drawn the line at running off with his host's wife and filching his entertainer's property. Nor again can we quite picture De Bracy as either keeping out of the way of hard knocks and dallying with his mistress while fighting on his account was on foot, or shooting at his foes from a safe distance with a bow and arrow. Rather, like Conachar or Eachin, Paris will perhaps strike a blow in an access of sudden passion; like Eachin again, he will be careful to avoid the counter-buff, and like Eachin too, he will see his foster-brothers lay down their lives in his quarrel while he himself remains in the background. But, unlike Eachin, he seems to lack the grace to be ashamed of his own pusillanimity, and the reproaches of Hector, and even of Helen, merely induce him to pose as an aggrieved party or an injured innocent:

Wring not thus my soul With keen reproaches; now with Pallas' aid

Hath Menelaus conquered.

The unhappy Eacuin, be it noted, never receives from the Fair Maid of Perth the faintest encouragement which might serve to spur his ardor; and if she suspects the existence of the doe-heart in her young admirer, she is too fully occupied in checking the pugnacious instincts of the Gow Chrom to spare a thought or a word on his rival's want of courage. Catherine Seyton, by far the most piquant and attractive of all Scott's heroines, absolutely disclaims the idea of a lover who "could harbor fear or faintness of heart" being in any way acceptable to a woman. But Helen chides, yet condones the fault, the Maid of Perth throws cold water on deeds of daring, and so it comes to pass that Eachin and Paris remain cowards to the end of the chapter.

If, like the fugitive prince in "Woodstock," Paris is no respecter of the laws of hospitality, and sees in every pretty face fair game to pursue, he would, we feel, neither have faced Markham Everard in the duello nor have made the amende honorable to the lawful lover and the

lady with the grace and dignity of the hard-visaged Stuart. His cool proposal to keep the lady and restore the stolen goods savors of the principle "what's thine is mine, and what's mine is my own," and reminds us of the willingness shown by the barons at Torquilstone to give up their prey, on the understanding that each member of the gang should keep that particular object, whether pretty Jewess, Saxon heiress, or rich Jew, on which he had set his affections.

But perhaps the character most resembling Paris is Dalgarno in the "Fortunes of Nigel." Either man is unscrupulous and palpably dishonest; both are fair to see and foul to deal with; both run off with better men's wives; both, recreant lovers, leave broken-hearted ladies to mourn their defection; neither of them seems to regard either the good opinion of men or the honor of women.

Before we finally take leave of Paris we may remark that on those rare occasions when Hector's reproaches stir him to action he goes to the fight, armed, we are convinced, though Homer omits to record it, with a personal assurance from his tutelary goddess that he shall come to no scathe in the matter, and that he shall be consoled by Helen's caresses for any temporary inconvenience. When Scott's Hector, Hector MacTurk, has once managed to screw Sir Bingo Binks's courage up to the sticking-point, the dull-witted baronet, in direct antithesis to Paris, is rather aggrieved than otherwise that the duel is not to come off after all, and quite ready to fight with somebody or something. In short, no single character in the Waverley novels is, to borrow Hector's phrase, quite such a counterfeit of manhood as the "godlike Paris."

The Ajax of the "Iliad" may in many respects be regarded as the prototype of Athelstane of Coningsburgh. Both of them are, ordinarily speaking, goodtempered, unintellectual giants, ponderous and chary of speech, but really good fighting men when thoroughly aroused. Not one step backwards will

Ajax budge when things are in extremis and he is left to bear almost single-handed the brunt of the Trojan attack upon the Greek ships; the body of Patroclus shall not fall into the hands of the enemy so long as the son of Telamon can wield his spear. So, too, unarmored and helmetless, Athelstane does not hesitate to plunge into the middle of the fray and attempt to rescue the supposed Rowena from the grasp of the Templar. If it is not especially recorded of Ajax that he was either gourmand or epicure like the Saxon prince, we are sufficiently initiated by Homer into the mysteries of the Greek banquet to be sure that the heroes one and all had monstrous fine appetites of their own. For if to an elderly bard a portion that reminds us of Benjamin's mess was deemed a suitable offering in recognition of a stirring lay, we may reasonably infer that a lusty warrior of the Ajax stamp might have swallowed to his own single share the whole of a Karum pie, or have made a mighty hole in the Clerk of Copmanhurst's venison pasty, even if he could not rival the Laird of Bucklaw's appetite and "eat a horse behind the saddle." Even Achilles, a far more refined personage than Ajax, is careful to remind Priam that mental agony must not be allowed to interfere with the enjoyment of the evening meal, and cites the example of Niobe, who

Not abstained from food When in the house her children lay in death,

Six beauteous daughters and six stalwart

sons.

