force; but it is easy to give order to staple manufactures in Mahon as in the others, in spite of the jungle of Majorca. The cobbler looks up from flowers, bramble, and rye-grass which his work for a moment at the sound of envelops them. Very interesting and a strange step on the very rough stones suggestive here is the rude highway which pave the streets; but he has not through the brake of vegetation still enough curiosity in him to follow the indicated by the monoliths. A brace wayfarer with his eyes for more than a of stones, each about five feet and a moment. Another industry merits nohalf in height, stand like gate-posts tice: this is the arrangement of shells in front of the entrance chamber of and seaweed in fancy forms, such as one of the talayots; and at the base ships, boxes, bouquets, and the like. of one of these monoliths my friend It would seem a species of labor likely and I discovered, deep embedded, a to be better rewarded at Ramsgate or basin of stone for all the world like a Ilfracombe than in Mahon. There is, piscina, about a foot in diameter. We hit upon it by chance. What purpose it may have served, we could not of course tell. however, a certain demand for these pretty trifles from the British sailors when the fleet calls here. When we had been four days in Minorca, we felt that we knew the island as well almost as the oldest inhabitant. It is but twenty-eight miles long by about ten broad, and easy of access everywhere. Word was then brought us of a steamer likely to set off for Palma on the fifth day. Without delay, we offered ourselves as passengers; and so duly the shores of the little island receded from us as the grey mountains of Majorca grew clearer. There was a lusty gale again, and a sea in which we tossed somewhat rudely. But eight hours sufficed to carry us across the strait, and enabled us to set foot once more on the much livelier strand of Palma. The talayots apart, there is not much to say about Minorca. The town of Mahon is humdrum and rather pretentious. Its four-storied red houses seem to date from the same epoch which saw the rise of the Bloomsbury district of London. I dare say the same architects, or their pupils, had a hand in both achievements. The town deserves some praise for its hotels, in which you may live satisfactorily for about four shillings a day. This includes wine and also certain of those nice little biscuits which in Spain are known generically as "Minorquin pastry." No doubt, thanks to the tradition of British occupation at least we will take leave to fancy so cleanliness is in much es- The entire population of Minorca is teem here. only about thirty-five thousand, whereas Boots and shoes appear to be the Palma alone has nearly twice as many. ration available to the confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son Jesus Christ effectual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me by thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ, Amen." Fifth Series, Volume LXXXIII. } No. 2566.-September 9, 1893. From Beginning CONTENTS. I. THE RELIGion of Letters, 1750-1850, . Blackwood's Magazine, Hesketh J. Bell, III. A TALE OF TWO STUDIOS, IV. THE LIVES AND AMERICAN BIRDS. By John Worth, V. THE WANDERINGS OF THE NORTH VI. DISCIPLINE. By Roy Tellet, TO DO, For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. OFF TRIPOLI: THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1893. and swell, Of the foemen on the left and on the right; With brave rescue from the wreck, Thund'ring for us their glorious funeral And wild cheering on the deck, knell : Our hearts are torn and rent with anguish To give her of their best, and woeful well Kept they their promise. We may not rebel While England mourns them and her seas For our navy is the pride Of that sea without a tide, That Britannia had not parted with her Be such glory what it may, That these shall not lose their guerdon Though they died without a blow: And our land shall shrine their memory For the man who, in the host, "It is finished" may triumphantly ex- There is grief for me and you : Happy future, as was honor in the past! Though his sailors cannot battle with the For, the pilot of all seas, He will welcome souls like these, And shall guide them to fair haven land at last! Academy. ROBERT BROWN, JUN. JUNE 22, 1893. "All then precipitated themselves into the sea, with the exception of Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, who remained alone on the bridge." — (The Times, June 27.) And our home is on the deep amid the LET England mourn for him who met his On the gallant flagship came, Quick as stroke of lightning-flame Or the giant rush of tempest, such a blow That, her harness rent, she bowed; And, a mighty iron shroud, death Steadfast to duty, all unconsciously soul, Shrined in a noble frame, had conquered fear. Let England grieve for these her gallant sons Untimely gone, and grieve with them who weep With her admiral and crew she sank be- A loss irreparable with bitter tears. low! Do you deem they should have died On a fierce and reddened tide, In the fury and the glory of the fight? With the ensign shot to rags, From Blackwood's Magazine. THE RELIGION OF LETTERS, 1750-1850. WHEN We seek to understand what may be called the spirit of any age in matters of religion, it is not in the sayings and writings of professed theologians and divines, and still less in the utterances of religious disputants and leaders of parties, that we shall most surely discern it, but rather in the attitude of mind of thoughtful men outside the arena of controversy men of letters perhaps, but men of diverse interests and varied aims, who have no personal ends to be served, no wavering disciples to conciliate, no law of edification to be observed. and fiction, and selecting some familiar gone age. It is true that those who for practical tiquated dress, recalls the manners and purposes are most opposed to one an-transports us into the society of a byother have frequently most in common. Times of great religious disturbance are fruitful in instances of men who would have sent one another to the stake as the almost necessary expression of an equally fervent faith and an equally