and the family reunited for ever, the pathetic partings of our short human life are annihilated. The colours of passion grow pale before the everlasting light of heaven. The poet who writes thus, undoes his own work: he seems to turn round on us, like Prospero, in the "Tempest," at the winding up of the masque, and say, "Time after all is nothing before eternity." Yet the "Graves" is not only one of the best pieces of English poetry by a female hand, but has been unconsciously recognised as such mainly because it is more free than most from the weight of too much moralization. I will add one or two specimens more, with contrasting pictures in which the law that poetry is above all things to give us noble pleasure through perfect form, and not make teaching its obvious end,-in a word, that it must observe the commands of art, first and foremost,-seems to me more accurately kept: adding first, in sequence to the poem just quoted, a somewhat similar piece from a poet who has certainly shown no unreadiness, in due place-because in his In Memoriam they are the actual subject-matter of the poem-to deal with the images of the other world.

Home they brought her warrior dead :
She nor swoon'd nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her knee-
Like summer tempest came her tears-
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."

This is a far slighter sketch than that of Mrs. Hemans, yet how effective it is, by the very reason that it aims at so much smaller an effect! It keeps its limits: it observes moderation. I leave comment on the remaining examples to my readers.

Oh! Skylark, for thy wing!
Thou bird of joy and light,
That I might soar and sing

At heaven's empyreal height;
With the heathery hills beneath me,"
Whence the streams in glory spring,
And the pearly clouds to wreathe me,
O Skylark! on thy wing.
Free, free, from earth-born fear,

I would range the blesséd skies,
Through the blue divinely clear

Where the low mists cannot rise! And a thousand joyous measures

From my chainless heart should spring, Like the bright rain's vernal treasures, As I wander'd on thy wing. But oh! the silver cords

That around the heart are spun,
From gentle tones and words,

And kind eyes that make our sun!
To some low, sweet nest returning,
How soon my love would bring
There, there, the dews of morning,
O Skylark! on thy wing.

Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?

Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground! Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond

Mount, daring warbler! that loveprompted strain— "Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bondThrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet mightst thou seem, proud privilege! to sing

All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine, Whence thou dost pour upon the world a

flood

Still I trust the signs which tell On thy life a light shall dwell, Light-thy gentle spirit's own, From within around thee thrown.

To A YOUNG LADY

Sweet stream, that winds through yonder
glade-

Apt emblem of a virtuous maid—
Silent and chaste she steals along,
Far from the world's gay busy throng:
With gentle yet prevailing force
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does,
Blessing and blest where'er she goes;
Pure-bosom'd as that watery glass,
And heaven reflected in her face.

Finally, and that we may close with pure pleasure unalloyed by the ungrateful though salutary and instructive lessons of comparison, let me add two great poems-great with all their brevity, each in its style so high and perfect that they stand unmistakeably on the list of masterpieces: observing in Lady Ann Lindsay's how severely she has maintained the sadness of truth in an imaginative tale; in Cowper's how the same exquisite and admirable veracity has restrained him equally from glossing over by words of comfort the tragedy with which "an owre true tale" supplied him.

LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE
Toll for the Brave!

The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore!
Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel

And laid her on her side.
A land-breeze shook the shrouds
And she was overset ;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!

Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought,
His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak,
She ran upon no rock.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.

-Weigh the vessel up,

Once dreaded by our foes!

I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;

And why was I born to say, Wae's me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin ; I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;

But I'll do my best a gude wife aye to be, For Auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me.

III

I will now try to draw together the threads of this long web; though, I fear, not such a work of art as that spun by the female fingers of Arachne. If the main argument be correct, that, after centuries of more or less continuous attempt, the success of women in the four Fine Arts treated of has been limited and imperfect, shall we ascribe this mainly to obstacles which can and should be, or to obstacles which should not and cannot be removed? we are examining a law of Nature or a law of man-man emphatically?

