everywhere, visited in the most delightful of country - houses, and corresponded with all sorts of interesting people. It is evident that Mrs. Craven's biographer has a very imperfect knowledge of this period of her heroine's life. She appears to date it from

very unlikely pilgrims a new shrine. | Many of us still can remember what Albert de la Ferronays and his young she was, and there is no want of the wife wandered from place to place for highest testimonials. "The cleverest a few years in one of those heartbreak-woman I ever met was it Lord ing searches after health which so Palmerston or Lord Granville who said many of us know, and taking their so? She saw everybody who was troubled way to Rome, to Pisa, and to worth seeing, knew the best people Venice, finally reached Paris, where, in the autumn of 1837, Albert died. For two years afterwards the history of the family is chiefly recorded on the graves they left behind them. Two of the sisters within a very short space of time, the father, Alexandrine, and last of all the patient, much-enduring the publication of the "Récit d'une mother followed. And it may well be Soeur," which took place when Mrs. imagined that the life of social occupa- Craven was sixty. She seeks to array tion and amusement which was the that captivating woman of society in trade of the attaché and his wife the garb of a saint, almost of a peniformed but a sorry accompaniment to tent. The brilliant intermediate years the dread course of years, signalized, at from 1836 to 1859 are a blank. Mrs. intervals so short and continually re- Bishop seems to know nothing of curring, by another and another passing them. Will it be believed by any one bell. acquainted with that period that the It is after all this, the story of which name of Marie Countess Granville (née is continued through the "Récit d'une | Dalberg) is not so much as mentioned Sœur," that the life of Mrs. Craven, as in these volumes? Lady Granville recorded by Mrs. Bishop, ought to, and was Mrs. Craven's earliest and dearest to a certain extent does, begin. She friend. They were brought up tohad but barely settled into the calm gether and lived in the closest intimacy course of common life after so many through life, with congenial tastes and sorrows, when the death of his father beliefs. Mrs. Craven's intimacy with placed Mr. Craven in a position of Lady Georgiana Fullerton dates from comparative wealth, with a noble a much later period, and originated in palace in Naples, and so agreeable a circumstances of a different character. competence that he felt himself able to All the letters cited in these volumes take and establish himself in a house in belong to the last period of Mrs. CraBerkeley Square. After all the pleas-ven's life, and were written between ant prefaces of diplomatic life this was the ages of sixty and eighty. the triumphant time of Mrs. Craven's history, the crown of life and success. Unfortunately, however, Mrs. Bishop has seen this brilliant period under prepossessions which do away with its importance in her friend's history. Perhaps her idea was, that as Mrs. Craven has herself written much about these years in her "Reminiscences," it was unnecessary to repeat the tale; but Mrs. Craven's "Reminiscences have not, so far as we are aware, been reprinted in England, and the effect of the omission is something like leaving out the highest light in a picture or the chief part in a drama of incident.

The winters she spent in Naples, where, after the first keen anguish of recollections, Mrs. Craven's acting, her conversation, her social success in every way, was still more triumphant than had been the youthful fame of Pauline de la Ferronays. She had a beautiful house, filled with beautiful things:

In front it commanded the Bay of Naeither side of the entrance hall were the ples, and to the west was Posilippo; on dining-room and Mrs. Craven's sittingroom, full of books and beautiful things. Mr. Keppel Craven had decorated the chief reception-room in what is called the style

of the First Empire. Its walls were painted | ment of pleasure in the meeting with in shades of umber, and massive gold cor- some dear friends : nices of classical design framed four large mirrors as well as two life-size portraits by Romney, a full-length of the Margravine of Anspach in one, and of Mr. Craven's father and uncle, Keppel and Berkeley Craven, in the others. Beyond the diningroom, with its choice pictures and fine porcelains, was the spacious and well-filled library. It was arranged in the form of a Greek cross, of which the bookshelves carrying some eight thousand volumes formed the arms, while in the centre was a comfortable place for study. The room was lighted from a wide balcony looking south upon the sea.

