66 hands of their author into a complete their influence upon persons. Thus, of poem; that, in the words with which J. E. K." concludes his preface, he "who has had the power to read aright so great a dream may feel it laid upon him as a duty to tell the whole interpretation of it." From The Saturday Review. other hand, infused with largeness of motive, working on a great scale, and penetrated by a certain indescribable fineness of temper, which makes all the difference between an industry that is admirable and one that is barely less than contemptible. that acuteness and quickness which is one of the most essential elements of the intellectual character, the chief thing for us to know is its qualis. Is it after the manner of the fox, or the wolf, or the ferret, or is it large-eyed and ample? Is it deep-seeing and wide-seeing, or is it only good for flaws and specks and little likenesses and unlikenesses of the outside? What is the salt whence the acuteness has its savour and characteristic? We may ask just the ONE of the most curious and least same sort of questions about moral habits. analysable things in human life and nature Industry, for example, must be a creditais found in that quality, or perhaps group ble quality. Even in a person who preys of qualities, to which we give the general upon society, laborious tenacity is a virtue, name of force of character. It is some- as far as it goes, and may perhaps keep thing which seems to exist apart, and yet alive the erratic flame of self-respect, which to penetrate and run through every side must be a good thing, even in a burglar. and quarter of the mind; it is less an inde- Apart from such extreme cases, where one pendent faculty than a property of all the virtue does duty for all the rest not too perother faculties, less a solitary attribute fectly, the precise value and likeableness than the colouring of all the other attrib- of ordinary or extraordinary industry deutes. It was justly objected to the phren-pend upon something which has nothing to ologists that, in their exclusive attention do with industry. We ask what manner to the size and location of the various parts of industry it is-beaverish, mechanical, of the brain, they lost sight of another not the industry of small things, or, on the less important kind of variation - variation in the quality and substance of the brain tissue. An analogous error is committed by students of character, whether they are systematic or only empirical, who are content with summing up a man's attributes, estimating their relative strength, and pro- If we constantly find, among the dullest nouncing on their comparative utility. and least-loved portion of our friends, peoPractically, the whole question of the ple endowed with nearly all the talents and worth of character turns upon a point that nearly all the virtues, we feel just as conis quite beside all these. We want to stantly, on the other side, that those from know, not only that a man has this or that whom we should be most unwilling to part attribute or faculty, but also how he has it. are recommended to us by something alFor example, one constantly hears from together beside either vigorous ability and the lips of that sex which was in chivalrous grasp of understanding, or unusual warmth, days the prize-giver and the arbiter of strength, and regularity of sentiment. The distinctions that so-and-so is wonderfully most rigorous stickler for the square utiliintellectual; and even persons who use tarian tests in practice invariably transtheir words with judgment can often find cends them, and unconsciously becomes no better phrase for their meaning than this accessible on a side and in a manner not too vague term. In its best and most taken into account by his usual method. legitimate sense, the epithet of intellectual We cannot help, or at all events a man is is given to persons who possess some of neither particularly admirable nor enviable the various intellectual faculties of discrim- if he can help, being drawn towards charination, judgment, imagination, and so acters of the intellectual and the moral forth, and exert them with something more parts of which he never thinks of taking than the average constancy. But then to tell any account, but whose flavour is as inus this of anybody is to tell us little; quite definable as it is irresistible. Indeed, is as important as the possession and the not this a more considerable element than pretty constant use of all these faculties is we usually realize in the pleasure which the temper, spirit, tone, or manner of their men take in the society of nice women? use the something which makes them Their society is not often made valuable to sapid, and determines both their harmony us by the superiority of their gifts of with the general current of things outside, understanding or by their lofty moral enand the pleasurableness and magnitude of dowments; yet anybody who successfully undertakes to dispense with their compan- | natures which diffuse no atmosphere, but ionship, or who has no special satisfaction exist as in hard and cold blocks. This in being with the best kind of women that moral fibre, to change one's metaphor, is he knows, is already more than halfway far more interesting and important than on the road to barbarism. Not to be sus- exact conformity to the established stanceptible of the influence of a character of dard of precise rightness and wrongness flavour is an assured sign of want of fine in intellectual or moral matters. Johnson, flavour in oneself, and persons who shun for example, was full of wrongness in metathe association of women, imperfectly cul- physics, politics, and most other subjects tivated as women are now, may be safely where men can go wrong, yet one would