men. To this general rule Mrs. Gaskell was, I imagine, no exception; and the censure which, justly or unjustly, was bestowed upon her "Life of Charlotte Brontè," gave her for a time a distaste for writing. Of all her works, this, viewed as a literary production, is, to my mind, the ablest. As a biography, it is almost unequalled. "Currer Bell" may or may not have been all that her biographer fancied: but, as long as her books are read, she will survive in the memory of men as Mrs. Gaskell painted her-not as she seemed to those who knew her less intimately and perhaps less well. The very success of "Mary Barton" told for a time almost against its authoress. At the period of its appearance public interest in the factory subject was very strong; and the novel had a remarkable hold upon the popular mind, quite apart from its literary ability. Of all Mrs. Gaskell's books, it was, I believe, the most largely sold, the one which has commanded the most permanent circulation. And, as a necessary result of this incidental popularity, popularity, the ensuing novels of the authoress were comparatively unsuccessful. Passion, as I have said, lay out of her domain; and both "Ruth" and "Sylvia's Lovers" rested on a delineation of passions with which the writer was either unable or, as I rather believe, unwilling to grapple firmly. The literature of passion can only be treated worthily by persons who, whether for good or bad, are indifferent to the thought how their

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work may be judged by the standard rules of the society in which they move; and this was not the case with one of the most sensitive and delicate-minded women who ever wrote in England. "North and South," and "Cranford," perfect as they were as specimens of home portraiture, had not somehow that sustained interest that is necessary to constitute an eminently successful novel. Then, too, during the period which followed the appearance of "Mary Barton," we have had a remarkable succession of distinguished female writers. Currer Bell, George Eliot, Miss Yonge, Miss Braddon, and the authoress of 'George Geith," all came, one after the other, before the public, after Mrs. Gaskell had made her mark. To institute any comparison between the various merits of these different candidates for public favour is a task for which I have neither the space nor the inclination. I only allude to them in order to point out how it was that for a time Mrs. Gaskell's reputation suffered, as it were, a partial eclipse. It was not that the public thought less of her, but that they thought more of others; and in literature, as on the stage, there is scarcely room for more than one prima donna assoluta. But her latest work won back for her more, I think, than any of its recent predecessors, the affections of a fickle public. "Wives and Daughters," introduced to the world. with no flourish of trumpets, and with little preliminary puffing, appeared in a magazine without the writer's name, and without-as far as I know-any trouble being taken to let the fact of its authorship become generally known. Yet it acquired almost at once a singular popularity. Whether the novel-which, dying, she left half published -exists in manuscript, I, not being in the secret, cannot tell. From some internal indications, and from my own experience of authors, I should fancy it did not. If so, there are thousands of readers of every age, who will feel it a personal disappointment that they are never to know whether Molly Gibson married Roger Hamley, or how poor

Cynthia worked out her fate at last. Such a disappointment is surely one of the highest testimonies to a writer's genius. I heard, not long ago, of an old lady, whose life had not been a very happy one, and who was content enough to die when the time appointed came. In her last illness, when her strength was failing, though her mind remained clear and vigorous, she took much delight in reading a serial story then appearing in print.

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I think it was Mr. Collins's "No Name." Speaking one day, to the friend who told me the anecdote, of her passing life, she said, simply, "I am afraid, after all, I shall die with"out ever knowing what becomes of Magdalen Vanstone." It is an odd thing, surely, to think how many readers, who begin to read any novel in numbers, must die before the word "finis" is written at the close. And, when a writer dies, leaving his tale half written, those who followed its fortunes eagerly feel as if something of their own had died with the writer's death.

In a fantastic German story, there is a strange fancy, which has often recalled itself to me. It was suggested that, whenever a novelist or dramatist died, the personages, whom, by his fictive art he had called into being, met him on the threshold of the unseen world to greet him, as their creator, and to thank or curse him for his share in the fact of their existence. If this dream-fancy had in it aught of truth, I can picture to myself no tribe of author-created visitants with whom I would sooner find myself surrounded on awaking beyond the grave than the cohort of those who might claim the author of "Mary Barton" as their spiritual parent. Becky Sharpe, or Valerie, or Jane Eyre, or Maggie Tulliver, or Lady Audley, or Consuelo, would seem too like weird ghosts from the nightmare-laden world I had left behind me for ever. But Ruth, gentlest and

purest of Magdalenes who have repented almost before they had sinned, and Philip, "tender and true," and Lady Ludlow, and Miss Matty, and Cynthia Kirkpatrick, would have so little of fault to answer for, that the burden of having called them forth to sin and suffer would weigh but lightly on my conscience as their responsible creator.

