chambers of a special pleader, and to Impressupon my mind that pleas might be utterly in-

consistent with each other Iwas told of the thenwell known punchbowl case, where a man hadlent another a punchbowl which when returnedwas found to be cracked, and the owner suedthe borrower for damages. The defendantpleaded three pleas: (1) The bowl was notcracked when he returned it. (2) That it wascracked when he received it. (3) That he neverhad it at all. M

_This appears to be another version of the

same story.

THE MIDDLE WATCH.BY HENRY NEW BOLT.

Ina blue dusk the ship asternUplifts her slender spars.

With golden lights that seem to burnAmong the silver stars.

Like fleets along a cloudy shoreThe constellations creep.

Like planets on the ocean floorOur silent course we keep.

And over the endless plainOut of the night forlorn

Rise? a faint refrain,A song of the day to be. born,—

\Vat<h. oh watch, till pc find again

JAfe and the land Of niirr-n!

From a dim West to a dark EastOur lines unwavering head,

As if their motion long had ceasedAnd Time itself were dead.

Vainly we watch the deep below.Vainly the void above:

They died a thousand years ago,—

Life and the land we love.i But over the endless plain

Out of the night forlorn

"*^7v.continuance of Tree FPvrrnmrni »•

J*lwlS^eSa? h?m£sf with (he idoa that**L«i one d7" govern 'his country. There is

Kilt*#*»*£t$ Tliumamly in the world.

«*>*t f""1!, abroad in foreign lands, in mo-

5»fS» **Inmen^ but more here In the lightt<£'£al this great ground-swell

-<*, is taking an upward stop,

£***&lial7l*n works is to rule, and he is

V'-Orraph.v deserves wide reading. It is***

m record of true patriotism and good

%fi&* . \u25ba

BOBERT HERRICK

faLife and Character of the Eng-

lish Lyrist.—\u25a0-

WTRRH'K. A Biographical and Criticalt:r>ERTH^F V Moorman. B. A.. Ph. D.." St^y- rVrifesfor of English Literature in

tetgEJStv of I>rods. With nine full-page

I tf**-JSrfeaisY including a frontispiece In photo-! fiarf»tica^. iv«-

xiii. 343. The John Lane| p»vorr- s^"• "\u25a0

i 1f4c when Herrick saw his "Hesperidos"

i 13the press, there Mprinted as front:::

I**tothe volume the engraving by William

*^J»"hich we reproduce on this page. AsIllirS^cir of the poet's personality it is. inI* ff«r- Moorman's words, "worse than noth-| ta3. *<> « can be little better than c

tt \\Z

ir.T&," We might, perhaps, accept "the***<= eye the tliick'light CUrIS and the CUri"

I s*'fcrtl'"^nose which calls to mind the busts

""Z Emperor Vespasian," but further we

*,« into acquiescence— "the fat stolidityofr

the face, together with the grotesque

'•^TLve—

incredulous or indignant." And

I the only portrait of rrick that has comeI«\u25a0

All the jnore reason, therefore, why

| .""J^t study should have been put to-

I lb* *a orK not only embodying a delicate

I >vsis of "*• P OOI but contriving, in the faceI • aiif-olties. to make us better ac-| \£rf with the traits of Robert Uerrick as

*i^*reat difficulties" are all summed up in

v .... failure of his contemporaries to en-! S..... letters and other souvenirs

| S those anecdotes and references which*have heliH-d the modern biographer to

Je out a fairlyfullnarrative ofHerrick's life.' "

rmiself thouch not by any means indiffer-

Z to fame, was content to put all that he had

T«ay about his traits into his verse. He kept

* tonmals. There are but scanty survivals of

v'c.rrefpono.:: \u25a0\u25a0 And yet we may glimpse

2 character, regardless of the omissions of

tfeUJre Itis an honest and lovable character.

£ToYa man of genius who cherished high en-

T^cts but never took himself too seriously,

aatfaDy wreaking himself instead on the daily

%',f in hand. There is a wholesome sturdinessJJ n

t Herrick. Perhaps that was what Mar-

| giall *as groping toward in his unlucky print.

\u25a0"'brawny Roman therein portrayed was a

,-« disciple of Horace and Catullus, but he was

\u0084 bottom a truer Briton, essentially a product

Id the Er _. - soil. All through his life there

r^.... of forthright energy that you... the study of his origins.

'Herrick was the son of a London goldsmith, a

rrOspOT)CS craftsman and merchant in Cheap-

;;; who. save fur the chances of fate, would

live enabled his son to court the Muse with no

."did thoughts of the morrow. Unfortunately,

however a year after the poet was born, good

Master Nicholas Herrk-k fell from one of the

• rrpfr window? of Ins house and shortly after-

OTd was placed in his grave. For a little while

; tis widow was threatened with another catas-

trophe. It was whispered that the goldsmith

tad sot fallen out of the window but had thrown

jaasdf therefrom with suicidal intent, and,

cider the law, all the property of an individual

I-the law.

was confiscatedof an individual

latras-ei waa c-r.fiscated to the crown.

Mistress Herrick • • .d.-d in retaining her

Lusband's estate, but there was something pro-

pbetk about the tragic circumstances in which

e!k acquired it. The heritage, though not a

nun one. was not ample enough to keep the

familym luxury, and by the time young Robert

us out of school itwas necessary to apprentice

tan to his uncle William, another goldsmith.

For six out of the ten years to which the docu-ment, now preserved at Beaumanor, committed

la, he appears to have striven faithfully

fr.ougb to attend to his master's business. But

fr«n through this period it is doubtful if he

iobserved in every detail the rules imposed upon

him, <uch as the following: -He shall not playe

itthe cardes. dice, tables, or any other unlawfullrazies whereby his said master may have any

hoe with his own goode or others during the

saidterme without license of his said master; he

BhaH neither beg nor stele; he shall not hauntI sm nor absent him selfe from his said

| natters service daie nor nighte unlawfully."

I It is a fair conjecture that he had his fling

i Baoßg the wild young apprentices of London,

tad we know that when his term was only a

fear more than half over he turned his back

tien Chtajside and went up to Cambridge,

V«> know also that at the university he pur-*a^3 his education under conditions of some-thing \u25a0\u25a0> poverty, his letters to the goldsmithcade bf-ing usually xiU-as for monpy, and when£t last he returned to London he left debts be-r.ir.d him. On th<- other hand, he had drunk<2btp of the ancient poets, and when, atiandon-i'S some momentary thoughts of the law, heturned churchman instead, and got himself s.p-r ;r.tefl chaplain •< the Duke of Buckingham ontieexpedition to the Isle of Rhe, he was a goodtjpe of Beventeenth century opportunism, gaylyXreqaentiDg the taverns and giving himself

great tide of war and polities sweeps him fromhis safe anchorage, but even then he has hisMuse to comfort him, and b. and by he isbrought tack to Dean Prior, there to serve his

church and his people in peace until his death at

a liale old age.

Professor Moorman paints him as a normal,

simple and very lovable type. There was no

strain of the Puritan in him. He was, as we

have sa-id, of the line of Catullus and Horace,

and of Anacreon, too, and, as Professor Moor-

man says, his secular lyrics "are mainly con-

cerned with what has been, in all stages of the

world's history, the most cherished themes of

the lyre—love and song and wine." The- charmer

he is forever celebrating is a thoroughly mun-

dane type. "The mistress of the poet's imagi-

nation." says his biographer, "is a stately figure

inclined to fulness, with red lips, sloe-black eyes,

a dear voice, easy manners, and not too rigor-

ous morals. She comes before us with her loose

ringlets of hair flowing in the winds; there is a

•grntu t disorder' in her dress, and, as she passes,

she leaves b<- hind her a fragrance exhaled from

all the perfumes of Arabia." There is grussne-ss,

too in Herriek—if you choose to look for it.

