the critical appreciation of Burns's song-writing. "Under his hand,” say Messrs. Henley and Henderson, "a patch-work of catch-words became a living song. He would take you two fragments of different epochs, select the best from each, and treat the matter of his choice in such a style that it is hard to know where its components end and begin; so that nothing is certain about his result except that it is a work of art. Or he would capture a wandering old refrain, adjust it to his own conditions, and so renew its lyrical interest and significance that it seems to live its true life for the first time on his lips." Their own work supplies, for the first time, sufficient detailed evidence of the truth of that scarcely original thesis. There are errors of taste in the "Centenary Burns," but these and some slips in accuracy apart, it stands forth as the classical edition of the poetry of Robert Burns. song is the note on "M'Pherson's Fare- and invaluable body of contributions to well." The Herd set is traced to an old broadside "The Last Words of James Macpherson, Murderer," with the corollary-"That it is excellent drama that has bred the ridiculous tradition-devoutly accepted by certain editors-that the hero wrote it." And Peter Buchan's copy is declared to be a clumsy vamp from Burns and the original. Take, again, the note on "Up in the Morning Early." D'Urfey's authorship of the original ballad is not assailed, though doubt is cast upon it by the existence of a set in a "Collection of Old Ballads" (London, 1723), described as "said to have been written in the time of James." Hogg and Motherwell's "well known song" is said to be a vamp from Burns, and Burns's chorus at least is clearly traced to its immediate source in a hitherto unknown set in the Herd manuscript. We have remarked the discovery which settles the ancient controversy about "Afton Water." But these are mere tastings of an inimitable JAMES DAVIDSON. re A Queer Friendship.-While visiting in Herefordshire last week I noticed a curious instance of a wild duck having become on friendly terms with a pair of wood pigeons. As I had never heard of such a thing before, I venture to send you an account of the circumstances. A pair of domesticated wild ducks were brought up on a pond last year, and during the winter the duck was accidentally shot by some one. The mallard mained on the pond, but seemed very unhappy, and used to fly around repeatedly, as if looking for his mate. Some two months ago the mallard was frequently seen to be flying around in company with one or two wood pigeons, and would accompany them to the surrounding fields and walk about with them while they fed. Every now and then it would take a flight with them when they rose. The wood pigeons have established themselves in an oak tree overhanging the pond, and are evidently going to nest there. They have been seen to start off on a flight from the tree, and the mallard would at once rise from the pond and join them, when they would fly round and chase one another as if in play. The wood pigeons frequently visit the garden close by, and have lately been observed feeding on some green peas which are growing there. The mallard walks about the garden with them. At the bottom of the garden is a stone wall about three feet high, with a broad, flat top, and the wood pigeons frequently fly from the garden and perch on the wall; the mallard has been seen to do the same, waddling about on the wall and seeming on the best possible terms with them.-The Field. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY THE LIVING AGE COMPANY, BOSTON. FOR SIX DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, cr by post-office money order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co. Single copies of THE LIVING AGE. 15 cents. From The National Review. Plutarch has written "Parallel Lives;" and history, no less than drama, delights in contrast and coincidence. But seldom, perhaps, did it execute in this line a stroke so remarkable as when, in the month of October, 1845, and almost on the same day of the month it led John Henry Newman to the door of the Catholic Church while Ernest Renan was issuing thence, and bidding his early faith an everlasting farewell. We may figure to ourselves the 9th of October as a famous and a fatal day in that year, shining for Catholicism with brilliant light and setting in deep shadow. Who can draw up the balance of such loss and such gain? No one, so far as I am aware, has attempted it hitherto; yet if we knew how the account stood, we might see our way to resolve many of the questions which divide and torment us. For these two men, although never meeting in the body, nor acquainted with each other's writings, were in fact rivals and antagonists—parallel and opposed; each had fought the battle of belief and unbelief in his own bosom; together they summed up the tendencies of an age. And in variety of gifts, in personal romance, in the influence which went forth from them and subdued more than one generation, who shall say that they were greatly unequal? The most striking resemblance between them is their mastery of style. Newman has long been recognized as one of the crowned and sceptred kings of English prose literature, without a competitor save Ruskin; but as a spiritual teacher, a light in the world of religious development, he is by far the greatest that has risen up during our century. On the other hand, which among illustrious French writers has excelled Renan? I speak of the supreme French achievement, again of prose not of poetry; and I call to mind 1 Letters and Correspondence of J. H. Newman, edited by Anne Mozley. London, 1891. Lettres Intimes: 1842-1845, précédées par "Ma Sœur Henriette," par E. Renan. Paris, 1896. Chateaubriand, George Sand, Victor Hugo-these are the highest modern names-but can we praise them beyond the choice, and music-breathing, and exquisite, and endlessly cunning