And that every living being can and should say of his or her own individual soul. To continue :"Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure! She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure; Her audit, though delay'd. answer'd must be, And her quietus is to render thee."

As illustrations of this last and most powerful promise of immortality we have at the conclusion of the fifty-fifth sonnet

"Your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity, That wear this world out to the ending doom: So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this and dwell in lover's eyes,"and from Lear

"O ruin'd piece of nature, this great world

Shall so wear out to nought,"

i.e., the final separation, so far as this world is concerned, of nature and her mirror, the human soul.

Having said thus much of one sonnet, whose meaning is unfathomably deeper than words can express, it would be unwise to leave the subject of the sonnets here without bringing forward further proofs of their utter spirituality, of their originality, and of their purport.

Of its perfect spirituality the whole poem is itself a proof; but as quotations are necessary to confirm that assertion, we can take first, as a selection from many equally conclusive, Sonnets xxxix. and lxxiv. :

"Oh, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give

That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone," &c.

The whole of this sonnet, carefully read, will throw immediate light on much which seems obscure, especially on that one thing indispensabie to a perfect understanding of the sonnets, the clearly seeing that Shakspeare and another are one and the same, even as the genius of Shakspeare and the minds or souls of those who appreciate or are receptive of that genius are one and the same, now and henceforth, to the end. Sonnet lxxiv. will be best given in its entirety; but, if possible, the preceding verse lxxiii. should be read first, which, I take it, represents Shakspeare at about forty years of age. It concludes with

"This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long."
"But be contented: when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee.
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me :
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead;

The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains." The worth of Shakspeare's body was his soul; and of that soul this sonnet-poem was the representative. No other rendering than this is possible to reason; but what a volume of psychological philosophy is contained in these two verses!

With regard to the originality of the sonnets, and Shakspeare's belief that they had no counterpart in literature, Sonnet lix. is all in all sufficient : "If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burthen of a former child! Oh, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done ! Then might I see what the old world would say To this composed wonder of your frame," &c. Had the Farnese Hercules, or Apollo himself, been walking London in the flesh at that time, the brains of the poet, "labouring for invention," would have had nothing to do with either advent. "This composed wonder of your frame" refers solely to this sonnet-poem, as the body or incarnation of mind and heart-the separate portrayal of that genius which produced his plays, the mirror and epitome of human nature, “not for an age, but for all time."

The sonnets are the intellectual life of Shakspeare told under two forms of material love. They are a defence of poetry and of the stage. They are an ever-living acknowledgment left by him to the world, and to the spirit of the world, of the "great gift" that had been accorded him; that genius which by his plays might have been lost, and of whose exceeding worth he was well and thoroughly assured.

66

From the time of their first conception they were intended to extend over the period of his maturity or prime, and hence his choice of the sonnet, which some one defines as a long poem in fourteen lines, or an epic in little," as the form of verse most suitable to his purpose. Each one would stand finished in itself. Any length of time could elapse between their composition, and the whole could be arranged in its integrity when the hour of its completion had arrived.

R. H. LEGIS.

"THE BERKSHIRE LADY."

In vol. cvi. of the Quarterly Review, pp. 205245, a very interesting article appeared, in 1859, under the title "Berkshire." The writer introduced, at p. 231, "a beautiful Miss Kendrick, a young lady who had a will and a way of her own, and was skilled in embroidery, the use of the small sword, and other accomplishments of the

period." She was the daughter of Sir William Kendrick, the second baronet, his father, of the same name, having been created a baronet by Charles II. She was afterwards known as "the

Berkshire Lady," and was the subject of a ballad under that name, which represented her as an heiress in the enjoyment of five thousand a year, a large landed fortune for a young lady at that period.

"Many noble persons courted

This young lady, 'tis reported;
But their labour proved in vain,
They could not her love obtain.

Being at a noble wedding

In the famous town of Reading,
A young gentleman she saw,
Who belonged to the law."

The article in the Review then proceeds to state that

"this young gentleman was one Benjamin Child, a strapping and probably briefless barrister on the circuit, some say an attorney, who was pleased to enjoy a wedding feast and accompanying flirtations, little thinking what was in store for him, for the lady goes home, and writes him a challenge to mortal combat, naming Calcot Park as the place of meeting. Child, though much astonished, goes to the rendezvous with a friend, where they find a masked lady, who informs him that

she is the challenger."

The incident from which the lady acquired celebrity is believed to have occurred in the reign of Queen Anne, and the gentleman is reported to have been the son of a brewer at Abingdon. The ballad then proceeds :

"He shall not in the least discover
That I am a wounded lover
By the challenge which I send;
But for justice I contend!
He has caused sad distraction,
And I will have satisfaction;
Which if he denies to give,
One of us shall cease to live!

Having thus her mind revealed,
She a letter signed and sealed;
In the letter she conjured him
Her to meet, and well assured him
Recompense he must afford,
Or dispute it with his sword.

Having read this strange relation,
He was in a consternation;
But, advising with a friend,
He persuades him to attend :
Be of courage, and make ready,
Faint heart never won fair lady."

Lady in a mask :—

"It was I that did invite you,
You shall wed me, or I'll fight you.

You shall find I do not waver,
For here is a trusty rapier;
So now take your choice, said she,
Either fight or marry me !"

The lawyer, acting under the following advice of his friend, ultimately surrendered to the heroine, and she became his bride :

"If my judgment may be trusted,

Wed her, man, you can't be worsted;
If she's rich, you rise to fame;
If she's poor, you are the same !"

