which occurs in the Crito. The Laws | beyond the pitch of conversation even are represented as remonstrating with among the Athenians. The tone of the Socrates on his project of escaping their dialogue is, as Mr. Grote observes, rhesentence. They speak with all the dig- torical, not dialectical; though in many nity of the chorus of a tragedy; and we places Plato depreciates rhetoric, here conceive that this tone must have been he employs it with ability and effect.

Cornhill Magazine.

GOLD IN THE FIRELIGHT.

my fire.

OLD friend, at last, at last after years of restless, strong desire,
You are sitting close beside me once more in the flickering light of
And the sheen of your true and kindly face is the same as ever still,
Though deeply altered, I ween, is that face, since last time we met, friend Will.
Bright, with the brightness of youth, are the eyes, yet all around the mouth
Tenderly grave, not stern, the lines tell of the vanished youth.
And the stately form is slightly bent that I knew so straight and firm,
Like the grand majestic rock that laughs defiance to beat of storm.

And the waves of care have swept o'er your head, and left just here and there
A light faint streak of their silvery foam on the seaweed brown of your hair.
On your face that sweetness is settled down that oft is wrung out by pain
From natures less noble than yours, as the juice is crushed away from the cane.
Both of us, Will, have loved; each sought, in the sweet spring-tide of his life,
For the waking joy of his fervid dream, in the love and truth of a wife.
Your dream, at least, was realized, in the depths of soul-full eyes,
And a tender, shadowy calm, that hung like the dusk of Italian skies
Over the grace of her movements light; a voice as soft as the sigh

Of a wind among Summer's full-leaved trees: she was very fair to die,

But I think, such sweetness was on her brow, such pureness on her tongue,

She was loved with the mystic immortal love that we know is death to the young.

Will, old friend, you remember full well the still September morn,

When the only sound was the rustling, like wind, of sickles against the corn;

That we made for your dove, her last earth-nest, under the light loose turf,

Where the bending grass should never be stirred by the wind that had roared on the surf.

Soon after that we parted, Will; you went to the "morning land,"

Where Nature spreads a daily feast of the beautiful and grand,

While her spirit watched over you, and kept the chords of your life well strung,

Else how, while other hearts are so old, can yours be so fresh and young ?

It is strange that the hand of Time should mellow to autumn calm each trace

Of the burning joy of a soul-Summer, lit by the Sun of a beautiful face.
Yet we know that so it is, and my heart is free from the slightest whirl
Of passion; and quietly now enough I can think and speak of a girl,
Rich in all sculpture-loveliness, with a forehead smooth and square,
That gleamed argent-white against the mass of her nebulous hair,
And a cheek as pale and as passion-free as ever the marble is,

And a mouth whose carving seemed all too firm for a lover's faltering kiss.
With the dimmed eye-sight of one who gropes in a kind of spirit-gloaming,

I took a marble statue to be a living and loving woman,

And her still calm presence, moon-like, wrought such a desperate tide in my breast

Of stormy fire, I deemed that Love was but a name for unrest.

And it chafed my soul that the stately lips, whenever on me she smiled,

Should curve to the pitying, passionless smile we cast on a wayward child.
But at last I dared to speak my mind, I could hold in silence no more
The torrent of burning words, and I spoke as I never had spoken before;
And she stood listening, pallid and calm, with that dreamy look in her eyes
Of one who gazes back to the past, and its mazes and mysteries;
And, when I paused, she drooped her eyes, and the few short words she said,
Were murmured so low, I only caught the sound of the last one-"Dead."
"Dead!" I echoed, "nay, Death and Love are wondrously far apart;
For Death itself may not touch the bloom that Love creates on the heart."

Then she laid her hand on my arm, and with the mute soft grace

Of a pitying tenderness lying like shade on the beautiful carven face,
She told me that what I coveted another long since had gained,

That my nectar of love was brimmed up high, but hers had been deeply drained.
Something of poverty-parting-and then the struggle for daily bread

In a stranger land, and at last the news that had crushed her hope, he was dead.
And she stood in the curtained window, with her face so pale and pure,
Like some sainted lady of olden days, who was proud and strong to endure.
Would to God that my love had died down then to something whiter and fainter,
As the lambent fire of him who adores the picture-love of painter;
That I never had uttered the words of fire that I wildly uttered now,
When I caught her hand in mine, and pressed my lips on its veined snow.
"Hate me," I madly cried, "if you will, so you let me kneel and adore

The light that shall be my guiding star for ever and evermore!"