set down as belonging to a very badly rather have known him and been his friend finished class. To know men or women than one would know or be the friend of of flavour is to have the baldness and pro- the most unimpeachable of politicians, or found insipidity of average existence modi- the most supreme of metaphysicians, unless fied in the most satisfactory way in which the latter had a smack of either the Johnit is capable of being modified. In a world sonian or some other kind of flavour and of mediocrity and gentle dulness, what fulness. Voltaire's saying about success ought one not to give to be able to know in life depending less upon a man's talents such a man as Charles Lamb was - whim- than upon the force of his character applies sical, frolicsome, quaint, with every phrase, to many other things in him beside his expression, movement marked by a fresh success; unless indeed we include under savour? And flavour is various. Of its success what it would be quite right, but essence it is always original and peculiar, hardly customary, to include - good innever being precisely alike in two persons. fluence over others, and an active conIt has its kinds and degrees, far apart in sciousness in oneself of all the best emotheir value and their wholesomeness, from tions which one's character is able to comthe rare and transcendent character of an pass. This explains the fact, which to raw Augustin down to the sickly hot-house youth measuring all things by a narrow flavour of a Maurice de Guérin. The only test of intellectual rightness is for ever a traits common to all its kinds seem to be mystery, that talents, knowledge, soundmerely negative. We note the absence of ness, coloured by no more than mere orthothis and that, and their absence seems dox emotion, are seldom idolized by those of itself to mean the presence of something of riper time who know the world. It is which it is hard to write out in words. morale, temper, flavour, which those value We can only say of a character with fine most who have seen most of men and most flavour that it is not all drawn in straight of the conditions of life; for weakness in lines and squares, that it has not been morale, thinness of temper, and monotony deliberately cut and trimmed after a pat- of flavour are the conditions which keep tern, but has grown to be what it is by the life so poor. This does not mean that a expansion of inward forces, that it is not blindly stupid person, the creature of sour nor thin nor narrow, nor without play prejudice, unillumined by intellectual knowland movement. Its positive qualities we edge, and indifferent to it, can win our adseem only to be able to trace in their miration or liking by firmness, or moderaeffects upon others. We know that some- tion, or peculiarity of crotchet. But it thing about a man stimulates us and stirs does mean that one who is second-rate on every energy; or that it soothes and softens the intellectual side may be a thousandus, dulling our sensitiveness to the sharp fold weightier, higher, more valuable, angles; or that it elevates us, putting more successful in the largest sense, than sinal cares and mean objects under our the intellectual first-rate; and for the feet for the time and disencumbering the overpressed mind; or that it delicately moderates an excessive and turbulent ardour. An atmosphere is somehow poured round men and women of this sort which gives to the moral climate of more ordinary people just the bracing or softening elements of which it stands in need; and this, we suppose, is what has made Mr. Carlyle's denunciation of formulas, phantasms, and simulacra so popular, because a person whom he calls a formula or phantasm or a simulacrum has just one of those reason that increase of happiness and improvement comes not only of seeing and knowing - though this is indispensable for the larger endeavour - but of doing and desiring, and it is in deeds and desires combined that fineness of flavour and excellence of tone most show themselves. It is remarkable how force of character and general quality find their expression in the countenance, far above any one special quality. Intellectual cleverness almost as often as not hangs out no sign in the eyes or the jaw or the cut of the mouth; neither, of course, does moral to supplant the earnest feeling and finer goodness, for a man may be the most spot-purpose needed for the greater venture. less of saints in obedience to the current Unless a man can enter into the spirit with moral law, without anything in his face to which Bunyan wrote, and can realize as distinguish him from Joseph Surface or Bunyan did the living shapes and faces, Tartuffe. But the physiognomical expres- with their names and characters engraved sion generally tells us how people possess upon them, he cannot hope to earn more their qualities, if we have to seek else- than temporary praise. Mr. Bennett's work where for information of what qualities will be more lasting. But we cannot acthey have. It does not tell us whether a cept it as a complete pictorial version of man has read much, whether his mind has the Pilgrim's Progress. It seems to us shaped itself amid ideas of philosophy, poetry, politics, or commerce. It does tell us, however, if we can find out the special form elsewhere, something of the general spirit in which he is likely to have clothed it; whether he has followed his pursuit with devotion, with tenacity, with robust aggression or tame waiting upon circumstance. And we read in the eye, and in the hardness or flexibility of the master lines of the face and head, all combined and quietly judged, what is by far the most important thing in character the size and kind of its humanity and sympathy. If this be so, a study of the face would outdo