66 his thoughts. At one time he enlisted in the militia, | at another he sojourned in the gipsies' tents under the rule of King Boswell. He tried by turns sheep-tending, cow-herding, threshing, gardening, farm labour, and lime-burning. For more than ten years he continued to compose in obscurity. At the end of that time Mr. Drury, a bookseller of Stamford, took Clare by the hand, and eventually succeeded in drawing the attention of his relative, Mr. John Taylor, of the firm of Taylor and Hessey, of Fleet Street, to the poems which had made a favourable impression on himself. Mr. Taylor's opinion was also favourable, and in January, 1820, he published a collection of sonnets under the title of Poems descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery.' The critics were loud in its praise. The "Gentleman's Magazine" led the van, and the "Quarterly "brought up the rear. This last review made the success of the book, and the author the lion of the day. A second edition was called for in a few days. "Rossini," says Mr. Martin, in his biography of Clare, "set one of his songs to music. Madame Vestris recited others before crowded audiences at Covent Garden, and the chief talk of London for the season was about the verses of the "Northamptonshire peasant." On the strength of the success of his first volume of poems Clare married Patty of the Vale," otherwise Martha Turner, the daughter of a cottage farmer. Soon after his marriage Clare went up to see the sights of London, and for a week attended a continual round of soirées, theatrical entertainments, and dinner parties, having on one occasion found himself in his smock-frock, leather gaiters, and brigand mantle, sitting at the right hand of the Right Honourable Lord Radstock, son of an earl. Clare was destined to know the troubles as well as the delights of authorship. Through the injudiciousness of some of his friends, his poverty was paraded to the world, and alms, to Clare's great annoyance, were demanded in his name. Instead of putting him in the way of earning by his pen, and otherwise, an honourable maintenance for himself and family, his friends pauperized him. They gave him money, but reminded him that the poor-rates were in existence. Clare made a fierce resistance, and injured himself in the opinion of many of his friends, who mistook honest independence for ingratitude. An annuity was settled upon him-the interest of 4201. 12s. -which, with the sums granted by the Marquis of Exeter and the Earl of Spencer, resulted in rather more than seventeen shillings a week. It was more than he had ever earned, and, if well managed, might have kept gaunt poverty from the door. But unfortunately," says Mr. Martin, "this was not the case, and the very aid intended to smoothen his road through life led, almost directly, to his ruin.” 66 In September, 1821, Clare published "The Village Minstrel," and paid his second visit to London, where he again mixed in the society of the literary magnates of the day. The new volume was coldly received, though its merits were adjudged by a few discerning minds to be higher than the former one. Some ac counted for the fact by the high price; others, by the book market being overstocked, and by that year having produced such notable works as "Kenilworth Castle,' "Marino Faliero," the "Vision of Judgment," and "Prometheus." Others, again, considered that the loud demands that had been made upon the public for pecuniary assistance had ruined Clare's name with the public. The disappointment respecting "The Village Minstrel," his failure to get the management of his money into his own hands, and his increasing incapacity to provide for the mouths dependent upon him, brought on a serious illness. He kept his troubles to himself, supplied his parents, his wife and children, with their usual food, and often, under pretence of business, absented himself from the table at meal-times, satisfying his own hunger with a piece of dry bread. In 1827 Clare gave to the world the "Shepherd's Calendar," and in 1835 his Rural Muse." Each work surpassed its predecessor; yet while the first went through four editions, the second two, the third and the last were entirely overlooked. Clare wrote on many subjects. The changing year supplied him with material in abundance, as did also the verities of the Christian faith. We find amongst his writings sonnets on the Psalms, on the Epiphany, on the Circumcision. Spring-time was a great joy to him. We subjoin his First Sight of Spring," and one or two others: 66 The hazel-blooms, in threads of crimson hue, THE BACKWARD SPRING. Then come out, my charmer, And bring summer on. Thy beauty is gleaming So sweetly to see, I thought in some quarrel For the snow 'neath the hedges The flower's on the hawthorn, And the blackbird is building SONNET ON CHRISTIAN FAITH. In 1837 Clare's mind gave way. His reason se cumbed under the manifold burdens of poverty, sick ness, and disappointment. On the 16th of July he was placed at Dr. Allen's Private Lunatic Asylum at Fair Mead House, High Beech, Essex. In this retreate and notwithstanding the derangement of his mind Clare wrote some beautiful poems. It seems to have been his full persuasion at this time that he had war ried Mary Joyce. Her he asked to see continually, and to her he dedicated his poetry; and