But immediately afterwards the weight which crushes everything has made itself felt. The absence of all interest, of all life, and even of hope that anything could prosper here is oppressive in spite of the scene and all the natural beauty of the place. Natural beauty easily pleases me. . . . But I want as well order, neatness, and cleanliness in what I see around me that is of

There are

man's providing. With those conditions I can enjoy life not perhaps enthusiastically but peacefully. The ugliness of all the I cannot buildings in Naples vexes me. get used to it, and in that respect this town is the meanest in Italy. There is not anThe glorious bay, flashing in the sun other like it. The past has left no imprint outside, the most wonderful prospect here, and under the influences now domiin the world before one's eyes, all this nant the beautiful is perishing not less rococo brightness and luxury within, than the good. . . . Naples of to-day is the the first people of all nations coming only spot on the earth where it is true pain and going in a perpetual stream, the to live. The miserable tyrannies that have most graceful and brilliant of the pas- always existed have grown more oppressive, times of society carried on with special and they are at last felt by every one withwit, skill, and brilliancy, and, to make out exception. Nothing is to be heard but all perfect, a few beloved friends in two blessings which God does not bestow murmurs, fears, and groans. the inner circle of all, seems no uncomupon me, and yet the happiness of my life fortable fate. And when, added to is in question. Another check to the this, come Berkeley Square and fre- hopes of my husband, the last and greatest, quent residences in Paris, we cannot will bring on that gloomy sadness of which but feel that the lady's lot had fallen the mere thought terrifies me. It will in pleasant places, and that she had darken our life, and disappointment and every reason to be pleased with her inaction will cause that total eclipse of my circumstances. But it is unfortunate sun which is not unknown to me, and durthat Mrs. Bishop takes a gloomy viewing which time I live and act as in a painof these privileges, and that here for the first time we begin to suspect that It would, perhaps, have been better Catholic piety as well as Protestant to say plainly what was the cloud that loves to lay the flattering unction to its overshadowed Mrs. Craven's career. soul that it never enjoys itself, what- It was, outside, a very handsome, very ever may be its inducements to do so, agreeable cloud-the husband whom and that our former convictions on she loved, and who was as great a this subject are no longer tenable. At favorite in society as herself. Mr. all events the idea which the biogra- Craven has no one to stand up for him pher impresses upon us in these bril- in this book, although, on the other liant years is that they were chiefly hand, he is never assailed by any seriyears of disappointment, and that the ous blame. No doubt it is a very dischange from one brilliant " season to agreeable and often exasperating thing another was in fact a penitential round to return, after a long interval, to a from which the possessor of so many good things desired nothing so much as to escape. She did not want to go to Naples. "It is as repugnant to me now as it was delightful in former days," she cries. There was a mo

ful dream.

young man of promise, of whose progress we have felt assured, and find that after all he is only a man of promise still. This is what evidently had occurred in the course of years between the two people who married each other

with such a certainty of every kind of lowing

way? We have taken the success. In 1852 Mr. Craven was ex-liberty of transposing the extracts actly what he had been in 1834. The which Mrs. Bishop gives :-

attaché was an attaché still. What change had happened had been the

wrong way.

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One day I went to see her when my heart was heavy with some sorrow, I don't reHe had been sent to flut-member what. She said to me at the end of our long conversation, which did not appear to have justified those words which surprised me : You are happy. Be very sure of that. You know how I enter into your suffering, and that I can understand the pain of even imaginary trouble; yet, and I tell you so, you are one of the happiest persons I have ever met. You have You ought to feel it and be thankful, inhappiness which you yourself know not of.

ter in smaller courts instead of greater ones, and after twenty years of service he was as little importance in his profession as ever. When this happens in a man's life he is generally of the insouciant class, and does not mind; but Mr. Craven minded very much, moved heaven and earth for promotion, and was humiliated and depressed beyond measure when the great officials, who were delighted to have him and his brilliant wife at their tables, or to sit at his, waved him away from every post of importance, and would give him nothing.