The ballad winds up as follows:-
"Now he's clothed in rich attire,
Not inferior to a squire;
Beauty, honour, riches, store,
What can man desire more?"

A local tradition points out the scene of this encounter and romantic courtship in Calcot Park, now the seat of John Henry Blagrave, Esq., recently High Sheriff of Berks, J.P., and Deputy Lieutenant of the royal county. The line in the ballad,

"Faint heart never won fair lady," has become a proverb, and was adopted as the Vestris at the Olympic, in which she performed the name of a petite comédie, brought out by Madame fair lady, and it has been frequently revived.

its Environs, by W. Fletcher, published in that In A Tour round Reading: being a Guide to town, we find it stated, at p. 133, that

6

"in 1820 the entrance to Kendricks' vault, in St. Mary's Church, Reading, gave way. Upon inspection of the interior, amongst the numerous lead coffins was one bearing the inscription, Frances Child, wife of Benjamin Child, of Calcot, first daughter of Sir W. Kendrick, died 1722, aged 35.' This no doubt is the coffin of the subject of the ballad. It is of singular construction, being moulded to the form of the body, even to the lineaments of the face. Mr. Child was the last person interred in this vault. His coffin, which was in good preservation, bears the date of 1767, and was of unusually large dimensions."

We learn from the same author that

"there are several stories current respecting Mr. Child. One in particular relates his great fondness for oysters, of which he was in the habit of consuming large quantities; in fact, he is said to have kept a museum of the tubs emptied by him, for one room in Calcot House was fitted round with shelves, upon which they were arranged in regular order. It was his humour to show his friends this unique arrangement as a convincing proof of his capabilities in that particular branch of good living. Another story relates that upon the death of Mrs. Child (the Berkshire Lady) Calcot became unbearable to him; whereupon he sold it. But singular to relate, nothing could induce him to quit the house; and the new proprietor only obtained possession by rendering it untenable to him, unroofing to effect that object. Mr. Child then retired to a small cottage in an adjoining wood, where, it is said, he spent the remainder of his days in quiet retirement."-Pp. 132-3.

According to the youthful translator's preface, the original has much chaff (Spreu) in it, but also some corn that is worth transplanting into German soil, which he therefore condescends to extract, warning his readers, however, that the book is not for the learned, but only for such as wish to entertain themselves with a little knowledge. The extracts so put together entirely lose their epistolary character, though the translator keeps up the name. Thus White's first six letters to Pennant are condensed by Meyer into his "Erster Brief," while the last and "Vierzehnter Brief" is compounded of part of White's fifty-eighth to Barrington, with a single paragraph from his next, and the final paragraph of the whole Nat. Hist. Selb. The translation is not very accurate, and the editor's remarks are inserted in the text, between brackets, often with a sneer.

*1795. A | Naturalist's Calendar, | with | Observations in various branches of Natural History; | extracted from the papers of the late Rev. Gilbert White, M.A. of Selborne, Hampshire, | Senior Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Never before published. London : | printed for B. and J. White, Horace's Head, Fleet

Street. 1795. 8vo. pp. 176.

This was edited by Aikin, who signs the " Advertisement." The text begins at p. 7; to face p. 65 is the coloured plate of "A Hybrid Bird," afterwards reproduced in the edition of the Nat. Hist. of 1802, as in one form or another have been all the contents of this little volume by subsequent editors.

*1834. Gleanings in Natural History. | Second Series. To which are added some extracts from the unpublished MSS. of the late Mr. White, of Selborne. | By Edward Jesse, Esq., | Surveyor of His Majesty's Parks, Palaces, &c. | London: | John Murray, Albemarle Street MDCCCXXXIV.

The portion relating to White begins at p. 144, where a fac-simile copy (already mentioned under Mr. Harting's edition) of a page of his journal is introduced, and his "Miscellaneous Observations" extend from p. 147 to p. 210. It is not stated how Jesse acquired the original MSS.

by the Rev. H. P. Marsham, and Prof. Bell, September 28th, 1875, and March 1st, 1876 (Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, vol. ii. pp. 133

195).

[Cf. "N. & Q.," 5th S. vi. 280.] Ten hitherto unpublished letters are here printed from the originals in Mr. H. P. Marsham's possession. Two more of the series (dated, as appears from his correspondent's replies, Oct. 12, 1790, and June 8, 1791) are missing. The "Introductory Note" is signed "T. S." (Southwell), and foot-notes are added by "J. E. H." (Harting) and "A. N." (Alfred Newton). ALFRED NEWTON.

Magdalene College, Cambridge.

TENNYSONIANA.-There is a coincidence that has often struck me, though I do not remember to have seen it noted, between the Laureate's beautiful lyric, Home they brought her Warrior dead, and canto i. st. 9 of Scott's Lay of the Last | Minstrel:

"O'er her warrior's bloody bier

The Ladye dropp'd nor flower nor tear!
Until, amid his sorrowing clan,

Her son lisped from the nurse's knee'And if I live to be a man,

My father's death revenged shall be !' Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek." Another parallel may be quoted between the lines in the Swallow Song, Princess, iv. 84— "O were I thou that she might take me in,

And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died,"— and a passage in that favourite volume of Early English students, Harl. MS. 2253, fol. 67, where the love-lorn swain sings:

"Ich wolde ich were a threstelcock,
A bounting other a lauercok

Swete bird, bituene her curtil & hire smok
I sholde ben hyd."

The opinion of Tennyson's Northern Farmer (new style), that

given me in 1873 by the late Thornton Hunt, I find a small bundle of articles cut out of the New Monthly Magazine for 1824 and succeeding years.