So too, we may remark, the sturdy Cedric, infinitely more abstemious habitually than Athelstane, "showed that if the distresses of his country could banish the recollection of food while the table was uncovered yet no sooner were the victuals placed there than he proved that the appetite of his Saxon ancestors had descended to him along with their other qualities." Having entered into this digression on the subject of eating and drinking, it may not be out of place to note the striking

similarity of the accounts given by Homer and Walter Scott of the preparations for the funeral banquets in the halls of Coningsburgh and the tents of Achilles. Both Greek and Saxon alike considered the funeral banquet as an occasion of general and profuse hospitality, a sort of Irish wake on a gigantic scale; and as we read of the good cheer provided to all comers, and remember Athelstane's weakness in that line, we can partially forgive the novelist for his much-criticised resuscitation of the Saxon prince, who was enabled thereby to realize Wamba's wish, and "banquet at his own funeral."

The Ajax of Sophocles, to follow the hero to his latter end, with his mind unhinged by real or imaginary wrongs, alternately reminds us of Reginald Front de Boeuf and of Charles of Burgundy as he is represented in "Anne of Geierstein," smarting under his defeat by the Swiss mountaineers; Ajax is a match for either in ferocity when he thinks of his rival Ulysses or the sons of Atreus, who had awarded the prize of valor to the wily Ithacan. Or again he recalls the picture of the Master of Ravenswood as we see him in the last chapter of the "Bride of Lammermoor" when "his dark features, wasted by sorrow and marked by the ghastly look communicated by long illness, added to a countenance naturally somewhat stern and wild a fierce and even savage expression." We feel that Ajax, like Ravenswood, might have hurled Craigengelt down-stairs and bade him seek his master in hell, and that the softer feeling and remnant of better nature which prompted the Greek to speak gently to his son constrain a tear from the ill-fated lover as he takes the broken gold from Lucy Ashton. Probably neither Front de Boeuf nor Charles of Burgundy has found many sympathizers among the students of Walter Scott. But it is different with Edgar Ravenswood, and for once in a way the novelist has brought his hero to a bad end, and refusing to allow the course of true love to run smooth, has plunged an apparently innocent pair of lovers into an abyss of misery and despair.

As to Edgar Ravenswood, so to Ajax we are inclined to extend the meed of sympathy, and to regard him as an unnecessary and innocent victim of coldblooded persecution. For in the matter of the award of the arms of Achilles, on Homer's own showing in the "Iliad," there was, if the arms were to be given to the bravest, only one other possible competitor. Had Diomed been the recipient of the prize, there would have been less excuse for grumbling at the decision of the judges. But on what possible grounds can the Ulysses of the "Iliad" be considered as a bona fide competitor for the prize of valor? He had, to our minds, about as much claim to the distinction as Ralph de Vipont or Grantmesnil to the honors of the tournament at Ashby. When the Greek heroes had contended for the privilege of encountering Hector in single combat, not only had Ulysses been the last to enter, but he had clearly been an outsider to use betting parlance-from start to finish.

Grant Father Zeus,

The lot on Ajax, or on Tydeus' son, Or on Mycena's wealthy king, may fall. This prayer of the Greeks only emphasizes the fact that, had the challengers in the list at Ashby been selected from among the heroes of the "Iliad," Diomed would have represented the Templar, Ajax Front de Boeuf, Agamemnon Malvoisin, and Ulysses, had he found a place at all, might have been one of the "cheapest bargains."