with the hope of see ing her he made several ineffectual attempts to escapē from confinement. He succeeded at length in eluding I am! Yet what I am, who cares or knows? our relationship to this ancestor, till one day my brother Christian came back from school crying passionately, and saying, "Mother, Gottlieb Schreiner and I have been fighting, and he says it's no wonder we are all so wild, because our great-grandfather was a Croat, and a cannibal, and next door to a savage." My mother did not greatly resent this accusation; and Christian's tears were soon over when she said, "But as to the Croat affair, it is quite true that one of your ancestors was captain of a corps of Croats; but he was not a cannibal, he died like a good Christian at his pleasant house here, the one that still goes by the name of Croat's Hall.' Just call Fritz, and Henry, and Conrad, and the girls (the little ones would not understand), and I will tell you all the story about Great-grandfather Croat.'" The audience was soon assembled, very anxious to get the long wished-for explanation, which our mother gave us as follows:-"You have heard from your father and the schoolmaster how much our town suffered at the time of the Thirty Years' War. Though the authorities managed often to have friendly communications with the enemy's officers, there was no end to the soldiers being quartered here; and neither property, nor even life, was safe from the wild men in the emperor's service who used to be sent here. Food and everything else was fearfully dear. Carl Brenner was mayor at that time; and he had an only daughter, Magdalene, the prettiest girl in all the town. She was also high-spirited and very sensible, and a great favourite with the pastor, who had taught her all her life, and really enjoyed the way she understood the Bible, as quite a child. Magdalene, although very good and modest, was a brave girl, and afraid of nothing. When the news came that a regiment of Croats were on the march, and were to be quartered here, most of the townspeople shut their wives and daughters up in the cellars, that they might not be frightened or hurt by the wild soldiers. But that plan did not suit Magdalene at all; she said she would not be put in a cage, like a bird; she would see how they treated her father; and so she stayed in the house. A captain and two privates were billeted on the mayor, and behaved quietly enough. The captain was a fine, handsome man, though he looked rather wild, and had an awful moustache. He never took his eyes off Magdalene from the moment he came into the house. When she noticed that, she drew away from him, and gave him very short answers. But when, on the second day, she heard from her father's servant that one of the I long for scenes where man has never trod, For scenes where woman never smiled or wept; There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie; The grass below; above, the vaulted sky. Clare's pen never indited another poem. So long as he was allowed to walk out he might ever be found sitting in the portico of All Saints' Church, dividing his attention between the children who played around him and the sailing clouds, that seemed to shut out from him his true home. During the last ten or twelve years he suffered much physical pain. On Good Friday, 1861, he took his leave of the outer world-the handiwork of God, which had been to him such a sweet gift-and on May 20th of the same year he breathed his last-saying, "I want to go home!" Some of the true friends of poesy exerted them-soldiers had done something against orders, and was selves to save him from a pauper's funeral, and, by their efforts, a fund was raised sufficient to carry the poet's body to Helpston, where he was reverently interred under the shade of a sycamore tree. GREAT-GRANDFATHER CROAT (From the German.) THERE was a picture preserved in my father's family, which was always the object of secret fear and respectful admiration to us children. It certainly differed most remarkably from the tame likenesses of my father and mother. It represented a soldier of the period of the Thirty Years' War, in the Croatian uniform-so associated with tales of wild horror and adventure. A Fair of fiery eyes, with a defiant yet honest expression, glittered out under the broad hat, and a sunburnt face, with a long, thick moustache, harmonised perfectly with the foreign costume. This picture was always called "Great-grandfather Croat," and was regarded with some awe, even by the servants. For a long time we children never knew what was to be cruelly punished, she plucked up courage, and interceded with the captain to remit the poor fellow's punishment, which he immediately did. On the evening of the third day, before the captain had to go away, he spoke to Magdalene, and asked if she would go with him as his wife. He said he was now on his way home, and told her that his family was noble, and that he had a good property in his own country. Magdalene answered him shortly enough, that she had no wish to leave her home, and that nothing on earth would induce her to marry a Croat and a Catholic. The poor man was no hand at persuading; when he understood he was refused, he struck his heavy sword angrily on the floor, but did not say a single word. Early the next morning the Croats were under orders to leave the town; and the captain rode quietly to the rendezvous in the market-place, and took leave of no one. A quarter of an hour later the Croats were riding away at a gallop, and every one was glad to see the last of them. But what put it into Magdalene Brenner's head that she must needs see them off, I cannot tell you. When that captain's troop rode by the mayor's door was open, and inside, on the lowest step of the staircase, stood Miss Magdalene looking after them. The captain had been keeping his eye on the house as he rode up the street, and when he saw Magdalene there he was off his horse like a shot, rushed into the house, seized her hand, and tried to drag her away. She resisted, and threw her arm round the great wooden knob at the bottom of the bannisters to save herself. The captain, as quick as thought, drew his sabre, cut off the knob, without touching the girl to hurt her, took her, knob and all, in his arms like a child, sprang on his horse, and was off with her at full gallop to join his comrades. The mayor was just looking out of window, and screamed in an agony as he saw his child flying away from him like the wind. There was a crowd in the streets and at the windows, and every one was calling out and running this way and that. Some would have gone after the soldiers, but how could they? It would have been hard enough anyhow to ride like them; and then they had carried off all the good horses, and left their own old ones behind instead. But every one who had a leg to stand upon of course ran staring after them as long as they could see the cloud of dust, and then went home again, not knowing what to do. But the mayor was utterly broken down in mind and body, and went creeping about like the shadow of the man he had been. One cannot fancy anything more horrible than it must have been for Magdalene-her father's darling and the great beauty of the town as well carried off alone among a horde of Croats, and riding through thick and thin on a wild horse. But I can tell you one thing, because they heard it afterwards from herself, that the captain was sorry for her, and for what he had done. He treated her like a sister, kept her as the apple of his eye, and took such care of her as he best could. But he either could not or would not take her home again; so at last he brought her safe to Croatia. There she consented to become his wife; and as he had a good heart, and was unspeakably fond of her, she lived contentedly with him, though she was grievously home-sick in the strange country, and among strange people of a strange religion. They were all Catholics; and it was only when quite alone that she could secretly read the Bible and the beautiful hymn-book which she found about her husband's plunder. But she fancied after a time that he grew gentler and kinder every day; and she noticed that he often went into her own little room, where she used to read and pray. One day she slipped in gently after him, and found him reading her Bible, and the tears running down his rough cheeks. He looked up kindly at her, and said, 'Magdalene, I think the real truth is what this book says.' Then he told her, to her great joy, how he had once opened it by accident, and since then had read it regularly; and how he had learned from it that he might pray to God without his rosary to help him; and how his great wish now was to serve God in the same way as she did. Magdalene thanked God with tears of joy now, that he had let her fall into the hands of a wild Croat, that she might at last be the means of bringing him, as a kind and dear husband, to the purer faith that she had been taught. After he had taken this great step, he soon found that his new religion would not agree well with the habits of his old home; and Magdalene had not much difficulty in persuading him to go back with her to her dear fatherland. This took place about ten years after the beginning of my story. You may fancy how people stared when some one said Magdalene Brenner was there, and the Croat too. I fancy they rushed about to tell the news almost as hard as they had run after her when he carried her off. They say she was a very lovely woman then; and it is a pity there is no likeness of her left. The poor old mayor was still alive; but he nearly died of joy when he saw his only child again, so well cared for, and so handsome. Her husband had brought a good fortune with him, and money was scarce in this country, so that estates were to be had for next to nothing; only the houses on them had mostly been burnt down. So he bought the nice property outside the town on the B- -road, and built a dwelling-house upon it. And there the Croat lived many years with his wife in quietness and peace, and the old mayor also ended his days with them both. They say the Croat was a quiet, grave, and God-fearing man, and went very regularly to church. But people always had a kind of dread of him; and when he used to walk through his fields in the evening, they said he was all the while making mysterious signs in the air to charm away storms. No one had any real harm to say of him; but it is likely he never felt quite at home in this country, and often wandered about from restless home-sickness. But they say he was very fond of children, who soon left off being afraid of his great moustache. His