'the more ambitious games in cricket-field or football.' But it was certainly not, as for such a true English lad it could not be,-on that spring afternoon, when two children had first met for an hour's play and laughter,' that the 'miracle' happened, the 'moment's alchemy' which transmuted earth to heaven.'

It was but the poet's fancy, enriching recollection, that thus put back to the threshold of youth,' the later growth from 'tumultuous boyish affection' to 'the sweet silent secrecy' of unspoken passion.

Nor, in the end,' not-in fact- the ruin of life,' was his own Désirée another's'; or had the 'lovely little sister who rewarded' him ' with kisses for loving Désirée been wed; who was, indeed, but a child when (in 1854) these memories were written.

It was for art's sake, careless of facts, that he chose as setting for dear memories of love the 'retired countryhouse of Tuscany,'' the chestnut wood above the White Tesoretto,' and 'the walls of a Cæsar's palace'; only because he treasured above all memories the beauties given by God and man to Italian cities, whose streets they had never, in fact, trodden side by side. Since he 'admired so,' reverencing the Vita Nuova' as a Gospel of Love' he must lead, in fancy, ' Désirée's brave simple spirit' to Valdicampo, to thread every waterbreak and attempt all rocks of promising difficulty,' with 'shouts and silver accents of divine and inextinguishable laughter!'

Yet the tragedy, and how it came to be, is plainly told ' in true words.' It was the 'fatal intimacy' of many years, the long familiarity which permitted such open intercourse, such equal and unrestrained exchange of

friendship,' the ' confidence that feared no misconstruction, and the happiness which did not need to look beyond the day'; it was 'her own perfect unreserve and noble heartiness' that encouraged in him' the peculiar blindness and lucid insight of passionate devotion'; while rendering her, maybe,' unconscious what she was to him she met always with unswerving sisterly affection': so that he ' feared the bare chance of losing all, or to take his fate into his own hasty hands.'

They had, indeed, 'thoughts shared together from the nursery,' and 'the frank affection, the unabated confidingness of Désirée,' survived even what is here only spoken of as a cruel - hearted possibility' that 'books teach the transference of passion to another,' and 'happiness in the after-love which (the experienced assure us) most men find refuge in for life.'

When just upon five years after this book was published, that is in 1862, Francis Palgrave first met the lady destined, in but a few months, to become his wife, who had, curiously enough, long been her friend, the intimacy was not disturbed, nor was it broken save by the hand of Death; proof enough surely, were proof needed, of all he learned from suffering, of the truth behind the poem. For the sad realities of life do not die, though we pass from them into more lasting blessedness-such as he could not guess Fate held for him, when this beautiful dream was woven out of what might have been.'

It is a simple tale, nothing new in truth to any human creature,' told in the most English English'; but 'to those who love poetry' and' are not happiness-hardened,' it courageously expresses a thousand perplexed thoughts

on human life,' faced and illuminated in the light of understanding familiarity with the world's master-thinkers.

The innumerable quotations reveal that inborn thirst for beauty, that deep love for the music in thought and words, that fine taste and eager industry in reading, which had been unconsciously preparing, from childhood's days, the classic' Golden Treasury; and secured for it the unique position it almost immediately achieved and can never lose. 'Désirée was my Education,' he says; and no doubt in that golden time and the first fires of love,' he centred all poets' dreams, philosophies, and aspirations around his thoughts of her. Yet these were fundamentally his own, as they remained with him always, and would have come to him whatever else life might bring. We cannot accept his modest claim to be more editor than author' of this lover's 'Pilgrimage'; but, quite apart from all its personal emotion, it indeed is a 'treasure' of poetic' gold.' To him, always, 'these writers hardly suggested books, they were living presences.'

There is, probably, only one opinion, or rather attitude towards others, expressed here, which a wider knowledge and understanding of men prompted him to regret. More than once he allows himself to utter, or at least lightly record, ' English jest and gay laughter' at some painted and bedecked holy figure in a wayside shrine, as one scorning the childish 'delusions' and 'credulous' superstitions that compose the Lives of the Saints, when he could see no choice between blasphemous piety and cataleptic idiocy.'

Had he contemplated a reissue of this Confession, he would have wished, we know, to retract and apologize for

such unkindly arrogance; since, though never actually subscribing to Papal dogmas, he learned a deep respect for every form of Romanist faith, and would earnestly deplore, and frown on, any slighting reference to even the most naïve or most startling 'miracle' of modern times.

For the rest, his courageous and inquiring spirit' has given us a true picture' from within; which' on a scale of infinite minuteness, involves the central perplexity of the world's riddle,' as it tortures and bewilders a sensitive human soul.

R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON.