logical effect supposed to be produced by it on Marcus Antonius, as described in the dramatic poem. We have selected these two instances as being classical subjects, though not perhaps classically treated, and we now have before us yet another inspiration caught from Italy and the past.

Mr. Browning), gives us the views of a | est in studying this conception of an outduke of Urbino descanting as a "contem- ward and visible beauty made manifest to porary critic," on a letter received from the senses in connection with the psychoRaffaelle, in which are urged the for and against of confining one's self to a single art. This note is again touched lightly in another poem in the same volume, where the diverse jottings contained in the sketchbook of Leonardo da Vinci-that full chord of many tones- -are commented on rather disparagingly by the prior of Sta. Maria della Grazie. In the play of "Nero" we find yet another allusion to one "who tries so many forms of art." These expressions in dispraise or support of versatility are especially interesting when viewed in connection with Mr. Story's "varied tasking" of his own mind; for though the passages we have mentioned blend most naturally with their respective contexts, we cannot help half wondering whether they may not be an unconscious vindication (if, indeed, any such were needed) of a perception of the beautiful, which could not satisfy itself with less than sculpture, prose, poetry, and the drama as its outward expression. This versatility is not the graceful dilettanteism whose light ephemeral wings carry it easily from flower to flower with honied but unsubstantial result; rather is it the outcome of a rich fancy and clear realistic perception that cannot with one medium express satisfactorily to itself all that it apprehends and feels.

66

In the play of "Nero" we see few traces of Mr. Story's former work, if we except the colloquial facility, and an utter absence of inflation or fine writing. Remembering all the information and detail contained in "Roba di Rome," we are immediately struck by a total absence of any archaisms or apparent erudition in this new drama; and, as if we had here some mental reaction against statuesque passivity and the quiet dignity of repose, we are hurried along by a full narrative which hardly pauses, and by brisk dialogues which are rarely if ever interrupted by soliloquies or disquisitions. All that is said or done by the different characters actively helps forward the action of the piece, and if there are very few scenes or 'points" that stand out from the rest for quotation, one is uniformly absorbed and interested. This kind of treatment is eminently realistic, and instinct with life and movement; but though it produces a livelier general effect, it does not afford the same opportunities for dignified beauty and sonorous passages as a more didactic style. We would almost question whether Mr. Story has not selected too large a subject for one dramatic composition; his canvas seems to us so big that the figures appear a little isolated, and we consequently miss that concentrated intensity and completeness which are essential to a great dramatic composition. "Nero" might, we think, be more properly called an historical romance than a play, its personages being far more noticeable for what they do or endure than for what they are. On laying down the book we seem to be in an atmosphere if not of battle at any rate of murder and of sudden death; and even here Nero's death hardly seems the culminating point after Agrippina's and Seneca's and Poppa's far more piteous fate.

One is naturally led to look for reflected light in Mr. Story's different works. In "the perfect statue in its pale repose" we seek for some of that fixed and stationed melody "which lingers dreaming round each subtle line; in the dramas and verses for some of the perfection of form and sobriety of intensity and passion which he has achieved in his sculpture; or again in the latter for traces of that almost The play extends over some twelve or colloquial charm which makes half the thirteen years, beginning when Nerovalue of that very captivating book "Roba no longer a lad but a man gifted with physdi Roma." Even were his "Cleopatra "ical strength and beauty, with intellect less pre-eminently beautiful as a statue, and grace of mind - begins to realize that with its "almost divine imperiousness," power of place and personality which ultithere would yet be a deep æsthetic inter-mately wrecked his life, and choked all

From The Saturday Review.
PETS.

MAN has been distinguished from brutes as a cooking animal. But he has another characteristic almost equally distinctive. He keeps pets. It is true that sometimes this characteristic is shared by individuals of other races. A horse has been known to become attached to the stable-cat, and to pine in the absence of pussy. So, too, dogs have often allowed a corner of their kennel to some stray animal domesticated about the house, and odd friendships have been cemented between creatures as dif

and a foxhound. Such brotherhood between tame beasts, all living in a state more or less artificial, is only as natural as the talking of a parrot, the piping of a bullfinch, or the trained labour of a canary taught to work for its living by drawing its

nobler feelings with a deadly growth of lust, vanity, and cruelty. The opening scenes, in which the young emperor first feels the weight of his mother's tutelage and guidance, and ultimately fiercely resents her authority, consenting to her death, are finely rendered. It would take too long to recapitulate the events of that short, eventful life, even as recorded by Mr. Story, who has worked out with good dramatic purpose the gradual degradation of a character that originally had great potentialities of good the legitimate consciousness of a general aptitude turning into an overweening and grotesque vanity, the fatal admixture of impatience and re-ferent as a goat and a jackdaw, or a rabbit lentlessness, the young ardent nature sinking into mere sensualism, seeking for new, strange ways to satisfy its lust. There is a fine touch towards the end of the play in the love of Sporus for his master, one of those instances of subjection to a personal charm to which chronicles and por-water with a bucket and a chain. We never traits give us no clue. The character of Poppea is also drawn with much skill. She is in no way attractive when we see her first; faithless to her husband, Otho, plausible and calculating in her passion for Nero, a passion that has none of the real reticence of virtue or the abandon of the time. Then follows the slow retribution la grande fatalité, as Michelet somewhere calls it-of belonging body and soul to a man whom it is her doom and her moral degradation to love. We soon get to pity rather than to blame her for having usurped by her wiles and beauty the place of the virtuous Octavia; and when she is brutally struck by her husband, just when the hopes of coming motherhood had aroused within her heart something natural and pure in the midst of so much bedizened corruption and vice, we almost wish we could forget that the murder of Agrippina still cries aloud for vengeance that

The god is great against her, she will die. When critically analyzed" Nero" is not perhaps a thoroughly great work, but it is very good and pleasant reading, and we quote, certainly not against himself, but genuinely re-echoing the feeling of his lines, with a present sense of pleasure received in many ways –

Blest the poet's song,
The sculptor's art, the painter's living hues,
That thus can make a transient form, a glance,
A smile immortal; time and age defy;
Seize the swift-hurrying thought, and bid it

stay

To be a permanent perpetual joy.

heard of a cat that loved a dear cricket to cheer with friendly chirpings her leisure on the hearth. No puppy has been known to lavish tender caresses on the radiant head of an iridescent bluebottle. The hen whose limited intellect reels before the watery instinct of a brood of ducklings is the victim of parental affection labouring under a base deception. But men pet many creatures besides their offspring, supposititious or other. It is true that a modern naturalist finds in an ants' nest certain well-cared-for beetles, and endeavours in vain to account for such a mysterious fact. Are the beetles scavengers, or are they pets? Or are the ants endued, like men, with superstition, and do they venerate, like the ancient Egyptians, a coleopterous insect? Starlings show a preference for certain sheep. Every crocodile may be supposed to be the favourite of a particular Tapwing. But these instances answer rather to the sportsman's predilection for a well-stocked moor, or the fly-fisher's love for a shady pool. No kitten leads about a mouse with blue ribbon round the little victim's neck, as a child caresses the lamb which it may one day devour. The child shows its petting instinct at the earliest age, and loves a woolly rhinoceros as soon as it loves sugar and apples. Long before the baby can speak, as soon as it can open and close its tiny hands, it longs for something soft and which it may grasp and pinch at will. No warm, and, above all, something moving, worsted poodle, however cunningly contrived in the toy country, can compete for a moment with a real puppy. The pleas

ure of breaking all the legs from off all the quadrupeds in Noah's ark pales into insignificance beside the rapture of pulling pussy's tail, and half blinding a living terrier. The cat and dog endure from the infant the tortures of Damien without complaint, and purr or wag their tail at each fresh infliction as a new manifestation of regard. Vivisection is a trifle compared with some of the unwitting cruelties of the nursery; but the victims seem to understand that their pains are not intended, and it would be well if a like self-sacrificing enthusiasm could be fostered in the scientific laboratory.

of Cerberus. Although it has often been
remarked that love of the horse accompa-
nies, if it does not cause, the degradation
of many a man, yet it would be hard to
ascribe the iniquities of a blackleg to any
true love of the animal on which he lays
his money. Doubtless the horse of Calig-
ula preferred his oats ungilt, and it is the
uncertainty of racing rather than any fault
of the racer that attracts rogues to New-
market and Epsom. A horse would run
quite as well, the race would be even more
often to the swift, if betting could be
abolished. And our prize costermongers
and cabmen find kindness to their ani-
mals, like honesty, the best policy. The
donkey that is starved and beaten seldom
favours his driver with more than a spas-
modic gallop, while the sleek ass we now
occasionally notice in our streets draws
more than his own weight of heavy men
at a cheerful and willing trot.
The prin-
ciple on which pets are kept is, however,
sometimes difficult to find. We were all
horrified lately to read of an old lady who
starved a houseful of cats, and every In-
dian traveller tells shocking tales of the
cruelty of the Hindoo to the humpbacked
cow which he worships as a divinity.

That people do keep pets and do misuse them is a plain and unquestionable fact. Why they keep them is another and much more difficult question. Some, it is true, have a dislike to the destruction of animal life. Cardinal Bellarmine would not disturb the fleas which got their livelihood in his famous beard. Others, again, have been driven to love a swallow from the mere loneliness of prison life, and the only reason for doubting the truth of the legend which connects the name of Bruce with a spider is that similar tales have been told of other famous men. The story of a Lady Berkeley who insisted on Cruelty to pets is only one aspect of the keeping her merlins to moult in her bed-matter. There are people, especially in chamber, and her husband's consequent displeasure, occurs among the annals of the fifteenth century. Little dogs fig ure on brasses; and the names of "Terri,” “Jakke," and "Bo" have come down to us as memorials of pets beloved five hundred years ago. Cowper, besides his hares, petted all kinds of animals, and remonstrated in verse with his spaniel for killing a fledgling. Oldys apostrophized a fly, and Burns a mouse. We think it was Carnot, in the Reign of Terror, that lavished caresses on his dog, while he sent hundreds of human victims to the slaughter. In fact, there are few people come to mature years who at some time of their life have not loved a dear gazelle or other domesticated animal, and been gladdened by its affectionate eye. A taste which is so peculiarly human may be humanizing if properly directed. The child, indeed, will rob a nest to satisfy its longing for a pet. But it is easy to demonstrate the cruelty of interfering with natural laws, and the speedy death of the half-fledged nestling demonstrates clearly enough the futility of the childish aspirations. The sympathies of Bill Sykes, callous as he was, were awakened towards his dog, and even Charon may be supposed occasionally to bestow a friendly pat on one of the heads

towns, whose kindness to their pets is exercised at the expense of their neighbours. So long as they are an amusement to their owners without being a nuisance to the public no one can complain. There are, it is true, crusty people who would like the world better if it contained neither kittens nor babies. But it cannot do real harm to anybody that an old lady should turn rabbits loose in her garden in order to reduce the excessive corpulence of her darling pugs by a little wholesome coursing. It is good for her pets, and does not hurt the rabbits. Nor does it injure the public that twice a year she finds herself under the necessity of posting to the seaside in order to give her favourites the constitutional refreshment of a few walks on the shore. She must post all the way, because it would be impossible to let them enter the cruel den set apart for mere dogs on the railway, and the company will not let her hire a first-class compartment for their use. Even the collier who feeds his bull-pup on beefsteaks and milk, at the cost of half-starving his wife and children, may at least plead that he does not interfere with the comfort or convenience of his neighbours. But it is a little odd that there is no way of restraining him if he would go further. He may, as far as the present state of the