only son, who was born after he came here, was the father of your greatgrandfather; but none of his spirit seems to have descended to his grandchildren, for there has never been a military man in the family since. The staircase with the knob cut off is still in the old mayor's house, where Zoller the dyer lives, and you can see it any day. Our family arms, which came to us from the Croat, are painted in the corner of his picture; the flaming star on the shield he adopted in honour of his wife, partly because of her name, and also to signify that she had been to him as the Star of Bethlehem, and had led him to his salvation." So this is the story of Great-grandfather Croat, who was a cannibal, and next door to a savage. CLARKSON STANFIELD. THE last century was drawing to a close when a certain James Field Stanfield settled in the seaport town of Sunderland. In his earlier days he had lived a somewhat adventurous life, a restless disposition having carried him about the world and into places not usually visited by mere travellers for pleasure. Amongst his journeyings was one voyage to the coast of Guinea. which produced an effect never to be forgotten while he lived. The slave trade was then in its fullest activity, and Stanfield had ample opportunities of making himself acquainted with some of its greatest horrors. By these he was so impressed, that on his return he at once allied himself with the famous philanthropist Clarkson in his efforts for the sup pression of that infamous traffic. The friendship be tween the two men was steady and unremitting, and though they worked in different ways they pursued their common object with equal zeal. While Clarkson managed the usual machinery of benevolence with unflagging energy, Stanfield, in the retirement of his Sunderland home, devoted his pen to the same cause. Amongst other works, all inspired by the study of men rather than of books, he produced a poem called The Guinea Voyage," which had a certain amount of success. Judged by a modern standard it is not, perhaps, a piece of very high art; but its pathos, which unquestionable effect in drawing public attention to was all the more touching from its simplicity, had an the subject which was nearest to the author's heart By-and-by a son was born to him, and to this child. in the fulness of his friendship for Clarkson, he gave his name. The elder Stanfield did not live to see the triumph of the cause to which he and his friend had given their best energies: the younger lived not merely to witness it, but to see the almost utter forgetfulness with which the world has visited those who were most active in bringing it about. 66 Born thus within sight of the sea, and with marine * Brenner means one that burns or shines. influences perpetually acting upon him, there is nothing singular in the fact that at an early age young Clarkson Stanfield should have decided upon following his father's profession. Accordingly we find that when very young he entered on board a king's ship, and made therein more than one long voyage. In 1813 he was transferred to the guard-ship Namur, then lying at the Nore. Here he was kindly noticed by the captain and more than one of the officers. Amongst these last was a little midshipman who was the pet of the entire ship's company. His name was Jerrold-a name with which every one who pretends to an acquaintance with modern English literature must be perfectly familiar. With the sanction of the captain, Austen-one of the family which Jane Austen the novelist has made famous-Jerrold occupied himself with getting up private theatricals on board. Scenery was of course wanted, and to supply it, the services of Stanfield, then a foremast man, were put in requisition. The future dramatist and the future R.A. | worked well together, and a friendship sprang up between them, which, though temporarily suspended, was never entirely severed until Jerrold fell in harness about ten years ago. Both left the navy before many months were over; Jerrold, because peace having been at last declared there was but little prospect of either service or promotion, and Stanfield, because of a fall from the masthead of the ship, by which he sustained injuries of which he never wholly lost the traces. Many years after, when both had made their marks in the world, they met in the green-room of Drury Lane Theatre. Somebody, who knew nothing of the early life of either, introduced them, and the old friendship revived with more than its original strength. The "lucky tumble," as the queen called it when the story was related to her, having thus rendered it necessary for Stanfield to quit the navy, he turned naturally to art as a means of procuring a livelihood. As was to be expected also, he began by putting in practice the form of art of which he had acquired the rudiments on board the Namur. Somewhere about 1818, being then in his twenty-seventh year, he accepted an engagement as scene-painter at a theatre called the Royalty, in Wells Street, Wellclose Square, a place much frequented by sailors, and precisely of the kind which might be expected to afford the greatest room for the display of his special knowledge. He was very successful; his scenes were greatly admired, and drew not merely visitors to the theatre, but the attention of other managers. The result was