deep-seated intolerance — conscience striking, as it were, the same note, though on minds of different metal. Nevertheless it is true that the temper of the religious enthusiast is that of a protest and a revolt, and it cannot be regarded as a reliable interpretation of the spirit of his times. If the history of a nation is found in its national songs, the history of its religion is written in no misleading character in dialogue and anecdote, in epistolary literature, in poetry and fiction. In 1760-80 Methodism had not spent its first fervor. Wesley was preaching up and down the country, and Newton and Cowper were writing their hymns at Olney. It was a flame, however, which, like a hearth fire, spread most rapidly in the open; it leapt from hamlet to hamlet, it was kindled in the hearts of cottagers and artisans. But though here and there this new religion numbered the rich and influential amongst its converts, it was for the most part despised or distrusted by the more highly educated members of the community; it affronted the orthodoxy of a political episcopate, and scandalized the sober-minded Anglicanism of the day. Evangelicalism within the At this end of the nineteenth cen- Church was as yet confined to a small tury, when religious activities are ab- minority, and the prevalent religion sorbing men's minds, and to some was that of cushioned pews, didactic extent usurping the place of contem- discourses, and comfortable divines; plative piety, it may not be uninterest- for the most part too well content with ing to cast our eyes back to a period this present world to awaken any ennot as yet too far removed from our thusiasm demanding personal and prob own- to the days of Dr. Johnson and ably inconvenient sacrifices. Of many Goldsmith, of the Coleridges and of the parochial clergy Crabbe proba→ Charles Lamb, of Wordsworth and Southey, of De Quincey and Miss Austen, a period beginning with the publication of the first portion of "The Rambler" in 1750, and ending in the religious and literary revolutions of the early decades of this present century. Glancing at some pages of biography bly drew a faithful portrait when he wrote of his "vicar :" Mild were his doctrines, and not one dis course But gained in softness what it lost in force. It sprang from innovation; it was then Sir Walter Scott, that magician of the past, was indeed, at the opening of the nineteenth century, to fire the imagination of the young by his vivid presentations of a bygone faith; but though no writer has more forcibly portrayed the temper of the religious enthusiast, and the powerful influence which passionate self-sacrificing devotion to a creed may exercise upon the minds and fortunes of men, he was averse (almost to the point of intolerance) to any strong manifestation of religious feeling. "I have been always careful," he writes in his diary, "to place my mind in the most tranquil posture it can assume during my private exercises of devotion." He purposely refrained from indulging his imagination on spiritual subjects, and his religion has been described as cold and conventional, but it was of a nature which could well withstand the repeated strokes of adversity. It triumphed alike over bodily weakness and failing mental powers, and found its truest expression in his last conscious words of leave-taking to Lockhart. "My dear, be a good man, be virtuous, be religious, be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." land went so far as to wish to discover painted glass and cobwebs; but such anticipations were naturally doomed to disappointment at a time when an old oak chest was the only relic of antiquity allowed within the house, and that had been put away in a corner of the spare bedroom. Mediævalism, whether in architecture or religion, had given way to a desire for utility and convenience. Whitewash had done its work both literally and metaphorically. A sense of propriety restrained religious impulses, and the Methodist revival was condemned by contemporary divines writing from the precincts of rectories and orthodoxy, as a "spiritual influenza" which could not but be repugnant to all reasonable persons. We may well feel sure, as we turn over the voluminous pages of these longforgotten sermons, that they were in no danger of catching the complaint. It was a common belief, not uncharacteristic of the times, that poor Cowper was driven mad by too much religion; whereas, to those who knew him best, it was evident that it was to the consolations of religion alone he owed his intervals of peace and sanity. But a life spent in good works, in prayer and psalm-singing, would not improbably strike an unawakened conscience as inconsistent with the rational occupations of an educated man. Hannah More, whom we are perhaps In his romances he had painted rather too apt to think of merely as a Catholicism in some of its attractive writer of tracts and a Sunday-school aspects, but it was with the pencil of teacher, was at first almost as much the artist, not the pen of the disciple, afraid of Methodism as if she had been and in his diary he expresses a hope a bishop. She was naturally fond of that unopposed the Catholic super- society, an agreeable woman, the friend stition may sink into dust." In Great of Johnson, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Britain, at least, it would have seemed and Sir Joshua Reynolds; and she benot impossible that his wish might began her literary career by writing vers fulfilled; so far as practical use was de société and dramas, brought out with concerned, it was as yet as much a success upon the stage under Garrick's thing of the past as the ruined abbeys supervision. It is true that, even in scattered about the country, or the those days, she had scruples as to foldiscarded suits of armor which had lowing some of the customs of the fashhung upon their walls. We find, it is ionable world. When there was to be true, that General Tilney talked of music on Sunday evening, Garrick preserving the Gothic forms of the called her "a Sunday woman," and windows in Northanger Abbey with advised her to retire to her room-he reverential care, and Catherine Mor-would recall her when the music was |