To dally with wrong that does no harm;
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty,
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.'

The last explanation is not very different from our own, only we think it is not so much "the sweet recoil of love and pity" which "each wild word" produces in the mind, as the suggestion of thoughts of tenderness and love which the very wildness of the words forces irresistibly on the heart.

on

In order to appreciate irony there must be some sense of humour. The essays of Elia are full of it; and their chief charm would be lost on the reader who took everything literally, or, to use Charles Lamb's own expression, "on the square." How helplessly he would flounder in the Sartor Resartus' of Carlyle! There is an essay by De Quincey "Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," which is in the finest style of irony; and we once spoke of it in terms of high praise to a person in an official position, and strongly recommended him to read it. We lent him the book for the purpose; but in a few days he returned it to us with a note in which he said that he did not like the article at all, and thoroughly disapproved of it, for it dealt far too lightly with one of the most dreadful of crimes, and seemed almost to encourage it!

There are some excellent examples of verbal irony in the Bible. There must have been something in the tone of Micaiah when, summoned to foretell the issue of the approaching battle at Ramoth-Gilead between the kings of Israel and Judah on the one side, and the king of Syria on the other, he said, "Go ye up and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand,"-something which betrayed a contradiction between his words and his meaning; for Ahab immediately detected the

concealed irony, and asked, "How many times shall I adjure thee that thou say nothing but the truth to me in the name of the Lord?" And then came the truth from the lips of the prophet which predicted the defeat of Israel, and consigned himself to a dungeon, to eat "the bread of affliction" and drink "the water of affliction."

In the apostrophe of Elijah to the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel, when he mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked;" there is perhaps banter rather than irony. The prophet assumes the truth of the hypothesis that Baal is a god. If so, then surely there must be a good reason why he does not hear the cry of his votaries—he must be otherwise engaged. we must remember that, according to pagan ideas, there was nothing in the occupations suggested by Elijah incompatible with the dignity of a deity. The mythology of Greece is full of anecdotes which show that its gods might be worse and less rationally employed. The irony consists, we think, in the implied contrast between such an idea of the divinity of Baal and the divinity of Jehovah, the God of Israel.

And

But there is no contradiction between the words and the meaning. Elijah puts himself in the position of the priests themselves. And from their point of view his explanation of the cause why Baal is deaf to their entreaties is reasonable enough. But at the same time he shows how ludicrous it is to suppose that Baal is really a god"for peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked." This is properly banter, or what the French call badinage; just as irony with them is persiflage. Real irony seems to stand midway between banter and

sarcasm. Banter is the playful, and sarcasm the ferocious form of irony. In the etymology of sarcasm, however, there is nothing to suggest the idea of irony. It literally means a "tearing of the flesh," but in modern usage it generally implies irony in its bitterest form.

We think that the key to many of the passages in the book of Ecclesiastes which seem to inculcate mere selfishness, and a reckless disregard of everything except present and sensual enjoyment, is that they are to be taken in an ironical sense. After a reign of unexampled splendour and magnificence, Solomon had found that all was vanity and vexation of spirit; and the wisest of men must have been a fool if he could seriously propound, as sufficing for happiness, such maxims as that "there is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labours : and, "Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity; for that is thy portion in this life." Solomon had tried all this, and the apples of Issachar had turned to ashes on his lips. It is not likely, therefore, that he should recommend in earnest to others the fruit which had been so bitter to himself. No! the true meaning and solution of the riddle is to be found in the verse towards the end of the book: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou, that

for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."

But let us now turn to Sophocles. The best example of the practical irony of life which his plays afford is the "Edipus Tyrannus." A pestilence rages at Thebes, of which Edipus is king. The gods are appealed to in vain. Altars have blazed with fire and reeked with incense in the temples. The Oracle of Delphi is consulted, and the answer of the priestess is, "The land suffers under a curse, owing to a dreadful murder. The crime must be expiated, and the pollution purged away." But what was the murder, and who is the murderer? Tiresias, the blind seer, is sent for; and after refusing to answer, and having been taunted by Edipus with his blindness, he at last bids. the monarch obey the behest of his own proclamation, and, as the perpetrator of the crime, end his own unhallowed life. The Chorus asks in all simplicity, "Who is the guilty wretch? Does he hide himself in lonely forest or secluded glen?" Who can believe that he is now sitting on the throne, the husband of Jocasta, and lord of Thebes? But a herdsman comes and unfolds the fatal truth that Edipus is the murderer, the assassin of his father and now the wedded husband of his own mother. In the agony of remorse the king deprives himself of sight-sinking into the depths of despair under the double weight of his two involuntary crimes of parricide and incest.

