To have the wide world for his own,
Again he would not jostle through.
But some came gliding from their den,
Glad to be thought of once again;
The royal words that call'd them there,
Forced through the door their forms of air,
Which with the living mix'd once more,
And paced the lengthen'd corridor;
Both heard the music swell and fall,
The flow'rs breathed perfume over all,
With robes of state the shrouds were blent,
And, side by side, upstairs they went.

But little did the living men

The things that were among them ken;
The Spirits wore such ghostly hue,
That you might see men's faces through;
They cast no gloom upon the way,
Nor dimm'd a lady's bright array,
For shadows, shadowless, were they.
Where space was left, they glided on,
None knew the space held anyone;
Where throng'd the crowd those chambers
wide,

Their airy for.ns pass'd through—and

e'en

When press'd the living side to side,
The risen dead were there between.

One phantom was a girl, who here
Had glitter'd in her eighteenth year,
So heavenly fair in those bright hours,
With quaint device of dress and flow'rs,
That the eye dwelt on her surpris'd,
As on a fable realis'd:

One, spell-bound most of all, had burn'd
With love, which frankly she return'd;
But while their silken courtship sped,

Did sudden clouds a storm unroll;
And 'twixt them left a gulf so dread
As frightened from its place her soul.
The world, whose fragile ornament

She for a time so brief had been,
Heard, faintly, of some dark event,

That hid her from its festive scene; Heard all that was, and what was not; Enquir'd, conjectur'd, and forgot. Meantime her Spirit's broken wing

Just bore her to the Grave's relief; Too weak was Life's elastic Spring

To brook the bending hand of Grief. Her lover watch'd, with broken heart

(Or what to him and her seem'd broken),
And the last words that she heard spoken,
Were, Not for long, my Life, we part.'
She heard, and smil'd in death, to be
Love's victim, and its victory.

She came this night and (unseen) mov'd
Where she had glitter'd, triumph'd, lov'd;
And 'mid new Beauty, sought for him
Who should lament that hers was dim.

She found him straight; but, ah! no dream
Of her, the dead, there seem'd for him;
He mov'd among the fair and gay,
His smile and ready word had they;

He touch'd soft hands, and breathed a sigh,
And sought, and found, an answ'ring eye;
And in the dance he mix'd with many,
As happy and as light as any.
Then on his breast the phantom rush'd,
Her phantom hair his bosom brush'd,
Her fond fantastic arms she wound,
Beseechingly, his form around;

Her airy lips his visage kiss'd;
In vain, in vain; no thought he cast
Back on the memory of the past,
And she must let it go at last,

The cherish'd hope that she was miss'd.

Other spiritual presences are described moving unseen through the gay crowd, and the authoress ends with the exclamation:

More Ghosts! I know their stories well, But stories more I will not tell.

When, sixteen years after the first volume of poems, Paul Ferroll was published (in 1856), the same characteristics as in the author's

verse

were found conspicuous in that remarkable tale, and conveyed in a more suitable medium of expression. The passion which sweeps like a whirlwind through the book drives the leaves before it, but does not stop to play with them. There is no superfluity: from the first page to the last we feel that we are in the unrelenting grasp of a Greek Fate; the destiny of those three whose lives we live in may be delayed awhile-it cannot be averted. The lighter scenes (which are, none the less, essential to the development of the tragedy) might perhaps have been better handled by more commonplace writers; we know of no one living who could have depicted the mastery of a selfish passion over a strong intellect, and held us enthralled as Mrs. Clive has here done. Her style, admirably suited to narrative of this objective nature, is hardly pliant enough to suit tamer forms of action; and this we take to have been the cause why no subsequent work of hers obtained the same hold over the public. Why Paul Ferroll killed his Wife and Year after Year have undoubted merit;

but the minute transcript of daily life and commonplace dialogue, with the alternations of cause and effect upon conduct, are better fitted to the trenchant analysis of George Eliot, or the playful humour of Miss Austen, than to the close, earnest directness of Mrs. Clive's style, which was so well calculated to enhance the effect of horror and mystery in her first novel.

