are wide apart, thoroughly original. They preserve throughout, the woman, -the lady, if you will-in all their illustrations.

Mrs. Jordan brought laughter, vivacity, and abounding spirit to the task; but because she was inimitable as Nell or incomparable as the Romp, it is not necessary to conclude that she brought in addition the manners of either of those lively personages. Mrs. Jordan had heart and tact, impulses and judgment to control them. Doubtless, her Rosalind was as different from that of Miss Helen Faucit or Mrs. Scott Siddons as the Rosalind of either of these ladies is unlike that of the other. Nothing can manifest more study, more excellent method, more delicate conception, more artistic execution than the Rosalind of both ladies, and yet they are altogether different. Miss Faucit's is a Rosalind that takes the serious side of the character: the doubts and fears predominate. She has anxious rather than tender aspirations. Her hopes are timidly rather than boldly conceived, and there is no assurance in her that all will end well. There is some dread, amid much playfulness, that all may come to an ill end. Mrs. Scott Siddons's Rosalind is of a different complexion altogether. She has, in the first place, that which her great-grandmother lacked,— archness; and yet her face has much of the feature and expression of her tragic ancestress, with whom archness was the last trait of character she could assume. The new Rosalind is a Rosalind full of courage. She has not only hope but confidence; love and a resolve to be loved. From the very first, with the chain she gives Orlando, you see that she binds him to her, herself to him, for good and aye! Clouds may come and she will sit in their shade, but she knows that there is a silver lining behind them. Death may threaten, and she may tremble a little, but "odds her little life," there is to be, after trial, much enjoyment before that debt is paid; meanwhile, her heart defics all obstacles that may stand between her and the triumph of her love. The study to produce what appeared so unstudied, so natural and so artless, must have been great, but the young actress is repaid by her success.

Saint and Sinner.

Ан, reverend sir, she has departed

To a realm more holy and single-hearted!
Draw the shroud from her face and gaze on her:
She looks alive with the red sun's rays on her.

Her hands are clasped on her bosom saintly,
Her cold red lips seem fluttering faintly;
So silent, with never a stain of sin on her,
That the light seems awed as it creepeth in on her.

Why do you shudder, reverend sir, so?

Your prayers and counsels, hallowing her so,

The sins of the flesh took, night and day, from herCover her up and come away from her.

Nay, sit a little and talk below here,

The breath can come, the blood can flow here.
Ah, sainted sir, your conversation

In a time so sore is a consolation.

Was she not fashion'd in holy mould, sir,
A shining light in your blessed fold, sir?

Took she not comfort and peace and grace with her,
And-shall 1 not meet in a better place with her?

If, after death, in the time of waking,

When the Trump is sounding, the new dawn breaking, We met, do you think my saint would rush away, Avoid me, fear me, fly with a blush away?

Must the gentle souls that have loved and plighted
And married below be above united ?

Is there a meeting and never a parting there?

Are old wrongs burning and old wounds smarting there?

Ah, reverend sir, you perceive so clearly
What racks poor sinners like me severely--

Pardon the silly fears which vex me so,

Expound the points which in life perplex me so.

For every Sunday that softly passes,
The scented, silken middle classes

Flutter their flounces and, good lack! are in
Joy at your feet, good Mr. Saccharine.

Cambric handkerchiefs scatter scent about,
Pomaded heads are devoutly bent about;
Silks are rustling, lips are muttering,
In the pastor's emotional pausing and fluttering.

What wonder that she who is far from here now,
Singing your tunes in another sphere now,
Became so saintly that earth grew vague to her,
Her sinning husband a clog and a plague to her?

And yearning for Love and the faith and the trust of it.
Hating the flesh (she had wed) and the lust of it,
Stole to the sheepfold, blushing and throbbing there,
Then fell on the breast of the shepherd, sobbing there!

?

Why do you turn so pale and look at me,
Casting the wrath of the blessed Book at me
Ah, reverend sir, be calm and stay with me,
I wander... my fancies run quite away with me.

Yet how can I thank you as you merit

For the light you shed on her blessed spirit

For the consolations and balmy blisses, too,

She found on your lips, and their cold chaste kisses too?