the pretensions of chiromancy, and we might tell fortunes by it; only, as it happens, the face is not fully possessed by the character until the fortune has either been achieved for good or evil, or at least has entered unmistakeably and irrevocably into the groove of its achievement. As a series of typical heads embodying the abstract ideas of Bunyan's story, and adding form and feature to the life which had been given already, these illustrations are perfect. To say that they increase our respect for the late C. H. Bennett's power would most inadequately describe the new light in which they place him. It often happens that when a man who has had a number of small successes attempts anything great, the only result is to remind us unfavourably of the qualities which first earned our approval. We might have feared some such collapse as this when the artful designer of the "Shadows" ventured to grapple with the Pilgrim's Progress. The very cleverness which told so well in those drawings might be expected Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated by Charles Kingsley. London: Bradbury and Evans. the late Charles H. Bennett. With a Preface by that this is excluded by the course which 66 names merely, and that without an epithet, all its satyrs, hobgoblins, snares, gins, and pitfalls." The consequence of this theory is that instead of depicting the 66 Valley of the Shadow of Death," Mr. Bennett has given us merely a queer shape with straggling arms coming out of a heart, and whispering at the ear of a man in ar- truly original. We are inclined to give mour. If this image was ever projected the palm to the portrait of Discretion, the on Bunyan's brain he must at least have" grave and beautiful damsel" who was seen one sight which the Midland Counties called out by Watchful the Porter to recould not boast. It is true, the image is ceive Christian at the gate of the palace. subjective rather than objective. But this When we have said that her face fully andoes not mend matters. If we might dis-swers to that description, we have done all cuss such a point with the author of Phae- that is necessary. Such a word-painter as thon, we should say that the artist must Mr. Kingsley might enlarge on the grand work by means of the objective, and leave the subjective to take care of itself. The author, on the other hand, cannot help letting the subjective predominate. No verbal description of satyrs and hobgoblins can give the same effect as the terror they produced in Christian. But as that terror is a state of the mind, and a picture can only represent an outward show, the best it can do is to give us the cause of terror. And this distinction makes Mr. Kingley's mistake more evident. The author and the artist are two men seeking the same end by different means. So long as they attain that end, it does not matter from what point they start, or how far they agree on the journey. Both are judged by the effect they actually produce, not by that which they may be supposed to have intended to produce. Mr. Kingsley assumes that Bunyan thought in pictures, that these pictures were such as he always saw around him, that anything which he did not see was vague and unmeaning to him, and that he must not have credit for more than the scantiest variations on a bare and meagre original. If this be so, it is the more surprising that the effect produced on the world should have been so very different. There are few that have not believed in the reality of Apollyon and the fiends of the pit, of the lions and the archers, of Giant Despair and the Slough of Despond, of the Enchanted Ground and the Delectable Mountains. This belief does not proceed from any detailed description, from any attempt at "word-painting," by which the idea that we all form would be clouded, instead of being rendered more vivid. Nor is it shaken by the natural inference that the author of the story did not catch all the details suggested by his curt, matter-offact recital. But we must not allow our differences with Mr. Kingsley to divert us from considering Mr. Bennett's pictures. The first point that strikes the least observing eye is that the artist has formed his style on that of Hans Holbein. Some of the heads seem to have been taken directly from old German engravings. Others preserve the spirit of those masters without suggesting an actual likeness. The finest heads are still more curve of the outline of her face, her deep earnest eyes, the silent eloquence of her lips, her rapt attention looking like repose. But all those expressions would not teach Mr. Bennett to project a more striking image on paper, nor would they show why Prudence just falls short of Discretion, but is worthy to be named with her. Indeed, some of Prudence's features are better, especially the chin and neck. In his better class of male faces Mr. Bennett is rather too German. His Evangelist is almost of the modern school. Christian and Faithful are more distinctive. Help and Greatheart are too much alike, and this near agreement in many of the types is not wholly satisfactory. Sometimes it is suggestive, as where Experience and Hypocrisy, Knowledge and Legality appear to have been taken from the same faces, and to have been but slightly varied. Yet though Bunyan did not always alter his types, putting in two kinds of mistrust, and following up Timorous by Mr. Fearing, at least there was a change in circumstances. The artist has not the same chances. We are apt to accuse him of poverty of invention when the author earns the praise of skilful gradation. However, though Mr. Bennett does repeat himself, he is rich in variety. What will impress the world at large most favourably is his stock of unpleasant faces. In these his strength comes out fully and palpably, although