"You would have sacrificed to Jove," Warrington said, "had you lived in the time of the Christian persecutions.”

skepticism is more respectful and more mo- | divinely inherited power, the which truth dest than the revolutionary ardor of other absolute our ancestors burned at the stake, folks. Many a patriot of eighteen, many a and denied there; the which divine transSpouting-Club orator, would turn the Bishops missible power still exists in print-to out of the House of Lords to-morrow, and be believed, or not, pretty much at choice; throw the Lords out after the Bishops, and and of these, I say, I acquiesce that they throw the throne into the Thames after the exist, and no more. If you say that these Peers and the Bench. Is that man more schemes, devised before printing was known, modest than I, who take these institutions as or steam was born; when thought was an I find them, and wait for time and truth to infant, scared and whipped; and truth undevelop, or fortify, or (if you like) destroy der its guardians was gagged and swathed, them? A college tutor, or a nobleman's and blindfolded, and not allowed to lift its toady, who appears one fine day as my right voice, or to look out, or to walk under the reverend lord, in a silk apron and a shovel- sun; before men were permitted to meet, or hat, and assumes a benedictory air over me, to trade, or to speak with each other-If any is still the same man we remember at Ox- one says (as some faithful souls do) that bridge, when he was truckling to the tufts, these schemes are forever, and having been and bullying the poor undergraduates in changed and modified constantly are to be the lecture-room. An hereditary legislator, subject to no further development or decay, who passes his time with jockeys and black. I laugh, and let the man speak. But I legs and ballet-girls, and who is called to would have toleration for these, as I rule over me and his other betters because would ask it for my own opinions; and if his grandfather made a lucky speculation they are to die, I would rather they had a in the funds, or found a coal or tin mine on decent and natural than an abrupt and his property, or because his stupid ancestor violent death." happened to be in command of ten thousand men as brave as himself, who overcame twelve thousand Frenchmen, or fifty thousand Indians-such a man, I say, inspires me with no more respect than the bitterest democrat can feel towards him. But, such as he is, he is a part of the old society to which we belong and I submit to his lordship with acquiescence; and he takes his place above the best of us at all dinnerparties, and there bides his time. I don't want to chop his head off with a guillotine, or to fling mud at him in the street. When they call such a man a disgrace to his order; and such another, who is good and gentle, refined and generous, who employs his great means in promoting every kindness and charity, and art and grace of life, in the kindest and most gracious manner, an ornament to his rank-the question as to the use and propriety of the order is not in the least affected one way or other. There it is, extant among us, a part of our habits, the creed of many of us, the growth of centuries, the symbol of a most complicated tradition-there stand my lord the bishop and my lord the hereditary legislator-what the French call transactions both of them -representing in their present shape mailclad barons and double-sworded chiefs (from whom their lordships the hereditaries, for the most part, don't descend), and priests, professing to hold an absolute truth and a

Perhaps I would," said Pen, with some sadness. Perhaps I am a coward,-perhaps my faith is unsteady; but this is my own reserve. What I argue here is, that I will not persecute. Make a faith or a dogma absolute, and persecution becomes a logical consequence; and Dominic burns a Jew, or Calvin an Arian, or Nero a Christian, or Elizabeth or Mary a Papist or Protestant; or their father both or either, according to his humor; and acting without any pangs of remorse,-but on the contrary, with strict notions of duty fulfilled. Make dogma absolute, and to inflict or to suffer death becomes easy and necessary; and Mohammed's soldiers shouting 'Paradise! Paradise!' and dying on the Christian spears, are not more or less praiseworthy than the same men slaughtering a townful of Jews, or cutting off the heads of all prisoners who would not acknowledge that there was but one prophet of God."

"A little while since, young one," Warrington said, who had been listening to his friend's confessions neither without sympathy nor scorn, for his mood led him to indulge in both, "you asked me why I remained out of the strife of the world, and looked on at the great labor of my neighbor without taking any part in the struggle? Why, what a

mere dilettante you own yourself to be, in | blacks my boots. Measured by that altithis confession of general skepticism, and tude, the tallest and the smallest among us what a listless spectator yourself? You are are so alike diminutive and pitifully base, six-and-twenty years old, and as blasé as a that I say we should take no count for the rake of sixty. You neither hope much, nor calculation, and it is a meanness to reckon care much, nor believe much. the difference."