Again, when it came to actual fighting-putting Achilles, of course, out of the question-the only Greeks who won any honor in a single-handed encounter with Hector were Diomed and Ajax, and the advantage gained by the latter was if anything more marked. Finally, when Achilles invites

Two champions bold To don their arms, their sharp-edged

weapons grasp,

And public trial of their powers make. Diomed and Ajax alone enter the lists; nor does any other Greek offer to compete with these formidable champions

in a contest which, if not "understood to be at outrance," seems to promise no less danger than that incurred in "the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms of Ashby." We can readily understand that in a state of society where robbery under arms was accounted a heroic action, and winning on a foul passed as a creditable achievement, downright and straightforward giants of the Ajax and Dandie Dinmont type were rather at a discount. But when the apologists and they are many-for this malversation of justice assure us that the success of Ulysses is intended to symbolize the triumph of mind over matter, or of intellect over brute force, we cannot but note that the intellectual superiority of Ulysses as depicted by Homer is not of a character that appeals much to modern sympathy. The idealized Ulysses of the "Odyssey" is indeed a man of ready wit and full of resource in emergencies; and the Ulysses of Sophocles, with all the winning cards in his hand, is a fluent and plausible orator; but from start to finish he seems to be playing for his own hand entirely, and to be magnanimous only where there is nothing to lose by magnanimity. The intellect of Ulysses is the intellect of Isaac of York, and he looks the gifthorse of the Phæacian king in the mouth as critically as the Jew counts out the zechins paid by his late preserver for the use of horse and armor; or it is the intellect of the charlatan Galeotti or of the German impostor in the "Antiquary." At another time it reminds us of the cold-blooded and calculating sagacity of Louis XI. For Achilles and Philoctetes, Quentin Durward and the Bohemian, may be hanged, drawn, and quartered for all that Louis or Ulysses care, so long as they have duly fulfilled the purpose for which they were called into action.

Ulysses' companion in more than one perilous adventure, Diomed, is the true knight-errant of Homer, selected, like Marbot in Napoleon's army, to perform any special feat of derring-do, and allowed to chose his supporters. He is always spoiling for a fight, and, like Robert of Paris, will gladly "barter

safety for fame" and take his seat upon an emperor's throne; nor will he be nice about choosing the degree of his adver sary, provided that the latter "bears himself like one who is willing and forward in battle." But, as De Wilton in "Marmion" vows:

Where'er I meet a Douglas, trust
That Douglas is my brother;

so Diomed does not in the heat of the battle forget the sacred ties of guestfriendship, but exchanges courteous words and friendly gifts with Glaucus and Lycian, who, though fighting on the side of the Trojans, claims old acquaintanceship with the family of Tydeus. We fear that Diomed, who is quite as ready to encounter on the battle-field an immortal god as a mortal adversary, would have felt no more scruples than Reginald Front de Boeuf about employing an image-whether of St. Christopher or of any other saint in the calendar-as a missile weapon. Like Reginald Front de Boeuf, and like Balaam the son of Beor, he receives the wages of his unrighteousness, not indeed dying a violent death like the Norman noble and the Hebrew prophet, but expiating by weary exile the sin of having ventured to brave the wrath of heaven.

We may conclude by observing that both our authors, Homer and Walter Scott, had a sufficient respect for grey hairs to portray in their pictures of old age interesting and exemplary characters. Old Priam is one of the most refined and gentlemanly we might almost say Christian-like-personages that we meet with in Greek literature. His gentleness and courtesy towards his very dubious and inconvenient daughter-in-law, his perfect integrity and affection in matters that concern the household, stand out in bold relief. And while all the time we cannot help reflecting what a despicable beast Paris was to allow the old man his father to run the risk of braving the wrath of Achilles, we fancy that the story of the "Iliad" would not have been complete without the account of

the interview between the old man and the slayer of his "warrior son." We leave the tent of Achilles feeling, as Priam must have felt, reconciled at least in part to the Greek hero, and glad that in his magnanimous behavior towards the old man he has in some degree atoned for his late barbarity. No one who reads the story can believe that Priam King of Troy loses anything of his dignity by falling in so worthy a cause a suppliant at Achilles' feet, any more than does stout old Arnold Biederman when he bends the knee to Charles of Burgundy, whose frantic rage so closely resembles the wrath of Achilles; and he who reads afresh the old king's appeal that he may receive back the dead body of his son will be tempted to say what Queen Caroline said of the simple words of Jeanie Deans, that "this is indeed eloquence."