To say this is no small praise. It is not a slight matter that an author can look back at the last glimpse of life, and feel that he has left behind him no written word which can make those who read it otherwise than better; and this acknowledgment is justly due to Mrs. Gaskell. Other novelists have written books as clever, and many have written books as innocent; but there are few, indeed, who have written works which grown-up men read with delight, and children might read without injury. It is impossible to determine now the exact position which Mrs. Gaskell will hold ultimately amongst English writers of our day. It will be a high one, if not amongst the highest. Miss Austen's popularity has survived that of many writers of her time, whose merits were perhaps greater in themselves. So, if I had to say which of those novels we talk most of now will be read when we all are dead and buried, I should give the preference to "Cranford" and "North and South," above novels which I deem to excel them in innate power. These pleasant homeland stories-these vivid delineations of the lives of common men and common women, will survive, as long as people care to know what our England was at the days in which our lot is thrown. Within the last few years we have lost greater English writers than Mrs. Gaskell; we have greater still left; but we have none so purely and altogether English in the worthiest sense of that noble word.

D.

NOTES FROM ORIEL COLLEGE HALL, ABOUT 1827.

BY FRANCIS TRENCH, A.M.

ORIEL COLLEGE, at the time to which these pages refer, had arrived at remarkable honour and distinction. For thisas I think all acquainted with the subject will allow-it was mainly indebted to its very able and accomplished Provost, namely, Dr. Copleston. He had been appointed to the headship in the year 1815; and Lord Dudley's congratulatory letter of that date, hopeful in expectations as it was, had been abundantly fulfilled. The college had become of first-rate reputation, and entrance to it was much sought and valued.

The ability and character of this distinguished man are well known to general readers from no less than three separate publications-I mean Lord Dudley's letters to him, and two separate biographies, one by his nephew, another by Dr. Whately, late Archbishop of Dublin.

The intention of the writer, both in regard to Dr. Copleston and also to the other personages mentioned here, is only to present a few characteristics, such as they appeared to an undergraduate of their day; and they will be very brief, as the nature of this paper demands.

Dr. Copleston was an unmarried man of middle age-stout, portly, and older in appearance than he really was. His society was much valued in the highest circles. As a scholar, he was very studious, accurate, and laborious. His Latin prose was beautiful.

He had

considerable wit, not to say severity, in criticism, when he chose to employ itwitness his celebrated article in the Edinburgh Review, directed against those who had ventured to impugn the studies of classical and ancient literature. It was said that he was fond of light reading also; and I certainly remember to have heard him descant on a novel of the day with much vividness and satisfaction.

To us, as undergraduates, he was

He

rather the Grand Lama. We dined with him once in a term; but unless we got into scrapes, and had to appear before him as delinquents, we saw little of him. A red coat was his abhorrence; and he discouraged the favourite pursuit of hunting by all possible means. was regarded by the subordinate authorities of the college with the utmost admiration and respect; and to such a point was this carried that one of them once said to me that the study of his prose Latin composition would be no less profitable than that of Cicero himself.

Dr. Copleston held the Provostship till the year 1827, when he was appointed to the Bishopric of Llandaff and Deanery of St. Paul's-offices which he fulfilled with much reputation till his death. He often resided at a pretty country place of his own near Chepstow.

The time chosen for this short sketch might be in this or the previous year. Exact accuracy in this matter is of no consequence, as no particular day is selected for notice.

All those who are members of the college, except the Provost or Head, usually dine in the Hall. The whole room is filled with tables, and at the end opposite the entrance is what is called the High Table, placed transversely across the apartment, and raised, medievally, by a single step above the remainder of the floor. Over it hangs a fine picture of Edward the Second, the founder of the college, for whose liberality and pious care in behalf of the institution thanks are given in the Latin grace said in the Hall by the Bible Clerk. An enemy of our collegiate institutions once positively and publicly declared that his soul was still prayed for in the Hall!

This table is and has always been occupied by the Fellows of the college, the gentlemen-commoners-a strange title, which I hope will be soon alto

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