artist who, by a secret known to himself and none other, has combined the Celtic and the classic eloquence, stolen the hearts of friends and enemies, hidden the charm of his persuasiveness in words as simple as they are touching, and given to a phrase or an epithet power so strange, that once heard, it never will be forgotten? What a specious miracle is here, and how slight a value do we set on Hugo's chaotic splendors when this enchantment has taken hold of us! But such was Renan. He has wrapped himself in the cloak of the wizard Prospero, borrowing for the nonce his staff and magic volume, not unsuccessfully. Now, if we should think of Newman as Ariel, a spirit most delicate, detached, and filled with heavenly light, the terms of our comparison would not be wanting. I propose to draw out briefly some of the resemblances and the contrasts which have been brought home to me in reading the remains, and especially what is now published from their correspondence, of these memorable persons. But I shall not pretend to do more than illustrate a large subject. Shall I accomplish even SO little as that? I cannot tell; but if the keen personal feeling which comes over me when I turn to either Newman or Renan be any proof that one has entered into their thought, their way of looking at the nature of things, their peculiar and individual spirit; if to be charmed is the secret of interpretation, and yet to be critical under so mighty a spell is some token of clear-sightedness, then I would take courage from the omens vouchsafed me. Perhaps it is impossible for those who never knew the Catholic Church by experience to understand how Newman came at last to join it, almost in his own despite; and still less, I am confident, will they, without some rare dramatic power, which it comprehend the attraction ceased not to exercise upon Renan, al though he had run to the opposite pole. I shall endeavor to keep clear of controversy; the situation, delineated as it was by the men themselves, out of which their final resolve issued, will point the moral of many arguments. And now to begin. We must say, with Hamlet, though not disparagingly, "Look here upon this picture, and on this." See, amid the jostling crowd of mediocrities, in an age given over to commerce, politics, money-making, journalism, and vulgar enjoyment, these two men of genius-one French, one English-who pass by the whole scene of Vanity Fair as an empty stage-delusion. They are nothing if not idealists-dreaming their dream, perchance, while the many feast on good things; but a dream-in Newman contemplative, supernatural, in Renan Hegelian, concerned only with the process of the world, and a divinity still latent-which neither would exchange for all beside it. This unconquerable passion was breathed into them from the beginning by religion. They come down to literature as out of a higher sphere. The intense purity and clearness of style, the eloquence flowing in a stream so limpid, whereby each is marked off from his fellows and is classic, they have arrived at by no inducement from without, but in the effort to understand themselves. Each is alone, or regardless of his chance audience. Most instructive it is when Renan describes himself as the least literary of men, and marvels in his roguish innocence at the French Academics, who can write though they have nothing to say. From the first he was disdainful of the loud-tongued rhetoric which M. Dupanloup had set up as the very finest of the arts at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet. But Renan, who has written such inimitable prose. would have no mention made of style in training French scholars; let them study things and the words will come, he declares again and again. Newman wore himself out over his compositions; yet, at the age of sixty-nine, he could say with delightful simplicity, "I never have been in the practice since I was a boy of attempting to write well, or to form an elegant style. I think I never have written for writing sake, but my one and single desire and aim has been to do what is so difficult, viz., to express clearly and exactly my meaning." Yes, he had a meaning, a conviction, which would not let him rest until it was embodied in language; and literature as a display of talent, or a thing which could be sold in the market, he no more dreamt of dealing in than he would have dealt in any other commodity and article of commerce. Yet-or shall we not rather say, hence?-there is a beauty and freedom of touch in all that either of these men published, the like of which no popular pen has to show. It is art, indeed, but disinterested, patient, and unconventional, addressing itself to those who can grasp its significance, not to the multitude. "I cannot make myself heard when I speak to the many, nor do the many care to hear me. Paucorum hominum sum," wrote the great oratorian. And Renan, in the preface to his "Drames Philosophiques," has these proud words: "Besides the volume which is destined for the circulating brary, there is the book of which the triumph consists in its being held of price by some few hundred connoisseurs." His own most cried-up volume had been read by tens of thousands, but still it was to the few and not the many that he appealed. So frank a dismissal of the crowd argues in the speaker that he does not need them, nor has thought of them in the first place. He will teach, but only those that care to listen; his message has certain undercurrents; it is esoteric, ironical, a winged word that flies over common heads and pierces the heart at a distance. We can never be quite sure that we have caught the prophet's deepest meaning; and he smiles outright when we undertake to decide what he has been aiming at, or to refute a suggestion which has glided across the flow of his metaphors. Such a peculiar and indefinable spirit will be at once supremely truthful and as candid as snow in sunshine. But who will |