Is what

I would not have the presumption to affirm that this may not ultimately prove a law of Nature. Such a judgment would, in truth, be especially presumptuous where the net result of the inquiry is, that woman having never yet been either treated or tried as on an intellectual, imaginative, or spiritual equality with man, the first condition of a sound comparison is wanting. What I here contend is that, whether we take the external or inward prerequisites and circumstances of success, women have been hitherto debarred from them by the deficient education they receive themselves, and, to speak honestly, by the contemptuous treatment in regard to these matters which they receive at the hands of men.

Putting aside minor hindrances, and minor objections (more especially and scornfully each and all of those objections which belong to the gallantry, learned lady, and other ornamental or ball-room species), I am bound to meet the following, which may be urged against the above conclusions.

The first argument I notice will be one already slightly treated of-that women have other, as lofty but differ

ent, functions. So far as this does not beg the whole question (in which point it is directly at variance with the fact of the number who have attempted the pursuits before us), it has been met by my former statement, that we are not to expect a positively equal number of female aspirants. All claimed is, an equal comparative number of eminent

successes.

The next argument touches, not upon the special studies needful to follow any art or profession, but on the general place assigned to education strictly so called, in bringing out and forming the mind. It may be stated thus: That the commonsense of mankind, in fixing the close of a girl's education three or four years before that of a youth, has not only rightly taken the measure of her understanding, but properly leaves the rest of her training to be given by the school of experience, which is superior to all the schoolrooms in Europe.

So far as study proper is here opposed to practical experience, the point need not be discussed. not be discussed. That experience will always come in its degree, and whether a little sooner or later is of small importance. Indeed, and except in cases where a profession by men, or the married state by women, has been entered early, practical experience can rarely be active before one or two and twenty. The poet or painter then has his share with the rest of mankind, and it has been already noticed, how far success in the Fine Arts, whether male or female, is affected by it.

Had the training of either men or women, or indeed the conduct of their lives in general, been really settled and governed by a true common sense, there would be another world than that we know of, and one in which, inter alia, essays on education would be unnecessary. To call the custom or rule which closes a girl's studies at seventeen "common sense," is only to evade argument by a "foregone conclusion." Those who maintain that her brains are not capable of more make just such an assumption as those who should forbid a boy to learn swimming on the ground that it

is impossible to swim. Those, on the other hand, who rate the girl's mental quickness so high, that by that age she will, they say, have equalled the boy four years older, appear to me to confuse the readiness gained by going out into the world with the readiness of a well-cultivated mind. If a boy of seventeen be treated as a mere boy, but a girl of seventeen as an "ornament to society," she will of course exhibit a superior quickness; but this will be gained at the expense of her mental power. It is a forced flower against a natural blossoming. Besides, as before remarked, the assumption is untrue in fact. The young girl is no more really capable of mastering serious studies than her contemporary. But an additional hardship, perhaps equally injurious, has also arisen from the arbitrary limitation of the time permitted for self-improvement. She does not even start fair with the boy of her own age. If his training be broken off, he may at least have learned thoroughly what he has learned. He has obtained foundations on which he may afterward resume his studies. But his sister's whole course of intellectual work has been crammed into the space allowed him to begin his. He has learned only the formal grammar and vocabulary, for instance, of a foreign language during the years allotted her to master the language, and some of the literature also. She has, further, been compelled to set her mind to this arduous labour at an age when she can rarely have reached the power of heartily enjoying her studies; for she is to be out of the schoolroom during the years when she would have worked to ten-fold profit, and with ten-fold ease, through growing ability to take pleasure in the work, to see it in relation to present life, and to other studies: and know, in a word, where it is taking her. What injustice is here! If the mind, when young, be mainly developed and improved by experience of other and stronger minds, and if nineteen-twentieths of this experience, during youth, comes, and can come, only through sheer study and intercourse with older minds already so trained-truths which it

would be out of place here to demonstrate-women have not yet had a fair chance.