66

Were the world composed of Saint Bermards or Saint Dominics, it would be equally odious," said Pen, "and at the end of a few score years would cease to exist altogether. Would you have every man with his head shaved, and every woman in a cloister, carrying out to the full the ascetic principle? Would you have conventicle hymns twanging from every lane in every city in the world? Would you have all the birds of the forest sing one note and fly with one feather? You call me a skeptic because I acknowledge what is; and in acknowledging that, be it linnet or lark, or priest or parson; be it, I mean, any single one of the infinite varieties of the creatures of God (whose very name I would be understood to pronounce with reverence, and never to approach but with distant awe), I say that the study and acknowledgment of that variety amongst men especially increases our respect and wonder for the Creator, Commander, and Ordainer of | all these minds, so different and yet so united, meeting in a common adoration, and offering up each according to his degree and means of approaching the Divine centre, his acknowledgment of praise and worship, each singing (to recur to the bird simile) his natural song."

"And so, Arthur, the hymn of a saint, or the ode of a poet, or the chant of a Newgate thief, are all pretty much the same in your philosophy," said George.

"Even that sneer could be answered were it to the point," Pendennis replied; "but it is not; and it could be replied to you, that even to the wretched outcry of the thief on the tree, the wisest and the best of all teachers we know of, the untiring Comforter and Consoler, promised a pitiful hearing and a certain hope. Hymns of saints! Odes of poets! who are we, to measure the chances and opportunities, the means of doing, or even judging, right and wrong, awarded to men; and to establish the rule for meeting out their punishments and rewards? We set up our paltry little rods to measure Heaven immeasurable, as if in comparison to that, Newton's mind, or Pascal's or Shakespeare's, was any loftier than mine; as if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who

"Your figure fails there, Arthur," said the other better pleased; "if even by common arithmetic we can multiply as we can reduce almost infinitely, the Great Reckoner must take count of all; and the small is not small, or the great great, to His infinity."

"I don't call those calculations in question," Arthur said; "I only say that yours are incomplete and premature; false in consequence, and by every operation, multiplying into wider error. I do not condemn the men who killed Socrates and damned Galileo. I say that they damned Galileo and killed Socrates."

"And yet but a moment since you admitted the propriety of acquiescence in the present, and, I suppose, all other tyrannies?"

No: but that if an opponent menaces me, of whom and without cost of blood and violence I can get rid, I would rather wait him out, and starve him out, than fight him out. Fabius fought Hannibal skeptically. Who was his Roman coadjutor, whom we read of in Plutarch when we were boys, who scoffed at the other's procrastination and doubted his courage, and engaged the enemy, and was beaten for his pains?"

In these speculations and confessions of Arthur, the reader may perhaps see allusions to questions, which, no doubt, have occupied and discomposed himself, and which he may have answered by very different solutions to those come to by our friend. We are not pledging ourselves for the correctness of his opinions, which readers will please to consider are delivered dramatically, the writer being no more answerable for them than for the sentiments uttered by any other character of our story: our endeavor is merely to follow out, in its progress, the development of the mind of a worldly and selfish, but not ungenerous or unkind or truth-avoiding man. And it will be seen that the lamentable stage to which this logic at present has brought him, is one of general skepticism and sneering acquiescence in the world as it is; or if you like so to call it, a belief qualified with scorn in all things extant. The tastes and habits of such a man prevent him from being a boisterous demagogue, and his love of truth and dislike of cant keep him from advancing crude propositions, such as man"

loud reformers are constantly ready with; much more of uttering downright falsehoods in arguing questions or abusing opponents, which he would die or starve rather than use. It was not in our friend's nature to be able to utter certain lies; nor was he strong enough to protest against others, except with a polite sneer; his maxim being, that he owed obedience to all Acts of Parliament, as long as they were not repealed.

And to what does this easy and skeptical life lead a man? Friend Arthur was a Sadducee, and the Baptist might be in the Wilderness shouting to the poor, who were listening with all their might and faith to the preacher's awful accents and denunciations of wrath or woe or salvation; and our friend the Sadducee would turn his sleek mule with a shrug and a smile from the crowd, and go home to the shade of his terrace, and muse over preacher and audience, and turn to his roll of Plato, or his pleasant Greek song book babbling of honey and Hybla, and nymphs and fountains and love. To what, we say, does this skepticism lead? It leads a man to a shameful loneliness and selfishness, so to speak-the more shameful, because it is so good-humored and conscienceless and serene. Conscience! What is conscience? Why accept remorse? What is public or private faith? Mythuses alike enveloped in enormous tradition. If seeing and acknowledging the lies of the world, Arthur, as see them you can with only too fatal a clearness, you submit to them without any protest farther than a laugh: if plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you allow the whole wretched world to pass groaning by you unmoved: if the fight for the truth is taking place, and all men of honor are on the ground armed on the one side or the other, and you alone are to lie on your balcony and smoke your pipe out of the noise and the danger, you had better have died, or never have been at all, than such a sensual coward.