it occasionally leads him into caricature, and though the result is of a lower order than the one which culminates in Discretion and Prudence. The pigheaded face of Obstinate, and the little half-closed pig's eyes of Self-Conceit; the foolish wonder of Pliable, the strait-laced, stiff-necked stare of Formalist, the blear-eyed cynicism of Mistrust; the firm, heavily cut nose and brow of Pride; the simpering leer of Shame; the old Adam, a cross between an agricultural labourer of the worst type and a Fenian, my Lord Timeserver uttering his toothless flatteries, Worldly Glory, with the exact look of an old German general, and Vain Confidence, bearing the same resemblance to an Italian leader of mercenaries, are the most dramatic features of the series. To some extent we have all these gradations in miniature when we look being almost a lifelong invalid, and editor of a then very pugnacious journal, had in him a good deal of the spirit of the Scaligers, the elder Gronovius, George Steevens, and Porson - none of whom were wont to deal complimentary phrases to their editorial brethren. at the picture of the jury. The art dis- merely well versed in our dramatic literaplayed there is not so high, but we might ture, but also in the Latin writers-Senealmost pick out each particular juryman by ca, Juvenal, and others from whom the his expression, and assign to each mouth stage writers before the Restoration drew the saying that came out of it. Lord Hate- liberally. It was, perhaps, scarcely worth good, the judge, is a shade too temperate while to break upon a wheel such butterflies in his atrocity. But for that, his beetle as the preceding editors of Massinger — brows, the corner of his mouth, the seams Coxeter and Mason. But Gifford, besides in his face curling round like a wave and cresting in his double chin, would be in keeping with the set glare of his eyes. The allegorical vignettes of" Vanity Fair" come under the censure we have already expressed. It is unfortunate that Mr. Bennett should shrink from reproducing the most characteristic parts of the book, while he shows us what he can do with those which have seemed secondary. Yet in the same way he disappoints us most with the figures to which we look with the greatest curiosity. There may be doubts how Worldly Wiseman should be drawn. Mr. Bennett has not solved them by giving us a face which seems the exact portrait of the late Cardinal. We do not know whether this likeness was an intentional caricature, or whether the characters of the Cardinal and his worldly namesake were thought to coincide. But in any point of view the resemblance is curious. The juxtaposition was probably tempting. From The Saturday Review. THE PLAYS OF PHILIP MASSINGER.* COLONEL CUNNINGHAM, by this handy and indeed handsome volume of the Plays of Massinger, has supplied a void long existing in popular collections of our old dramatists. The four-volume edition of Gifford was always costly, and has now become scarce; and the reprint of it in one volume (1841) is cumbrous, and not very remarkable for correctness of type. The castigated edition forming a portion of Murray's Cabinet Library did not satisfy the real students of dramatic literature, and yet did not find favour with readers who account all plays, whether Bowdlerized or not, abominations. Colonel Cunningham has wisely adhered to Gifford's text; for, both as regards text and comment, the first real editor of Massinger left little to be done by others. Into this, his first editorial essay, Gifford put his full force, and that force was of no common order, since he was not • The Plays of Philip Massinger, from the Text of William Gifford; with the addition of the Tragedy "Believe as You List." Edited by Lieut.-Colonel F. Cunningham. London: Crocker. 1868. The plan and size of this edition did not admit of footnotes, but the Introductory Notice and the Glossary furnish nearly all that ordinary readers will require. He who makes Massinger his study will have recourse to Gifford, but an edition which may be read with pleasure, and does not tax the pocket heavily, merits a kindly welcome. In one respect indeed the volume before us is more complete than any former edition of Massinger's works, since it contains a play long supposed to have been one of the many victims to the oven and piepans of herald Warburton's ever-memorable cookmaid. Believe as You List will not add much to its author's reputation. It wears the aspect of a play written in haste for some particular occasion, and it shows also tokens of other hands besides Massinger's. The way in which it has been reclaimed, however, as described in the Introductory Notice, is very creditable to Colonel Cunningham's editorial sagacity. The life of Massinger, like that of so many of his contemporaries who wrote for the stage, was passed amid difficulties and distress; and, in his case, the causes of distress are not easy to understand. To all appearance he had a fair start in life. He had a good education, completed at the University, the traces of which are visible in all that remains of his writings; and he inherited from his father Arthur the patronage of the noble family of the Herberts, at a time when a patron was almost as essential as a manager to every one who wrote for the stage. There is no ground for imputing to Philip Massinger such a life and conversation as wrecked, not undeservedly, the fortunes of Peele and Marlowe. Yet after a time we find his prospects suddenly, and, as it seems, irretrievably, overcast. It is agreed that he quitted St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, abruptly, and it has been surmised that his conversion to the Church of Romea political, almost as much as a religious, offence in those days—was the |