You covered her eyes with white hands blessing;
You hid her blush with your pure caressing,
And shut out earth and the fears that wait on it,-
The Sinner's face and the white-heat hate on it.

And I, the Sinner, to my degradation,
Dared to begrudge you her conversation:
Envied her love for the heaven you offer'd her,
Hated your face and the peace it proffer'd her!

Alas the folly, alas the blindness!

I did not bless you for your kindness!
But only cried with a heart the sternest then-
Best she should go to heaven in earnest then!

For at night she lay with soft lips fluttering,,
Dreaming of angels and faintly muttering,

And once or twice stirr'd in sleep, and alone to me,
Mentioned the name of an angel well known to me.

That angel stands high in the estimation

Of your silken and scented congregation;

And she murmured his name with her heart throbbing faint in her,

With a little more than the warmth of a saint in her!

And, sinner and slave that I am, I hated

A passion so holy and elevated :

And knowing her longing from earth to upspring away,
I poison'd the flesh-that the sweet soul might wing away.

And because, sir, I knew of your longing to fly, too,
My first thought was darkly, that you, sir, should die, too;
But I envied you death and the peace that doth dwell in it,
And kept you for earth and the hate and the hell in it.

I kept you for slower, intenser dying,

Than the sleep in whose bosom that lamb is lying;
Kept body and soul and the terrors that run in them,
To complete the perdition so aptly begun in them.

And, sainted sir, will you call, I wonder,
The hangman to come and tear us asunder?
I do not think you will dare to stir in it,

For the sake of your sweet pure name and the slur in it.

How the scented silken congregation

Would stare at the fearful insinuation

That the saintly shepherd who saved so many there
Was a sheep himself, and as rotten as any there!

But if you would prove me wholly in error,
Touch the bell and proclaim the terror...
Whether the terror be hidden or told of you,
I and the Devil have got fast hold of you!

485

Jottings from the Note-Book of an Endeveloped Collector.

PART II.

FEW manias take more entire possession of a man than that for rare and curious copies of old books, when it comes; and even to those who can feel no sympathy with the book-worm there are certain volumes which give a taste of the book-worm's pleasures, and a touch of his enthusiasm. What can be more suggestive, for instance, than the sight of the first book ever printed from moveable types, the Bible of Gutenberg and Fust, issued at Mayence about 1455? What a mighty engine, both for good and evil, has the press been since then? Whatever other objections there may be to it, there is no intrinsic improbability in the story that it was the strange supply of "manuscripts" at this time, all so precisely alike, which gave rise to the legend of the Devil and Dr. Faustus. The price, however, at which they were first sold must have been very considerable, since Van Praet tells us that Gutenberg had spent 4,000 florins before twelve sheets were printed.

Copies of this "Mazarine Bible," as it is called, because the example that first attracted notice in modern times was discovered in the library of Cardinal Mazarin, fetch very large prices. They are of two kinds-on vellum and on paper. Of those on vellum there are six examples known, of the others about twenty. The beautiful MacCarthy copy on vellum was sold for 6,260 francs; it afterwards passed into the noble collection of Mr. Grenville, who bequeathed it to the British Museum. Another example, with two leaves supplied in manuscript, sold, in 1825, for 5041. A copy on paper has, however, brought even a larger price than this-at the sale of the Bishop of Cashel, in 1858, where it fetched 5961. It was the Duke of Sussex's copy, and at his sale had been bought for 1901.

Earlier by several years than this first Bible are what are styled blockbooks. There is very little, if anything, to recommend them except their antiquity. Both the woodcuts and the text (they were almost always illustrated) are of the rudest description. As they are without date, it is impossible to arrange them chronologically, on anything like a satis factory plan; and how widely those who have studied the subject differ in their conclusions may be seen by comparing the ideas of Heinecken in 1771, with those of the recent work of Mr. Leigh Sotheby-Principia Typographica. There is little doubt that these block-books were origi nally produced in Holland and the Low Countries; and if we follow Mr. Sotheby, we shall place first on our list the Apocalypse of St. John, in Latin, to which the date A.D. 1415-20 may be assigned. The only known