But it is a mistake to make too much of the

feminine personalities he was wont to praise-

in most cases they were but figments of his

imagination-and, when you scrutinize the

len-th and breadth of his work, getting at the

essential man in It, you kindle to him aa to ona

J>^\v>iUKli DAILY TRIBUNE, SUNDAY, MAY 15, 1010t

" "—\u25a0

—\u25a0

— ———____ . ——

whole-heartedly to a kind of pupilage under BenJonson's masterful hand. Professor Moormanhas few facts to go upon at this period, but hehas sufficient material for a lightly touchedand very effective picture of the poet makingfriends among his fellow authors and the musi-cians of the day. and altogether ready to "knocka star with his exalted head." Thenceforthhis destiny was fixed His genius was given tosong, though in due course he went good hu-moredly enough to his Devonshire vicarage atDean Prior. There, too, alas! we must take thecolor and movement of his familiar life on faith,but we may at least faintly sk.tch his activities,seeing in him a conscientious administrator ofhis charge of souls, an innocent gourmet ofcountry pleasures: quick tempered, even to thepoint of occasional outbursts of stinging sar-•T.sm, In his relations with the homely folk ofthe parish, ant! all the lime being visited by au-thentic flashes of poetic inspiration. It is in apwcet and natural atmosphere that he is dis-cerned. The days go by unruffled, until the

of the sincercst and sanest figures in Englishliterature. There are no really grave stainsupon his thoughts. There is no lasting break inthe purity of his exquisite music. "Robin" hesometimes signed himself, and in all that thename connotes he is endeared to us. It is goodto have Professor Moorman's sympathetic ex-position of the character underlying the "Hes-perides." Itbrings us a little closer to Herrick,-

and we re-read with a warmer loyalty the dec-laration of his honest pride in his poetry:

Behold this living stone1 rear for me,Ne'er to be thrown

Down, envious Time, by thee.I'iilars let some set up

if so they please:Here is my hope

And my Pyramides., . i

THE PUNCHBOWL CASE.From The Spectator.

Tour story in last week's issue of the defencesmade by a man accused of stealing a kettlereminds me that in my young days—more thanfifty years ago, now, alas!

—1 was a pupil in the

ROBERT HERRICK.(From Marshall's frontispiece for the first edition of the "Hespcrides.")

Rise* a faint refrain,A font? of the day to he born

—V/atch. oh watch, tillye find again

Life and the land of morn .'•

NEW FRENCH BOOKS

Stories by M. Bourget and MoreNapoleonic Papers.

Paris, May 7.The spirit of Barbey d'Aurevilly permeates

the collection of short stories written by M.Paul Bourget. "La Dame gui a perdu sonPeintre," which is published by the LibrairiePlon-Nourrit. The tale of a copy of Leonardo daVinci's "Joconda," attributed by dishonest ex-perts to "Cristoforo," and the two victims, anAmerican multimillionaire and a wealthyParisian lady's tailor, is related in M.Bourget'smost charming vein. In these short storiesthere is no room for the author of "Cosmopolis"and "La Physiologic de l'Amour Moderne" to betedious. He does not allow himself to be runaway with by hobbies, and his sentences seldomexceed reasonable length; they can be under-;stood without the reader taking the pains to gothrough them twice. The last tale, "Les Cousinsd'Adolphe," is a sort of Decameron, involving aliterary club founded in Paris in 18S0, and.though reduced to four members, of whom M.Bourget is one, still existing.

The fourth volume of the "Lettres et Docu-ments pour servir a l'histoire de Joachim Murat,1767-1815," collected, edited and annotated bythe present Prince Murat, the fifth of his line,

and published by Plon-Nourrit, covers the periodof the campaigns of Austerlitz and of lena.These were the heroic days of Napoleon's lieu-tenant and brother-in-law, who was describedby the Emperor as "the man who could at thesame moment capture towns with light cavalry

and prepare fresh post horses for Victory-" Thepresent volume Is a mine of wealth for the his-torian. It contains scores of important letters-written by Napoleon, Talleyrand, Berthier, Da-voust, Lannes and others never before pub-lished. The letters of Pauline and CarolineBonaparte, of Mme. Bonaparte mere and of theübiquitous Minister of Police, Fouche, cast freshand edifying sidelights on events of the period.