Mrs. Clive was a contributor to Fraser and other magazines from time to time; and we hope that her tales, one or two of which we remember as very striking, may now be collected and published; as well as several detached poems.

A sufferer from early youth, Mrs. Clive was no plaintive invalid, but a cheerful, courageous woman, loth to cloud, by word or sign, the happiness of those around her.

Yet

in nearly everything she ever wrote are traces of this battle between the spirit and the flesh, of the victory won over physical pain, and the consciousness that perfect happiness was not meant to be the lot of anyone here on earth. Her muse was sorrowful, but it was with a manly sorrow, as far removed from the unhealthy sentimentality of poetesses who hug their griefs, real or imaginary, as the penitential Psalms are from the Sorrows of Werther. She who could write the following, only eight years since, had assuredly a chastened wisdom of no common kind:

Mrs. Archer Clive was the eldest of three sisters, the daughters and co-heiresses of Edmund Meysey Wigley, Esq., of Shakenhurst, Worcestershire. She was born in 1801, at the place which she subsequently, as eldest of the sisters, inherited. In 1840 she married the Rev. Archer Clive, who was proprietor as well as rector of the living of Solihull, and of certain lands which came to him from his mother, as daughter and co-heiress of Lord Archer, who died without sons. Thus, by a curious coincidence, the two neighbouring properties became united, through the failure of direct male heirs to both. Their ultimate home was Whitfield, Mr. Clive's estate near Hereford, where the thirty-three years of their married life were chiefly spent, varied by Continental travel, and an annual residence of some months in London, as long as Mrs. Clive's health permitted it. At her house were always to be found some of the remarkable persons of the day; and from such society she derived the keenest enjoyment, delighting in nothing more than in the exercise of her genial hospitality, whether in London or the country.

Into her domestic life it would be impertinence for us to intrude; but it is impossible to conclude this brief notice without referring to those closer ties which bound up all her married years, and coloured her intellectual and spiritual being. She was the mother of a son and a

Thy sovereign reign comes not in wrath.

Whate'er of good has been, dost thou

To the departed past make sure. Whate'er is changed from weal to woe, Thy comrade, Death, stands near to cure. And once or twice, in age, there shines

Brief gladness, as when winter weaves, In frosty days, o'er naked pines,

A sudden splendour of white leaves. The past revives, and thoughts return, Which kindled once the heaving breast; They light us, though no more they burn, Then turn to grey and are at rest.

to see married and parents; and in their happiness she moved and had her being' up to the very last. The thought of reunion with them and all she loved, when her burden of daily suffering, so heroically borne, should be laid down, cheered her darkest hours. Hers was not a wavering faith.

She had none of the doubts as to futurity which distract less happily constituted minds. In her sonnet upon Sacrifice, speaking of

In a poem written nearly forty years ago, Mrs. Archer Clive expressed a hope that when death came to her, it should be on no bed of sickness, but swiftly and suddenly. She was prepared to die then, as she was in the fulness of years; and we do not agree with Mr. Lockhart, who, while admiring these lines, cannot accord his approval to 'the spirit which animates them.' The spirit seems to us that of a Christian confident of the future, but to whom the intermediate passage of long-protracted agony is a dreaded prospect, more, we may be sure, for the sake of the loved ones around her than for her own:

Forbid, O Fate! forbid that I
Should linger long before I die !
Ah! let me not, sad day by day,
Upon a dying bed decay.

r'a

die in battle, love, or glee,
With spirit wild and body free,
With all my wit, my soul, my heart,
Burning away in every part,
Tat so more meetly I might fly
Inte mine Immortality-

Like comets when their race is run, That nd by rushing on the sun! Those last words read to us now like something beyond an ardent hope. Under their apparent significance ve seem to hear a prophecy of the far-off end.