an army of churchmen, the recognized position of a leader, and passes over, truth-impelled, to the enemy, in whose ranks he is ready to serve henceforth as a nameless private soldier:-I see the truth in that man, as I do in his brother, whose logic drives him to quite a different conclusion, and who after having passed a life in vain endeavor to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it, at last down in despair, and declares, with tearful eyes, and hands up to Heaven, his revolt and recantation. If the truth is with all these, why should I take side with any one of them? Some are called upon to preach: let them preach. Of these preachers there are somewhat too many, methinks, who fancy they have the gift. But we can not all be parsons in church, that is clear. Some must sit silent and listen, or go to sleep mayhap. Have we not all our duties? The head charity-boy blows the bellows; the master canes the other boys in the organloft; the clerk sings out Amen from the desk and the beadle with the staff opens the door for his Reverence, who rustles in silk up to the cushion. I won't cane the boys, nay, or say Amen always, or act as the church's champion or warrior, in the shape of the beadle with the staff; but I will take off my hat in the place, and say my prayers there too, and shake hands with the clergyman as he steps on the grass outside. Don't I know that his being there is a compromise, and that he stands before me an Act of Parliament? That the church he occupies was built for other worship? That the Methodist chapel is next door; and that Bunyan the tinker is bawling out the tidings of damnation on the common hard by? Yes, I am a Sadducee; and I take things as I find them, and the world and the Acts of Parliament of the world, as they are; and as I intend to take a wife, if I find one-not to be madly in love and prostrate at her feet like a fool-not to worship her as an angel, or to expect to find her as such-but to be "The truth, friend!" Arthur said, imper- good-natured to her, and courteous, expect. turbably; "where is the truth? Show it me. ing good nature and pleasant society from That is the question between us. I see it her in turn. And so, George, if ever you on both sides. I see it in the Conservative hear of my marrying, depend on it, it won't side of the House, and amongst the Radicals, be a romantic attachment on my side and and even on the ministerial benches. I see if you hear of any good place under Governit in this man who worships by Act of Parliament, I have no particular scruples that I ment, and is rewarded with a silk apron and know of, which would prevent me from acfive thousand a year; in that man, who, cepting your offer." driven fatally by the remorseless logic of his creed, gives up every thing, friends, fame, dearest ties, closest vanities, the respect of

"Oh, Pen, you scoundrel! I know what you mean," here Warrington broke out. "This is the meaning of your skepticism, of

That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied

your quietism, of your atheism, my poor fel- So he went forth to battle, on the side
low. You're going to sell yourself and
Heaven help you! You are going to make a
bargain that will degrade you and make you
miserable for life, and there's no use talking

His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights

of it. If you are once bent on it, the devil The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, won't prevent you."

"On the contrary, he's on my side, isn't he, George?" said Pen with a laugh. What good cigars these are! Come down and have a little dinner at the club; the chef's in town, and he'll cook a good one for me. No, you won't? Don't be sulky, old boy, I'm going down to-to the country to-morrow."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
FOULLY ASSASSINATED, APRIL 14, 1865.
You lay a wreath on murdered LINCOLN's bier,
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,
His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,

His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine, of art to please.

You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
Judging each step as though the way were plain:
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,

Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain.

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,

Say, scurril-jester, is there room for you?
Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen-
To make me own this hind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.
My shallow judgment I had learnt to rue,

Noting how to occasion's height he rose,
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true,
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.
How humble yet how hopeful he could be:
How in good fortune and in ill the same:
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work-such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand-
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;

Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work his will,
If but that will we can arrive to know,

Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill,

The iron-bark, that turns the lumberer's axe,
The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
The prairie hiding the mazed wanderer's tracka,
The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear—

Such were the needs that helped his needs to train:

Rough culture-but such trees large fruit may bear,
If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.

So he grew up, a destined work to do,
And lived to do it: four long-suffering years.
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,
And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
And took both with the same unwavering mood:
Till, as he came on light, from darkling days,
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,

A felon hand, between the goal and him
Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest,
And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim,
Those gaunt, long laboring limbs were laid at rest.

The words of mercy were upon his lips,

Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen;
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good will to men.

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame,
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high,
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came.

A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
Of more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But thy foul crime like Cain's stands daring out

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife,
Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven,
And with the martyr's crown, crownest a life
With much to praise, little to be forgiven.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, LONDON "PUNCH."

VICTOR HUGO-NAPOLEON LE PETIT.

VICTOR MARIE HUGO, born at Besancon, February 26, 1802, is one of the most eminent writers of France. His precocious genius early produced notable poems and romances, and Chateaubriand decorated him with the title of "L'enfant sublime." At first a royalist and a Catholic, Hugo became in 1830 an ardent Republican;