Then in a voice on whose clear full tone not a trace of emotion was shed,

"I never can love again, but if you will, so be it!" she said.

And I caught her close to my panting heart and murmured, "Oh, love, for ever!"
And she neither shrank from nor clung to me, but only prayed me to leave her
Just for a little while; she would strive to do all the duty of woman;
She knew me well, she said; trusted me, called me a brave and true man;
Knew that I loved her; but all was so strange, so new; and the mystic crisis
Of Life was upon her now, and dark the Future stood veiled as Isis.
And I looked in vain, in vain, for the crimson beacon of Love on her cheek,
As a watcher looks with yearning eyes for the Eastern morning-streak.
So we parted, but on my heart, with a nightmare's weight of lead
It lay, and haunted me without cease, all night, that one word "Dead."

The days passed on, and a kind of calm that came instead of peace
Brooded, cloud-like, over my heart, and bade its wild throbbings cease.
Yet, sometimes, despite, a longing would rise for a taste of the fiery bliss
Of heart to heart, and soul to soul, breathed out in a long love-kiss;
A quenchless desire for life and heat, a fathomless yearning, I ween,
For a creature of human weakness and strength, instead of a throned Queen;
For the delicate hearth-fire to cherish and tend, instead of the clear pale star;
For the beam of the lesser light close by, instead of the greater afar.

I asked her when should my hope be crowned, and she prayed me for a year,

And her voice, with a muffled, tuneless beat, fell dull upon my ear;

And I knew that she asked me for that year, that the waters of Time might sweep
Lethe-like over her soul, and drown all pain in a wakeless sleep.

So we settled to part for that one year, and I left my native shore,
Not to see her again, until I never should part from her more,

But a shadow fell with the last cold touch of her hand on mine, alas !
And a whisper rang without cease in my ear, "Omnia Vanitas."

Under the sapphire sky of the land, whose gems and marvels of Art
Gleam in a countless multitude, I wandered with restless heart.
For the rich clear light on the myrtle bloom only made my spirit full
Of the yearning, like pain, for the Sun of Love, on the Flower of the Beautiful.

The year was over and gone, at last, and both of us bound for home,

I and another-an artist friend I had made while I stayed at Rome.

A kindly, open-hearted man, who was coming home to claim

The right to circle a finger with gold, and blend a name with his name :
He told his story frankly to me, that, five long years ago,

He and his love had met and parted in bitter tears and woe,
Knowing not when they might meet again, but strong in the love and truth
That keep the flowers of the soul so fresh in the dew and beauty of youth.
They trusted each other fully, and he knew he should find her the same
In heart and soul, as the last sweet time he had heard her utter his name.
He had struggled hard on his way in life, he had hugged with a miser's grasp
The gold that brought him, every day, nearer the deathless clasp

Of her virgin hand, and the tender glow of her lustrous full-gray eye,
For evermore and for evermore, it was wonderful, quenchless joy.
And he paced the long deck to and fro, looking so blest and proud
In his love and trust, that I know not how I uttered my thought aloud
With a touch of cynicism, that now I think of, old friend, with pain,
I said, "How could you bear to lose where you only think to gain?"
And he stopped his walk, and gazed at me, with a look of perfect calm,
Like the peace of a soul that is fully tuned to the pitch of the infinite psalm
Of Love. "I have thought of that before: she may be dead and gone,
May be lying with violets on her breast-God's holy will be done-
Or else she may have thought me dead, and have given herself to one
More worthy than I could be of her; 'twere hard to stifle a moan
For that intensity of pain. In the heart's deep book I have read
That Grief is more for the living lost, than ever it is for the dead.
But I dread it not, I feel so strong in the infinite love and trust,
And I know that God will never let my full hope crumble to dust.
She cannot else be lost; I know there's a cant that society uses

When a frivolous girl plays with a heart as long as her fancy chooses,
Then casts the poor plaything away for others to toy with, unless, indeed,

It be too much broken for that, and cares not and takes not the slightest heed-
And they call it 'only flirting;' but she is so pure and holy and high,
As much above that unwomanly shame as a star in its depth of sky.
And all of the lofty and beautiful, with her inmost nature, is blent:
My treasure perhaps may be lost to me, but it cannot have thus been spent."