On the 11th of July last, while sittig alone beside the fire in the library at Whitfield, her dress caught fire, and before the servants could come to her assistance, she was so severely burned that she died of the

VOL. VIII.-NO. XLV. NEW SERIES.

The account in the Hereford newspaper of July 19 says:

Whilst awaiting the arrival of the doctors she took occasion to say to her husband, who watched beside her, that in her opinion no one was to blame in the matter. Mrs. Clive had been in very delicate health for some years past (her infirmity, doubtless, accounting for her inability to save herself from the flames), but she was a lady of singular perseverance and energy, and did not therefore allow her state of health to pre

vent her fulfilling all the duties of her station in life in the most exemplary manner. She drove out almost daily upon errands of charity and benevolence amongst her poorer neighbours, whose wants and necessities she occupied much time in enquiring into, and whom she was most kind and prompt in relieving when any deserving case commended itself to her notice.

The following extract from the Coroner's Inquest in the same paper is of painful interest:

George Fiander, a footman, employed by the Rev. Archer Clive, was first called. He deposed as follows: It was part of my duty to attend upon Mrs. Clive. On Saturday last my mistress was as well as usual during the day. She had been out for a drive during the afternoon, and returned at about 5 o'clock. I attended upon her when she left the carriage. She at once retired to her own bedroom, where she remained about 25 minutes, and her maid then brought her into the library. I lifted her into her chair in the library with the assistance of my fellow-servant, William Trillow. At that time my mistress was in her usual health. It was about half-past 5 o'clock when I assisted to place her in her chair. I then lit the fire, which was composed of wood, and was ready laid. There was a guard in front of the fire, standing on the hearth. It was always there. When I had lit the fire and left the room, it was, I should think, 25 minutes to 6 o'clock. When I quitted the room, I left my mistress alone. Mrs. Clive was sitting in a chair, in her usual position, within a yard of the fire (the and within reach of the bell. Dinner was chair being placed sideways towards it), ordered for seven o'clock on Saturday as usual. My mistress would in the ordinary course of things have remained in the library till it was time to dress for dinner. About ten minutes after I had left my mistress in the library, Trillow told me that her bell had rung. It was not rung violently (only just a chink'), and whilst I was in

CC

the lobby going to answer the call it rang again gently. When I opened the library door my mistress was in her chair, and she was all in a blaze. The flames reached just up to her shoulders. She was breathing heavily, as though she was being suffocated. There was a quantity of newspapers on a stool close to her feet, which were burning when I went in. The first thing I did was to ring the bell violently. Charles Williams, the usher, was the first to come after me. I told him to fetch some one. I did not know Mr. Clive was in the house at the time. In the meantime I lifted Mrs. Clive from her chair, and placed her on the carpet, and in doing so I was slightly burned. During this time Mrs. Clive's clothes were flaming. I had almost extinguished the flames with the aid of the sofa cushion before anyone came. Immediately afterwards Mrs. Clive's maid came into the room, and assisted me to extinguish the flames which remained. Shortly afterwards several of the maids brought water. They poured some over my mistress, and I said, 'Don't pour any more.' Mrs. Clive then said, 'No; do not put any more on. Mr. Clive arrived at just about

this time, and I then left the room. I presume the fire was caused by a spark from the small larch wood that the fire was made of. The spark would have to pass through the fire-guard to fall into the room. I was not called into the library again. I am quite certain that Mrs. Clive's bell was promptly answered. Mr. Clive told me to send for Dr. Evans, of Kingstone, immediately, and I did so before Mrs. Clive was brought out of the library. I think Mrs. Clive was prevented by the suffocating effects of the smoke and flames from saying anything when she was burnt. It was not more than a minute and a half from the time I first entered the library until the flames and fire were quite extinguished.

Thus tragically closed a life notable for its fortitude, its beneficence, and its unclouded faith, even more than for the gifts of imagination and intellectual power, which were all that the outer world knew of the authoress of Paul Ferroll. H.A.