Here we see the irony of the situation in all its force. Not only is there the contrast between the apparent glory and happiness of Edipus, the exalted monarch and beloved husband, and his real wretchedness as an incestuous parricide; but we see that in his proclamation he unconsciously denounces himself, and that the pains

he takes to discover the author of the crime are the means by which he brings home that crime to himself. In the "Trachinia" we have another example of the irony of fate. When Nessus, in his attempt to carry off Dejaneira, received his deathwound from the arrow of Hercules, he gave her a subtle poison which he pretended would act as a philtre or love-charm, in case at any time she was in danger of losing the affections of her husband. Hercules, in one of his frequent absences from her while he followed his roving and Quixotic life, took a city in Euboea, and made captive the inhabitants. Amongst them was a royal princess, of whom the inconstant chieftain became enamoured, and he brought her in his train, intending to make her his wife. We suppose that bigamy was allowed in those days. The news reaches Dejaneira that Hercules is coming home, accompanied by her rival. She bethinks herself of the gift of Nessus; and dipping a festal robe in the poison, she sends it to Hercules, that he may wear it while he sacrifices to the gods in honour of his victory and as a thanksgiving for his safe return. In all the glory of his triumph, and by the side of his captive bride, he puts on the fatal dress, and dies in horrible torments. Dejaneira, finding that the robe which she had fondly imagined would inspire her husband with his former love for her had been the cause of his death, commits suicide, horrorstricken at the thought of her fatal mistake. Here we have the bitter contrast between semblance and reality. The moment of joy and triumph to Hercules is the moment of excruciating torture. The gift of a wife's affection is the messenger of death.

We write from memory, amidst the wild mountains of Switzerland, not having access to the article in

question, and, indeed, hardly to any books at all; but we believe that Bishop Thirlwall finds in the "Edipus at Colonus," the "Antigone," and the "Ajax," other instances of the irony of Sophocles. Our impression, however, is, that these illustrations are rather far-fetched, and more ingenious than real.

Let us pass from Sophocles to Shakespeare. It would be easy to quote from his plays many examples of the irony of fate; but we will content ourselves with citing the lines in which Wolsey, in "Henry VIII.," describes the irony of his own life, and, beginning with generalisation, ends with a melancholy application to himself:

"This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,

And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And when he thinks-good easy manfull surely

His greatness is a ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ven-
Like little wanton boys that swim on
tured,
bladders,

These many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown
pride
At length broke under me, and now has

left me,

Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream that must for ever hide

me."

In fiction we do not know a more terrible example of the irony of situation than that which is given by Victor Hugo in his 'Les Misérables.' There the convict, Jean Valjean, having escaped from the galleys, succeeds in elevating himself to the position of Mayor in a provincial town. He wins the respect and esteem of all the inhabitants, and is distinguished by his benevolence, his probity, and his justice. But he had in his flight taken a sum of money from a pas

senger on the highway, and another is falsely accused of the crime. Jean Valjean hears of this, and rather than that an innocent man should suffer, resolves to appear in the criminal court and avow himself guilty of the theft, with the certainty that his identity as an escaped forçat will be discovered, and he will be again consigned to the hulks. We think that the story of his journey to the assize town, and the mental conflict which he has to undergo, is one of the most thrilling narratives in the whole range of fiction; and the moment when he reveals himself in court, not as the upright magistrate but the condemned convict, strains the feelings of the reader to the most painful pitch of intensity. The depth of the fall is measured by the height of the former rise.