I had seen her once more, my statue-love; she had met me with no other

Passion or fire, than a girl might give to the love of a father or brother,

But her face was more sweet and soft than of yore, and I thought, "She has learned to forget All of her grief for her lost true-love, and she will love me yet."

We were sitting together one eve alone, her hand lay light in mine

The quiet hand that I never yet had starred with a lover sign.

She was reading aloud a strange old song, that had pleased her fancy much,

When we heard a footstep, an opened door, and she drew her hand from my touch;
Then she lifted her full-lashed eyes, and with a cry,

that rang

As a joy-bell rings on a doom'd man's ear, with a deer-like bound she sprang,
And an eagerness that quivered and beat through every nerve in her frame,
To her home on his breast for evermore, and he kissed her, and named her name.
Just a moment together they stood, forgetting all but the joy

Of a love whose infinite sweetness and strength nor time nor space could destroy.
Then she started back from his arms, with the rich, full scarlet glow,
Flashing, banner-like, over her face, from her chin to her broad, full brow,
And a tremulous sweetness, clear as the light of the cloudless sun of the South,
Shone in the depths of the glorious eyes, and parted the chiselled mouth;
And all the marble loveliness was lit with the light of a human
And passionate love, until it was wrought to the fairest beauty of woman.
My heart sent forth a desperate cry, as wordless I passed from the door,
Like the last long wail of a mariner drowned in sight of the ship and the shore.

There is the end, old friend. Draw closer; I think there's something grand
In the firm and full and steadfast grasp of a strong-knit muscular hand.
The hand of a man like you, Will, it never will give the slip,
And it comes so sweet to the heart that has lost the joy of a true-love's lip.
But I call it casting reproach, old friend, on God and His infinite plan,
Who gave the love of man to woman and the love of woman to man,
When those who have lost that bliss, or those to whom that bliss is denied,
Sneer at the holy name of Love, and smother, with selfish pride,
The seed of pain, that, if watered well, might bear such blessed fruit
Of pure and tender thought, and make the cry of Selfishness mute.
And Life has autumn and winter joys left yet; and I love to see

Her little children (that I had hoped should be mine) around my knee

And the gladness of other love I have: for we read of one tender and true man, (Like you) who gave to his friend a love "passing the love of woman."

Temple Bar.

ANECDOTES FROM A BLUE BOOK.

who has attended at executions "in robes;" gentlemen who have made it the business of their lives to study the THE proceedings of Royal Commis- causes and the philosophy of crime; sions are seldom interesting to the pub- philanthropists and members of the exlic in general, except through their re-ecutive, whose duty, as portions of the sults, and the minutes of evidence taken machinery of justice, has necessarily in their course are a class of literature brought them considerable experience. which most people would studiously It is interesting to learn how these sevavoid. The Blue Book devoted to the erally regard the sight of crime and misreport of the Capital Punishment Com-ery, to us exceptional, to them habitual, mission, forms a remarkable exception and to observe how widely they differ in to this rule. It is a remarkably interest- the facts of their experience, and the ing book, from every point of view, not conclusions at which they arrive. On only as the basis of future legislation on the point of the deterrent effect of capital a subject of the most serious importance, punishment, for example, there is a very but as a compendium of thought, expe- remarkable difference of opinion between rience, observation, and opinion on the Mr. Davis, the late ordinary of Newgate, part of a number of men, all of distinc- and Mr. Jessop, the chaplain of Horsetion in their several special ways. It monger-lane Gaol. The former gentleneeds the close perusal of such a book to man held his position twenty-two, the make the public understand the vast dif- latter has held his for ten, years. The ficulties which the legislature has to face, former witnessed twenty-four executions, and the curiously equal balance of opin- the latter, at the period of his examinaion on the great question of the Death tion had seen four. Mr. Davis was Penalty. "quite sure that it is impossible to avoid capital executions," a conviction founded upon his knowledge of " incorrigibles;" Mr. Jessop, on the other hand, is "of opinion that capital punishment is religiously; politically, and socially quite indefensible." No witnesses are more important than these, no evidence is more weighty, for they are precisely the authorities to whom appeal must be made for knowledge of how the idea of the extreme penalty of the law affects the mind of the criminal, about to undergo it, and the minds of his fellow-prisoners. This is an aspect of the question no less important than that of the effect on the masses. The appeal is made by the Commission, and the replies are totally opposite. Says the Rev. John Davis: "The Scriptures say,

