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Among the dregs and offal of mankind,
Vainly I seek an utter wretch to find.
He who for thirty silver coins could sell
His Lord, must be the Devil's miracle.
Padre Bandelli thinks it easy is

To find the type of him who with a kiss
Betrayed his Lord. Well, what I can I'll do;
And if it please his reverence and you,
For Judas' face I'm willing to paint his.

Padre Bandelli is a sort of man,

Joking apart, whose little round of thought
Is like his life, the measure of a span.
He knows and does the duties he is taught,-
Prays, preaches, eats, and sleeps in dull content;
Does the day's work, and deems it excellent ;
Says he's a sinner, but we're sinners all,
And puts his own sin down to Adam's fall.
Christ, at the last day, others may reject,—

Poor painters, or great dukes with their state cares ;
But that, with all his masses, fasts, and prayers,
A convent's prior should not be elect,
Padre Bandelli has not half a doubt-

'Twere a strange heaven, indeed, with him left out.
Him the imagination does not tease
With hungry cravings, restless impulses ;
Him no despairing days the Furies bring,
No torturing doubts, no anxious questioning;
But day by day his ordered time is spent,

In doing over the same things again.

How should he know the artist's inward strain,
His vexing and fastidious discontent?

Art he considers as a sort of trade,

Like laying bricks: If one can lay a yard

In one good hour, how can it be so hard

In two good hours, that two yards should be laid?

But, Signor Duca, you can apprehend
The artist's soul-how there is ne'er an end
Of climbing fancies, longings, and desires,
That burn within him like consuming fires;
How, beaten to and fro by joy and pain,
He grasps at shadows he can ne'er retain.
How sweet and fair the inward vision gleams!
How dull and base the painted copy seems!
We are like Danaus' daughters-all in vain
We strive to fill our vases. Human art
Through myriad leaks lets out the spirit's part,
And nothing but the earthy dregs remain.

But who can force the spirit to conceive?
Its lofty empire is above our will:
Trained though we be, we only can fulfil
Its orders, and a joyous welcome give.
Oft when the music waits, the room is decked,

And hope looks out from the expectant breast-
Vainly we wait to greet the invited guest.
Oft when its presence least our souls expect,
Sudden, unsummoned, there it stands, as Eve
Stood before Adam,—as in twilight sky
The first young star-half joy, half mystery.

The wilful work built by the conscious brain
Is but the humble handicraft of art;

It has its growth in toil, its birth in pain.
The Imagination, silent and apart
Above the Will, beyond the conscious eye,
Fashions in joyous ease and as in play
Its fine creations,-mixing up alway
The real and the ideal, heaven and earth,
Darkness and sunshine; and then, pushing forth
Sudden upon our world of consciousness
Its world of wonder, leaves to us the stress,
By patient art, to copy its pure grace,
And catch the perfect features of its face.

From hand to spirit must the human chain
Be closely linked, and thence to the divine
Stretch up, through feeling its electric line,
To draw heaven down, or all our art is vain.
For in its loftiest mood the soul obeys

A higher power that shapes our thoughts, and sways
Their motions, when by love and strong desire
We are uplifted. From a source unknown
The power descends-with its ethereal fire
Inflames us-not possessing but possessed
We do its bidding; but we do not own
The grace that in those happy hours is given,
More than its strings the music of the lyre-
More than the shower the rainbow lent by heaven.
Nature and man are only organ-keys-
Mere soundless pipes-despite our vaunted skill-
Till, with its breath, the power above us fill
The stops, and touch us to its harmonies.

Oh Signor Duca, as the woman bears
Her child not in a moment nor a day,

So doth the soul the germ that God doth lay
Within it, with as many pains and cares.
From the whole being it absorbs and draws
Its form and life-on all we are and see
It feeds by subtle sympathetic laws;
Each sense it stirs, it fires each faculty
To hunt the outer world, and thence to seize
Food for assimilation. By degrees
Perfect it grows at last in every part,
And then is born into the world of art.

In facile natures fancies quickly grow,
But such quick fancies have but little root.

Soon the narcissus flowers and dies, but slow
The tree whose blossoms shall mature to fruit.
Grace is a moment's happy feeling, Power
A life's slow growth; and we for many an hour
Must strain and toil, and wait and weep, if we
The perfect fruit of all we are would see.

Therefore I wait. Within my earnest thought
For years upon this picture I have wrought,
Yet still it is not ripe; I dare not paint
Till all is ordered and matured within.
Hand-work and head-work have an earthly taint,
But when the soul commands I shall begin.
On themes like these I should not dare to dwell
With our good Prior-they to him would be
Mere nonsense; he must touch and taste and see;
And facts, he says, are never mystical.
Now, the fact is, our worthy Prior says,
The convent is annoyed by my delays;
Nor can he see why I for hours and days
Should muse and dream and idle here around.
I have not made a face he has not found
Quite good enough before it was half-done.
66 Don't bother more," he says, "let it alone."
What can one say to such a connoisseur?
How could a Prior and a critic err?

But, not to be more tedious, I confess
I am disturbed to think I so distress
The worthy Prior. Yet 'twere wholly vain
To him an artist's feelings to explain ;
But, Signor Duca, you will understand,
And so I treat on higher themes with you.
The work you order I shall strive to do
With all my soul, not merely with my hand.

W. W. S.

CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD: THE PERPETUAL CURATE.

PART XIII.-CHAPTER XL.

