you see this square old yellow Book, I toss | Legitimate punishment of the other crime,
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl
about

By the crumpled vellum covers-pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries
since?

Examine it yourselves? I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eight pence English, just.
Here it is, this I toss and take again;
Small-quarto size, part print, part manuscript :
A book in shape, but, really pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains high blooded, ticked two centuries
since.

I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth
Gathered together, bound up in this book,
Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest.
"Romana Homicidiorum"-nay,

Better translate-"A Roman Murder-case :
Position of the entire criminal cause
Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman,

With certain Four the cut-throats in his pay,
Tried, all Five, and found guilty and put to death
By heading or hanging as befitted ranks,
At Rome of February Twenty-two,
Since our salvation Ninety-eight :
Wherein it is disputed, if and when,

Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape
The customary forfeit."

Word for word,

So ran the title-page; murder, or else

Accounted murder by mistake—just that
And no more, in a Latin cramp enough
When the law had her eloquence to launch,
But interbilleted with Italian streaks
When testimony stooped to mother tongue-
That, was this old square yellow book about.

Now, as the ingot ere the Ring was forged,
Lay gold (beseech you, hold that figure fast!),
So in this Book lay absolutely truth,
Fanciless fact, the documents indeed,
Primary lawyer pleadings for, against,

The aforesaid Five; real summed-up circumstance
Adduced in proof of these on either side,
Put forth and printed, as the practice was,
At Rome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type,
And so submitted to the eye o' the Court
Presided over by His Reverence

Rome's Governor and Criminal Judge-the trial
Itself, to all intents, being then, as now,
Here in this book, and nowise out of it;
Seeing, there properly was no judgment bar,
No bringing of accuser face to face
Before some court, as we Conceive of Courts.
There was a Hall of Justice; that came last:
For Justice had a chamber by the hall

Where she took evidence first, summed up the

same,

Then sent accuser and accused alike,

In person of the advocate of each,

To weigh that evidence's worth, arrange, array
The battle.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

POET LAUREATE OF ENGLAND.

HE English-speaking world was taken by surprise when, after the death of Tennyson, Lord Salisbury called to the vacant laureateship Mr. Alfred Austin. He had written much in both prose and verse, and he had all the qualities of a poet except the gift of genius which would enable him to touch the hearts and set the imagination of his readers on fire.

Mr. Austin has done varied and strenuous work as a journalist. He served as a reporter in the Franco-German War, and also at the last great Vatican Council, for the London Standard, and has for many years been an editorial

writer upon that paper. His three novels have attracted little attention; but it was as a critic that he first became known to the reading world. His "Essays on the Poetry of the Period" brought him into considerable note, and he did not spare even Tennyson and Browning, calling upon them for more power, more passion, and more real strength. How amusing it is that this irreconcilable critic should himself produce poetry lacking in exactly the qualities which he demanded of others! He has written two really delightful books of prose-"The Garden That I Love" and "Monica's Garden." In these he has done his best work, for the subjects are the flowers, hedges, secluded walks, and all the varying beauties of the landscape which he knows and loves. He is a scholarly, intelligent, and cultivated Englishman, a lover of the beautiful English scenery, and master of all the arts of the pen which can be cultivated. It is unfortunate for him that he came to the laureateship after Tennyson and Wordsworth; but it is to be remembered that only four of the laureates-Jonson, Dryden, Wordsworth, and Tennyson-have been the leading poets of their time. Mr. Austin's best poetry is written of the seasons, and it has been well said that he may in a special sense be styled the Laureate of the English Seasons.

THE GOLDEN YEAR.

HEN piped the love-warm throstle shrill,

And all the air was laden

With scent of dew and daffodil,

I saw a youth and maiden,

Whose color, Spring-like, came and fled,

'Mong purple copses straying,

While birchen tassels overhead

Like marriage-bells kept swaying;
Filled with that joy that lingers still,
Which Eve brought out of Aiden,-
With scent of dew and daffodil
When all the air was laden.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

THE GREATEST FIGURE IN THE LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

F no great man of the preceding century do we know so much as to the details of his life as of Samuel Johnson. His biography by Boswell is made up in great part of his conversation, and tells us so much of his life that it has been said "everything about himhis wig, his figure, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked the approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish sauce and veal pie with plums, his inexhaustible thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his wit, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates-old Mr. Levitt and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, and the negro Frank-all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded from childhood."

Johnson was educated at Oxford, and his father becoming insolvent, he attempted to gain a living as an usher in a school. He did not succeed, however, and turned to literature as a means of support. The way was hard to make, and the labors that he performed have probably never been equaled. He first attracted the attention of literary men by a poem entitled "London," for which he received ten guineas. His greatest work was his "English Dictionary," which occupied him for nearly eight years. During the same time the forty members of the French Academy were engaged upon a similar work, which was not, however, equal to Johnson's. The writings by which he is best known are those contained in his periodical paper, The Rambler; his "Vanity of Human Wishes"; the delightful story of "Rasselas," which was written to defray the expenses of his mother's funeral, and the periodical called the Idler.

"The characteristic peculiarity of Johnson's intellect," says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, "was the union of great powers with low prejudices. If we judge him by the best part of his mind, we should place him almost as high as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell; if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place him even below Boswell himself."

Johnson enjoyed, during the latter years of his life, a pension of three hundred pounds granted him by the government. He died in London in 1784, the most distinguished figure among the literary men of his time.