If there are moments when the long stories told by old Nestor of his own past progress weary us, as they must have wearied his audience, almost to the same extent as Sir Henry Lee's recitations from Shakespeare palled upon his royal guest, we cannot but admire the pluck of the Gerenian knight when, maugre his years, he boldly acts as Diomed's charioteer when matters are almost at their worst for the Achæans, just as we admire the stouthearted old knight of Woodstock when he draws sword on the canting independent. If we may guess that in his day the old Greek was as "tight a taskmaster" as the venerable Royalist, and that Antilochus would no more have ventured to cock his hat in the presence of his father than Albert Lee in the presence of Sir Henry, we would have trusted to the advice of the grey-beard Nestor as implicitly as Charles Stuart trusted to the advice of the grey-beard Lee, convinced that he would find a road to safety "were the whole Roundheads that are out of hell in present assemblage" round the place of our concealment. Young and vigorous men are killed off by the score in the pages of the "Iliad" and the Waverley Novels, Albert Lee and Antilochus alike find graves in a foreign strand, but Nestor

and Sir Henry live on to find their dearest hopes realized and to see their children's children, and die in the home of their forefathers at a good old age, full of years, riches, and honor.

From Macmillan's Magazine. THE SONGS OF YESTERDAY. The sun is near its setting, and lies above the long blue line of Cape Frehel, sending level rays of light across the undulations of shore and pasturage, of thick woodland and dotted field, and spreading a saffron glory over the wide calm water. The air is very still, with that round, ripe stillness of autumn before the damp of November has brought decay; the earth, the trees, even the sky, are softly golden with a clear glowing brightness that is yet the hither edge of twilight. And through the stillness every sound is carried, so that one perceives, as if with a magic hearing, the life that lies about one; but the sound that is sweetest and loudest is the sound of singing. Yonder, where the three horses harnessed in line pull the clumsy plough through the red buckwheat stubble, the driver as he walks beside them sings an old ditty that his fathers before him have sung on just such evenings as this, as they, too, followed the plough.

of young voices singing a canticle to the Virgin: Ave, ave, Maria! The two songs blend and clash and blend again in a strange harmony of discord. They belong to each other, these two, different as they are; they have come down the centuries together in amity and good fellowship. These, and such as these, are the Songs of Yesterday.

Elsewhere there is singing also; indeed, the love of song is perhaps the most marked characteristic of everyday life in a small French town. Everywhere and at all times the people sing; the masons working in the new houses, the cobblers bending over half-made shoes, the carters plodding beside their horses, the women at the ironing-boards or beating the wet linen at the edge of washing-pools, the children on their way to and from schoolmen and women, young and old, at all hours of the day they sing with enthu

siasm.

It is their principal pleasure. They go to church to sing, they sing at marriages, at baptisms, on their way to the conscription, on their return home; there is no one so popular among them as a good singer, and nothing they love so much as a good song. And it must be acknowledged that they sing well, with an inherited taste and ease, the men in a rich, sonorous baritone, and the women in a strange, sweet treble, unnaturally high and small, but bird-like in its flexibility and plain

I ha' slept from home,

I ha' slept from home,

His fathers have sung it before him, that, or another, as he sings now; their voices also have gone out into the stillness of the evening, when the sun lay above Cape Frehel, and the sea and the sky were painted with gold; it has all been the same for so long, that one forgets that there can ever have been a beginning. And from the other side where the children are driving home the cows from the seaward pastures, there comes the clear, high sweetness

The

Every one sings; only, unfortunately, in the towns the music is too often imported and smacks hideously of Paris or London, and the popular tune of the year before last. streets are vocal with "Saint Nazaire," or the "Czarine," or, worse, with "Daisy Bell." Every one sings here, as in the country; but in the towns they sing the songs of To-day.

It is in the further corners and byeways, where there is nothing to tempt tourists, where life changes so slowly that it scarcely seems to change at all, that a music lingers which is neither vulgar nor commonplace, a music which has a history behind it, and which to-morrow will be dead. For it is dying fast, even among the peasants