But we need not go to the drama and works of imagination to supply examples of the irony of fate. History is full of it, and human life is full of it. Sometimes it shows itself with terrific grandeur in the sudden crash of an empire, as on that fatal night in Babylon when "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand." Then and there, amidst the blaze of lights and sound of festive music, the mysterious handwriting came forth and proclaimed the doom which the sword of Darius the Median was already accomplishing in the streets of the devoted city. "In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain, and Darius the Median took the kingdom." Sometimes it assumes the form of slow wasting decay, which eats into the heart of Power, while all around seems smiling and secure. Such was the state of the Roman empire when the throne of the Cæsars was undermined by luxury and vice. The apparent prosperity

was only the prelude to the ruinous catastrophe. And the peculiar irony of the situation was, that the very strength of the despotism became the weakness and ruin of the State. A conspicuous example of this is seen in the fall of the First Napoleon. His victories were the cause of his overthrow. His neversatisfied ambition made him the enemy of every European kingdom, and at last forced on the coalition that destroyed him. The conqueror of Europe the ruler over the largest empire which the world had seen since the time of Charlemagnewas at last chained like Prometheus to a rock, and confined to the petty limits of a distant island in the Atlantic, and there condemned to "eat his life away."

There is also an irony of Nature. There is something pathetic in the thought that few things are more beautiful than a ruin. Those mouldering walls over whose mossgrown stones the ivy has thrown its mantle of green-those broken casements through which in olden times brave warriors and fair ladies looked, and where the wallflower, the foxglove, and the harebell shed their wild beauty, are more lovely now than when they were full of the motion of life, and stood in all their pride of feudal strength. For nature is covering decay with bloom and beauty, and adorning the sepulchre of the past with her sweetest flowers and her loveliest colours. And who has not felt in some moment of bitterness and sorrow, when his heart is bursting with grief, how pitiless seems the irony of Nature which almost mocks him with her joyousness, and makes him realise the sharpness of the contrast between his own misery and the laughing loveliness of stream and grove and mountain and meadow around him? It was this that inspired Burns with those touching lines—

"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary fu' o' care? Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,

That wantons thro' the flowering thorn: Thou minds me o' departed joys, Departed-never to return!"

We have often thought that there is irony in the fact that houses and villages cluster on the slopes and at the feet of Etna and Vesuvius. The grim mountains rear their bare crests aloft, and in their bosom sleeps the volcanic fire ready at any moment to burst forth and pour the destructive lava over the plain. But vegetation clothes the sides, and a carpet of flowers is spread around like garlands on the neck of a victim. Men and women pursue their rustic labours, and little children play all forgetful of the danger that lurks beneath their feet. It seems impossible to believe that such a scene of beauty and tranquillity may in an instant be changed to a blackened mass of ruin; and so they go on until the curl of dark smoke gives the signal for the earthquake shock and the awful burst of the volcano.

But the irony of human life is everywhere at home, in society, and in ourselves. The bloom on the cheek of that lovely girl, the delight and pride of the household, is not the bloom of health, but the hectic hue of consumption, which counterfeits its semblance.

Look at that troop of ballet-dancers, with their bright dresses and glittering spangles and joyous movements, and follow one of them, when she has gone through the labours of the night in an applauding theatre, to her poverty-stricken home. The pittance she earns is hardly sufficient to buy food for her mother and sisters, who, in their threadbare apparel and badlyfurnished room, have to fight the

grim battle of life against want and hunger.

But a still sadder case of irony is that of some poor wanderer of the night who shivers in the cold air beneath her thin dress of gaudy silk, and affects a desperate gaiety to attract the notice of those "who force from famine the caress of love." "But the pity of it, Iago; oh, the pity of it!"

That youthful politician whose position in the House of Commons, as the member for a popular constituency, is the envy of his associates, is perhaps devoured by the pangs of dissatisfied ambition, and full of wrath against the Minister who has not appreciated his merits. This is irony indeed.

Then there is the irony of married life. We do not speak of an open breach of the marriage vow, although this often falls, like a thunderbolt in a serene sky, upon the unsuspecting wife or husband; nor yet of the false position of him or her, who, although tortured by jealousy, is unable to discard affection; "who doubts, yet doats; suspects, yet strongly loves." But dissimilarity of tastes or incompatibility of temper may make home a misery, while, to society and the world, all there seems to be the sunshine of happiness. Who would suspect that the smiling couple so affable and gracious in mixed company, pass many of their hours when alone together in sulky silence or mutual reproaches? The conventional mask is there thrown off, and the real features are seen, which are anything but pleasant. Sir John and Lady Teasewell lead a cat-and-dog life at home, although they appear like two turtle - doves abroad. We once knew the case of a husband and wife who lived in the same house for years as completely separated as if they had been miles asunder. They had