an offer of increased pay and a migration from the East End to the Surrey side of the Thames, where, in connection with the Victoria Theatre, he laboured for some years. Thence he transferred his services to Drury Lane, where he succeeded the celebrated de Loutherbourg, whose fame he, however, completely eclipsed. At this work, toilsome and unsatisfactory though it was, Stanfield laboured indefatigably, and it proved in the long run no altogether inadequate preparation for the kind of painting by which he will be known to posterity. He learned, by long practice of scenic art, always to pitch upon the best point of view, and, what was of infinitely greater importance, he learned the necessity for careful study of atmospheric effects. Although he made his bread by scene-painting up to 1827, Stanfield did not neglect the higher walks of art. He studied, indeed, with the utmost diligence, and his work exhibits a consequent and steady improvement. The first work which he exhibited at the Royal Academy apeared on its walls as early as 1820; and though not a particularly brilliant picture, either as regards conception or colour, it possesses a special interest, since it proves how diligently the painter went to nature for his effects. The subject is an old mill which formerly stood at Battersea, and this, as Stanfield now lived in Pratt Street, Lambeth, must have been within a short walk of his studio. As amongst his voyages he had been more than once round the world, the choice of this subject for his first-exhibited work shows a rare reticence and self-control, and a praiseworthy determination to rely not upon memory or imagination but upon actual observation of the things nearest to him. From time to time he made journeys of greater or less length, and the fruits of all of them are to be traced in the various pictures as they appeared. Thus, in 1820, he paid a visit to Scotland, and at the Academy in the following year was a picture of "St. Bernard's Well, near Edinburgh," while at the British Institution in 1822 were two pictures also of Scottish subjects. This latter circumstance points to the temporary cessation of his connection with the Royal Academy. The British Institution was at that time a really formidable rival to the older foundation, and certainly did more good to art than could have been done by a monopoly of its rewards by any single corporation. Stanfield, seeing little prospect of advancement at the Academy, attached himself temporarily to the British Institution, where for some time he exhibited most of his pictures, and where, in 1828, he received a prize of fifty guineas. In the following year he made a short trip to France, the fruits of which were a couple of pictures from Chalons; but it was not until 1830 that he made a journey of any real duration on the Continent. The results were, as usual, visible in his work; three pictures at the least, of the year 1831, "Venice," "Strasburg," and "A Fisherman at Honfleur," being obviously referable to this trip. Some time in 1831 Stanfield returned to England. He had previously removed from Lambeth to a house in Buckingham Street, Strand, and now, on recommencing housekeeping, he established himself in the Hampstead Road, where he settled down to steady work. In 1832 he became Associate of the Royal Academy, and three years later he was elected R.A., in company with Sir William Allan. From year to year he continued to delight the frequenters of Trafalgar Square with pictures from the coasts of England, France, Scotland, Spain, Holland, Venice, and Ireland. One of his best works, "The Castle of Ischia, from the Mole," was exhibited in 1841, and in 1844 he exhibited another, "The Morning after a Shipwreck,” nearly, if not quite, equal. Later on came the well-known and admirable picture, "Tilbury Fort," commissioned by Mr. Robert Stephenson, and engraved in the first instance for the Art Union of London. In 1853 and 1855 Stanfield exhibited two admirable works, in which he to some extent opened new ground, and demonstrated the fertility of his resources. These were" The Victory moored at Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar," and The Siege of San Sebastian." Both of them were commissions from Sir Morton Peto, and both of them, although dealing with subjects somewhat out of the ordinary range of the painter's style, were treated with such power as to form a real period in his artistic career, and to show that, whatever his subject might be, Stanfield was fully capable of investing it with genuine poetry. A few years later he produced his masterpiece, "The Abandoned," a picture which, if all his other works were destroyed, would sufficiently attest the real greatness of the painter. Stanfield took his text from the "Sketch-Book" of Washington Irving. but the prose of the American author was translated in the picture into a piece of the richest and most imaginative poetry. There is something inimitably pathetic in this desolate and storm-lost hull, as it beats about unheeded between sea and sky, rent from all human sympathies, and bearing, even under an unclouded sun, the traces only too deeply marked of the storm and tempest which it suffered long ago. In this picture the painter has, beyond all question, reached a higher point than in any other of his works. Elsewhere, |