Among the witnesses examined before the Royal Commission we find the legal, the clerical, the official, and the lay element represented. Nothing more complete than such a system of testimony could be devised. It is calculated to include every aspect of the subjects under consideration, and to elicit every kind of experience and form of theory, or suggestion. It lends all conceivable gravity, dignity, and weight to an investigation of the most solemn kind, whose importance cannot be exaggerated, and which was imperatively demanded by public opinion. Apart from this, its primary use and benefit, the extensive scope and mixed nature of the evidence offer many curious and interesting points to the consideration of those who study the book as a revelation of certain phases of our social condition, and the effect of those phases upon certain minds.

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;' that is a law to us, and we should obey it." Says the Here we find the collected testimony Commission, "Apart from Scriptural of all those who are brought into con- considerations, can a murderer be adetact with criminals guilty of, or charged quately punished except by death, and with, capital offences, except the hang- will any other punishment deter from man. Detectives who have tracked, the crime of murder ?" Mr. Davis said and judges who have sent murderers to "No" to both these questions, and stuck their doom; counsel who have prosecut- to it under every ingenuity of suggesed and defended them; prison officials tion and interrogation. He was quite who have had charge of them; chaplains clear that you must hang murderers, if who have ministered to them; a sheriff you don't want your prison-warders to

Of her virgin hand, and the tender glow of her lustrous full-gray eye,
For evermore and for evermore, it was wonderful, quenchless joy.
And he paced the long deck to and fro, looking so blest and proud
In his love and trust, that I know not how I uttered my thought aloud
With a touch of cynicism, that now I think of, old friend, with pain,
I said, "How could you bear to lose where you only think to gain?"
And he stopped his walk, and gazed at me, with a look of perfect calm,
Like the peace of a soul that is fully tuned to the pitch of the infinite psalm
Of Love. "I have thought of that before: she may be dead and gone,
May be lying with violets on her breast-God's holy will be done-
Or else she may have thought me dead, and have given herself to one
More worthy than I could be of her; 'twere hard to stifle a moan
For that intensity of pain. In the heart's deep book I have read
That Grief is more for the living lost, than ever it is for the dead.
But I dread it not, I feel so strong in the infinite love and trust,
And I know that God will never let my full hope crumble to dust.
She cannot else be lost; I know there's a cant that society uses
When a frivolous girl plays with a heart as long as her fancy chooses,
Then casts the poor plaything away for others to toy with, unless, indeed,
It be too much broken for that, and cares not and takes not the slightest he
And they call it only flirting;' but she is so pure and holy and high,
As much above that unwomanly shame as a star in its depth of sky.
And all of the lofty and beautiful, with her inmost nature, is blent:
My treasure perhaps may be lost to me, but it cannot have thus been sper

I had seen her once more, my statue-love; she had met me with no othe
Passion or fire, than a girl might give to the love of a father or brother,
But her face was more sweet and soft than of yore, and I thought, "She
All of her grief for her lost true-love, and she will love me yet."
We were sitting together one eve alone, her hand lay light in mine-
The quiet hand that I never yet had starred with a lover sign.
She was reading aloud a strange old song, that had pleased her fancy
When we heard a footstep, an opened door, and she drew her hand!
Then she lifted her full-lashed eyes, and with a cry, that rang
As a joy-bell rings on a doom'd man's ear, with a deer-like bound:
And an eagerness that quivered and beat through every nerve in
To her home on his breast for evermore, and he kissed her, and I
Just a moment together they stood, forgetting all but the joy
Of a love whose infinite sweetness and strength nor time nor spa
Then she started back from his arms, with the rich, full scarlet
Flashing, banner-like, over her face, from her chin to her broad
And a tremulous sweetness, clear as the light of the cloudless
Shone in the depths of the glorious eyes, and parted the chisel
And all the marble loveliness was lit with the light of a hun
And passionate love, until it was wrought to the fairest beau
My heart sent forth a desperate cry, as wordless I passed fro
Like the last long wail of a mariner drowned in sight of the