"Now, Mr Wodehouse," said Jack Wentworth, "it appears that you and I have a word to say to each other." They had all risen when the other gentlemen followed Mr Morgan out of the room, and those who remained stood in a group surrounding the unhappy culprit, and renewing his impression of personal danger. When he heard himself thus addressed, he backed against the wall, and instinctively took one of the chairs and placed it before him. His furtive eye sought the door and the window, investigating the chances of escape. When he saw that there was none, he withdrew still a step farther back, and stood at bay.

"By Jove! I ain't going to stand all this," said Wodehouse; "as if every fellow had a right to bully me -it's more than flesh and blood can put up with. I don't care for that old fogie that's gone up-stairs; but, by Jove! I won't stand any more from men that eat my dinners, and win my money, and

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Jack Wentworth made half a step forward with a superb smile "My good fellow, you should never reproach a man with his good actions," he said; "but at the same time, having eaten your dinner, as you describe, I have a certain claim on your gratitude. We have had some -a-business connectionfor some years. I don't say you have reason to be actually grateful for that; but, at least, it brought you now and then into the society of gentlemen. A man who robs a set of women, and leaves the poor creature he has ruined destitute, is a sort of cur we have nothing to say to," said the heir of the Wentworths, contemptuously. "We do not pretend to be saints, but we are not blackguards; that is to say," said Jack, with a perfectly calm and harmonious smile, not in

66

theory, nor in our own opinion. The fact accordingly is, my friend, that you must choose between us and those respectable meannesses of yours.

By Jove the fellow ought to have been a shopkeeper, and as honest as-Diogenes," said Jack. He stood looking at his wretched associate with the overwhelming impertinence of a perfectly well-bred man, no way concealing the contemptuous inspection with which his cool eyes travelled over the disconcerted figure from top to toe, seeing and exaggerating all its tremors and clumsy guiltiness. The chances are, had Jack Wentworth been in Wodehouse's place, he would have been master of the position as much as now.

He was not shocked nor indignant like his brothers. He was simply contemptuous, disdainful, not so much of the wickedness as of the clumsy and shabby fashion in which it had been accomplished. As for the offender, who had been defiant in his sulky fashion up to this moment, his courage oozed out at his finger-ends under Jack Wentworth's eye.

"I am my own master," he stammered, "nowadays. I ain't to be dictated to-and I shan't be, by Jove! As for Jack Wentworth, he's well known to be neither more nor less "

"Than what, Mr Wodehouse?" said the serene and splendid Jack. "Don't interest yourself on my account, Frank. This is my business at present. If you have any prayermeetings in hand we can spare you

and don't forget our respectable friend in your supplications. Favour us with your definition of Jack Wentworth, Mr Wodehouse. He is neither more nor less-?"

"By Jove! I ain't going to stand it," cried Wodehouse; "if a fellow's to be driven mad, and insulted,

and have his money won from him, and made game of-not to say tossed about as I've been among 'em, and made a drudge of and set to do the dirty work," said the unfortunate subordinate, with a touch of pathos in his hoarse voice;-"I don't mean to say I've been what I ought; but, by Jove! to be put upon as I've been, and knocked about; and at the last they haven't the pluck to stand by a fellow, by Jove!" muttered Mr Wodehouse's unlucky heir. What further exasperation his smiling superior was about to heap upon him, nobody could tell; for just as Jack Wentworth was about to speak, and just as Wodehouse had again faced towards him, half-cowed, half-resisting, Gerald, who had been looking on in silence, came forward out of the shadow. He had seen all and heard all, from that moral deathbed of his, where no personal cares could again disturb him; and though he had resigned his office, he could not belie his nature. He came in by instinct to cherish the dawn of compunction which appeared, as he thought, in the sinner's words.

"The best thing that can happen to you," said Gerald, at the sound of whose voice everybody started, "is to find out that the wages of sin are bitter. Don't expect any sympathy or consolation from those who have helped you to do wrong. My brother tries to induce you to do a right act from an unworthy motive. He says your former associates will not acknowledge you. My advice to you is to forsake your former associates. My brother," said Gerald, turning aside to look at him, "would do himself honour if he forsook them also-but for you, here is your opportunity. You have no temptation of poverty now. Take the first step, and forsake them. I have no motive in advis ing you-except, indeed, that I am Jack Wentworth's brother. He and you are different," said Gerald, involuntarily glancing from one to the other. "And at present you

have the means of escape. Go now and leave them," said the man who was a priest by nature. The light returned to his eye while he spoke; he was no longer passive, contemplating his own moral death; his natural office had come back to him unawares. He stretched his arm towards the door, thinking of nothing but the escape of the sinner. Go," said Gerald. "Refuse their approbation; shun their society. For Christ's sake, and not for theirs, make amends to those you have wronged. Jack, I command you to let him go."

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Jack, who had been startled at first, had recovered himself long before his brother ceased to speak. "Let him go, by all means," he said, and stood superbly indifferent by Gerald's side, whistling under his breath a tripping lively air. "No occasion for solemnity. The sooner he goes the better," said Jack. "In short, I see no reason why any of us should stay, now the business is accomplished. I wonder would his reverence ever forgive me if I lighted my cigar?" He took out his case as he spoke, and began to look over its contents. There was one in the room, however, who was better acquainted with the indications of Jack Wentworth's face than either of his brothers. This unfortunate, who was hanging in an agony of uncertainty over the chair he had placed before him, watched every movement of his leader's face with the anxious gaze of a lover, hoping to see a little corresponding anxiety in it, but watched in vain. Wodehouse had been going through a fever of doubt and divided impulses. The shabby fellow was open to good impressions, though he was not much in the way of practising them, and Gerald's address, which, in the first place, filled him with awe, moved him afterwards with passing thrills of compunction, mingled with a kind of delight at the idea of getting free. When his admonitor said "Go," Wodehouse made a step towards the door, and for an instant

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