slowly, and the son often tumbles down precipitately."

"I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with us all our days. . . . The 'clouds of glory' which we trail with us in after life need not be traced to a pre-natal state."

In his reminiscent introduction to this story Holmes very happily describes N. P. Willis as something between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation of Oscar Wilde."

66

These three novels, to sum up, are all more remarkable as character studies, and as the forcible literary expression of important and curious psychological and physiological problems than as dramatic creations. They are none of them, however, so exclusively this as to destroy our interest in the story, although it cannot be denied that that interest is lessened by the didactic object of the volumes-in other words, the moral has been pointed at the expense of art.

IV.

THE AUTOCRAT AND TEACHER.

THE AUTOCRAT.

(Read at the Holmes' Breakfast, Dec. 3, 1879.)

BY J. G. WHITTIER.

HIS laurels fresh from song and lay,
Romance, art, science, rich in all,
And young of heart, how dare we say
We keep his seventieth festival?

No sense is here of loss or lack;
Before his sweetness and his light
The dial holds its shadow back,
The charmed hours delay their flight.

His still the keen analysis

Of men and moods, electric wit,
Free play of mirth, and tenderness
To heal the slightest wound from it.

And his the pathos touching all
Life's sins and sorrows and regrets,
Its hopes and fears, its final call
And rest beneath the violets.

His sparkling surface scarce betrays
The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled

The wisdom of the latter days,

And tender memories of the old.

What shapes and fancies, grave or gay,
Before us at his bidding come!

The treadmill tramp, the One-Horse Shay,
The dumb despair of Elsie's doom!

The tale of Avis and the Maid,

The plea for lips that cannot speak,
The holy kiss that Iris laid

On Little Boston's pallid cheek!

Long may he live to sing for us
His sweetest songs at evening time,
And like his Chambered Nautilus,

To holier heights of beauty climb!

Though now unnumbered guests surround
The table that he rules at will,
Its Autocrat, however crowned,

Is but our friend and comrade still.

The world may keep his honoured name,
The wealth of all his varied powers;
A stronger claim has love than fame,
And he himself is only ours!

HE first four volumes of Holmes's collected

THE

writings belong to that side of his work for which he is at present, and will probably remain, most noted. As a poet, he may meet with the fate of those who treat chiefly of but occasional or humorous subjects; as a novelist, he may but have the temporary fame of one who writes with the object of pointing a present-day lesson; as doctor and college professor, his work is of necessity of

local interest though of long lasting import. None of these drawbacks attach to the four volumes of indescribable gossip which I have grouped together, in the title of this section, as the Autocrat. These are the books in which, over the breakfast-table and over the teacups, the Autocrat under his various aliases discourses on every subject that comes uppermost in conversation, or which he, as conversational leader, can initiate. The volumes are certainly most representative of all that is greatest and most original in the writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes-indeed, in the first three of them, the Breakfast-Table Series, we undoubtedly have him at his best. We have his rich witty style, his deep thought, his genial satire, his far-reaching discursiveness ranging over all subjects, his happy and entertaining wealth of illustration, along with his occasional gems of humour, pathos and poetry. It is all these combined qualities which go to make these volumes members of that small collection of best-loved books which most book-lovers have a tendency to form. Many of the qualities which make for the success of Doctor Holmes as Autocrat-I use this title, as I have hinted, for convenience, as inclusive of the others are just those which militate, as we have seen, against the success of such single sustained effort as is required in a long story. From its abrupt commencement, in 1857, in the

pages of the Atlantic Monthly's initial number, the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table was hailed with delight; it has since become, with its later companion volumes, a recognised classic in the world of belles-lettres.

It was an audacious, though, as it proved, happy, idea of the author to thinly disguise himself and then dogmatise on all matters through a series of volumes; for the boarders around the table are scarcely ever allowed a word, and if they are it is only, as in the Platonic dialogues, as a leading up to some utterance of the principal speaker. Our knowledge of the Autocrat's satellites is gathered less from what they say than from what he says of them in his numerous asides to the reader. It was because it so very admirably suited the style of his genius that it was a happy audacity of Doctor Holmes, who, unequalled literary Autolycus, here provides us with philosophy and literature, æsthetics and humour, moral maxims and general criticism, with as ready a lavishness as ever the famous pedlar offered his miscellaneous wares. It has been objected against the Autocrat that he is too didactic, too prone to sermonise; but the occasional tendency towards this is far outweighed by the satire, wit and wisdom which play over the pages on all subjects, from that of the Universe to Lord Timothy Dexter. Among those few discursive books which charm us on account of their "style," their egotism,