law can control him, cause his dog to be a | ates an unusual noise and disturbance in nuisance and annoyance of the worst kind the night-time" is guilty of a nuisance; to all who live within hearing; yet it is but it makes no provision for cases in apparently impossible to interfere with which the noise is produced without the him. It may be right enough that a man intervention of the horn, and apparently should be free to make the lives of his does not forbid even a "noise and disturbwife, his children, and his servants as mis-ance," provided only it be usual. True, a erable as he pleases, but it does seem civil action may be brought against the strange that he may extend his attention owner of the animal making the noise, if to his neighbours with equal impunity. the sufferer has been injured in the pursuit The general public, and especially that of his lawful calling or occupation; but, as considerable section of it which consists he probably carries on his occupation of helpless invalids, have no remedy miles away in the quiet recesses of the against a crowing cock or a barking dog. city, and is chiefly employed at home in In extreme cases it is possible that a phy- what appears to be the unlawful occupasician may be able for a time to abate such tion of resting himself, he has no ground a nuisance as being dangerous to his pa- for action. We have some imperfect sort tient's life; but there seems to be no re- of protection against brass bands and dress unless in cases of life and death. barrel-organs; why not against singingIn London a sufferer from such a com- birds, which might, as in "Charles O'Malplaint as chronic neuralgia may be kept in ley," be interpreted to include fighting torture all day by the barking of a dog in cocks? An extreme course alone is open the mews behind the house, and may pass to the sufferer at present. We are not a wakeful night owing to the howling of concerned to point it out too plainly. But, the same animal when chained up. There short of this desperate and certainly obis no choice but a change of residence, if jectionable remedy, there is no way, so far the invalid cannot bear the noise of cabs as we can see, of interfering with any deand milk-carts at the other side of the velopment, however disagreeable, of the house. An appeal to the police magistrate petting faculty. We may habitually wear only elicits another and perhaps more dis- cotton-wool in our ears, or, if we like it mal tale of suffering. His worship is but better, we may leave our house and take human, and he too has had days of illness another, but it is not clear we have any prolonged into weeks owing to the zoolog-power at present to prevent our next-door ical propensities of his neighbours. He neighbour from confining a pack of hounds can do nothing for himself, and nothing for in his stable, suspending a row of macaws the complainant. The law says nothing on his balcony, keeping choruses of cats about such annoyances. It says that on his leads, and a laughing hyena in his "every person who blows a horn or cre- back kitchen.

THE Russian correspondent of the Kölnische | was reason to know that the Afghans were Zeitung states that letters have reached St. Petersburg from members of the exploring expedition which was recently sent to the Attrek territory by the imperial government. They had advanced to Krasnowodsk, in Tschikishlau, without misadventure, and after a week's rest had proceeded along the Attrek to Schot, where it was proposed to take in new supplies. It was expected that the expedition would reach the mouth of the Attrek on their homeward passage about the end of last or the beginning of the present month. In General Lomakin's official report of the expedition, which came to St. Petersburg at the same time, it was announced that, although hitherto the Turkomans had everywhere shown themselves friendly towards the Russians, there

endeavouring to incite them to rise against the strangers and prevent their further advance. The Turkomans had on several occasions given information in regard to these attempts, which had enabled the general to seize two of the Afghan emissaries, who had been executed as spies. The Attrek expedition is regarded by the Russian government as especially important, from the information which it is anticipated it may supply in regard to the various degrees of practicability of the different routes leading to Merv, which is interesting as a central point of junction for many lines of way opening upon districts in which the British as well as the Russians are interested.

V. IN A STUDIO. By W. W. Story. Part VI., Blackwood's Magazine, .
VI. WEST-INDIAN SUPERSTITIONS,

VII. HINDOO PROVERBS,

A GERMAN "BAD,"

Contemporary Review,.

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