C. I.B.

LITERARY NOTES.Mr. Roosevelt's took, "Travels and Experi*

ences in South Africa." is almost ready in itsEnglish edition, and is to be brought out inLondon as quickly as possible.

In a volume entitled "Southern Prose andPoetry" Professors Edwin Mims and Bruce R.Payne have gathered a mass of selections fromthe work of representative writers of the South.It is meant to serve as an introduction toSouthern literature. The text is accompaniedby brief notes and biographical sketches of theauthors represented. The Scribners are pub-lishing the book.

Professor Dowden, who has published noth-ing for a long time, is about to bring out a vol-ume of literary studies. Itis to bear the titleof "Essays: Elizabethan and Modern." He willdeal therein with such subjects as "The Eng-lish Masque," "Some Old Shakespearian?,""Heine" and "Cowper and William Hayley."The book ought to be entertaining:, and it willprobably not show the defects which moved towrath many readers of his "'Lifeof Shelley."

Of BjOrnson, the novelist—

the "Sea Eagle," ashis countrymen called him

—"The London Times"

says: "As an orator he has probably had norival in his own age in any country. His gift

of public eloquence was amazing—

the wordspoured forth in an infinite variety of tones,wailing, shouting, whispering, ringing withlaughter, with irony, with tumultuous rage. Hisvoice, in its emphasis, his gestures, in theiramplitude, were sufficient to command the at-tention of the largest and least willing1audience.He had not a little of what the admirers ofMirabeau described 'la parole sacree s'exciiantelle-meme.'

"

Mr. Alfred Noyes's American publishers haverr.ade public a letter from that versifier whichdoes much to explain why it is difficult for many

lovers of poetry to attend to the divagations ofhis muse:Imention this fact, as It really might count

for something with those who are perpetuallytalking of the impracticability of poetry in thepresent day. This fact is that one poet, at anyrate, has from the time when he left Oxford,eight years ago, taken up poetry deliberately ashis career in th*« same way that a painter or asculptor is allowed to devote himself to his art.not as a hobby, but as a serious lifewoik. Th;»

poet deliberately set aside all other financial re-sources, and has fo far met with no difficulty,

but indeed with more practical success than wouldbe likely to one engaged in any other art. in soshort a period. Ithink it is duo to the somewhataudacious stroke of throwing oneself into the worke«)tir«-'y. i.c.. not taking it as a hqbby. But at anyrate it is a fact.

The most important book about Napoleon nowin course of preparation is M. Frederic Masson'J"Napoleon at St. Helena." Itis to be one ofthe (Joupil

—which means, of course, thai

it will contain many remarkable illustrationsThe historian was asked the other day whetherthe fact that he had never seen St. Helena didnot operate to his disadvantage. "Certainlynot," he said, "Ishould expect to be unduly in-fluenced and above all disappointed if1 had been

to St. Helena. Ithink that one can describewith far more correctness the countries thatone imagines." That is an odd theory.

Princess Caroline Murat, the granddaughter

of Murat and his wife. Caroline Bonaparte, leftan autobiography which is to be published soon.It is largely concerned with h< r life at the courtof her cousin, Napoleon IIF. Her childhood wassrent in this country and her later years, after1870, in England.

Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's statue of Dr. SamuelJohnson is to be set up on the green plot be-hind the apse of St. Clement Danes Church in

London. That is the church, it will be remem-bered, which Johnson habitually attended, andwherein his pew is still marked and visited. Awindow portraying Johnson surrounded by hLsfriends was unveiled in the church last year.

7