But here it will be urged, that the case is, at any rate, exaggerated; for that a fair number of women, including undoubtedly the majority of those who have distinguished themselves in any of the Fine Arts, have actually obtained, or have given themselves, thorough education. So far as this statement is correct in regard to those so distinguished, it, of course, supports my main argument. It is clear at least that the women have themselves thought a complete training advantageous. Nor is it denied that these exceptions exist; and, in general, to the very great and visible gain of the individuals in all the relations of their lives. But, with reference to success in poetry or painting, it may be strongly questioned whether the simple fact that this thorough (to take Lord Strafford's expressive word), was exceptional, did not of itself undo much of its improving or fertilizing power. Genius is delicate in its operations: it works best when following the most quiet ways. Everything that tends to take its possessorrather say, him or her who is possessed by it-out of the common path, especially during the period of his own. growth and training, disturbs its balance. Nor can such an education, after the very best efforts (and women, in all spheres of life, have been eminent in making them), equal-it cannot even nearly reach-that which is not exceptionally given. Besides a want in depth and force, it wants that which is most encouraging to the energies of the soul, the spur of knowing that it has a thousand rivals. It is also without the support needful for encouragement to undergo the great labour and pain inseparable from any work of thought,a knowledge that the way has been trodden by hundreds of thousands before us. There is no greater bar to the course of originality than an exceptional position.

Somewhat the same line of argument applies to that absence of a true judgment from the world at large (in which I include women, who copy men on

this point), spoken of as only next in force to deficient education in retarding female success. Men often pretend to judge women's work as they occasionally do their own. I put it to the conscience of my readers whether this be not a pretence. The inevitable flourish always comes in, and compliment supplants criticism. This takes away another of the essential spurs to excellence-that without which even Milton, the most self-centred and proudly independent of poets, could not write-the "fit audience, though few."

But

The last argument refers to a wider and a more difficult subject. For it may be naturally said that, after all, even allowing the views here taken on the general effect of education, and the limited, forcing-house quality of that allotted to women, genius in art is matter of nature, and that art itself is not amenable to rules or susceptible of education. There is a sense in which all this is true. But that sense does not affect my argument. It is possible that the answer to the whole may lie in the fact that nature does not give genius of this kind to women. there is another sense, in which we may say that all that nature gives is useless, if it be not cultivated and worked carefully out. The poet is born; but, like every other human creature, he is born to grow from infancy to strength. Now the whole history of every art shows that this growth can only be effected through education in the strict sense. Almost uniformly, poets have been men highly and completely educated. Take a list of English poets -Chaucer, Lydgate, Surrey, Wyatt, Spenser, Cowley, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Collins, Gray, Cowper, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth

all amongst the most cultivated, as well as the most gifted men of their day. Against these may be doubtfully and imperfectly set, as exceptions, Keats, Burns, and possibly, though not probably, that greatest poet, of whose life we practically know little more than of Homer's -Shakespeare, the always exceptional ! If I enumerated the Hellenic and the Latin poets, or those of modern Europe,

Man, or woman either, can only reach the level which the gift of God marks out for them; in that sense original genius is everything; "only a great mind can produce great work." But, when it is once seen that the rule which renders all the Fine Arts simply the exponents and equivalents of mental force is absolute; that the hand is here simply the measure of the head: everything is granted which the strongest advocate of training, as above defined, can require, including Locke himself, who, in words which it is much easier to evade than to disprove, assigned nine-tenths of what we are to education. Should any one prefer to speak of all the circumstances of education, internal or external, as secondary in comparison of the original vital force, or God-given genius, the metaphor may be conceded willingly. But, as regards our argument, it is a barren concession. As human creatures, all we can practically deal with to useful ends is that part of our nature which we can ourselves influence. Until these influences have been fully, honestly, and perseveringly tried (for man's education, such as it is, has been the growth, not of years, but of centuries), it is idle and evasive to attempt a decision, whether the genius and gift allotted to the highest of one sex may not be equally implanted in the other. Before pronouncing that man, in these respects, necessarily excels woman, woman must be treated on an equality with man. Meanwhile, however, we are perhaps authorized by experience to draw two inferences in a provisional way, regarding female success in Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and Music. One