stead of lamenting your condition." That same evening I was kneeling by her side and crying. She gently shook her head and stroked mine so tenderly, so lovingly, and the expression of her countenance remains so vivid in my memory, that I feel certain that her love for me endures, and that her prayers for me are still offered in heaven. Then she laughed a little, and said to me: "You look at me with your thing very cruel to you. Yet what I have great suppliant eyes as if I had said somesaid is truth, believe me. Of course I ardently wish for you all external help from a tranquil life, but whether we have that or not, there is a complete interior stability which you ought to acquire. I should feel no anxiety for your soul if you were to die in your present state, but I firmly believe that God asks more of you. It is a step in advance which I ask you to make; but I am anxious that you should be happier."

This, it is evident, was the shadow upon Mrs. Craven's life. Everybody was delightful to her in Eugland, but nobody would give her an appointment for her husband. They were all eager to see her act and hear her talk, but neither premier nor foreign minister would give what she wanted. This is a great testimony to the impartiality of the great officials, and might prove to angry critics how little the finest interest has to do with advancement. But Mrs. Craven did not take it in that point of view. Perhaps it is well that we should have a glimpse behind the veil, and see that everything is not so fair as appears even in the brightest of We feel sure that Madame Swetchine lives. On the other hand it would was well inspired and took a true view have been well, at least, to show us of the matter, and that, in short, this as much of the brightness as of the period of life which Mrs. Craven's shadow. And we cannot help feeling biographer chooses to put before us in that perhaps, after all her troubles, such subdued tones of color, but which Mrs. Craven had an unacknowledged other observers have known under consciousness that to be without trouble quite a different interpretation, was in was to be less interesting than up to reality very full of good things and of this time the course of events had en- much, though probably alloyed, enjoyabled her to be. Was it some such ment. Without alloy, it is not novel to idea as this which inspired Madame remark, there is but little enjoyment in Swetchine, that wise old lady who knew this world, and though she would have everything, with whom, as with every-liked to inhabit, not to let, her house in body best worth knowing in Christen- Berkeley Square, and though the streets dom, Mrs. Craven was intimate, and in Naples were dirty, there were many who, on one occasion at least, re- triumphs for this accomplished woman sponded to her complaints in the fol- of the world. At the same time, per

haps, it is a good moral exercise for the reader to discover, if he had any doubt on the matter, that a mind highly strung and sensitive is not always an unmixed blessing, and that the absence of actual ills is a temptation, if not to invent unreal ones, yet to dwell upon those imperfections which subdue the higher lights. The deeply emotional piety of such a mind is perhaps also a temptation in the same way; for how to be consoled by the highest of spiritual teachings if there is in reality very little occasion for consolation? We are sometimes tempted to believe ourselves miserable for the sweetness of being comforted.

struggle of parties, it will certainly be the same in the highest places.

It is well known that once the habit of

interest in public affairs is acquired it is never lost, and, humanly speaking, what higher interest can occupy a man's life?— tianity, which is best of all. I know noththat, or help in the great work of Chrising else worthy of ambition. For an Englishman whose position allows him to contemplate such a career, where is more justifiable subject for regret than to find himself shut out from it?

It was, however, an unfortunate moment for the candidature of a Roman Catholic and stranger like Mr. Craven. The country had just been, as we all When it became evident that the think now, unreasonably irritated and advancement for which Mr. Craven frightened by what was called the sighed was not to be attained in the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in way of diplomacy, a new idea occurred England and Dr. Wiseman's new title to them, which was that if he could but of Archbishop of Westminster. We get into the House of Commons all take these things very quietly nowawould be well. It was evidently hailed days; even the proposed erection of by both as the most delightful alterna-"Westminster Cathedral,” which, in tive, and perhaps, in the partial and our poor opinion, is tant soit peu trop practical ignorance which must mingle fort, considering what Westminster even with the most perfect knowledge Abbey is to all England, has not called of a country which was scarcely less a foreign country to the English husband than to the French wife, they considered the patronage and support of the political leaders as making the seat a certainty. "I should be perfectly happy," said Mrs. Craven, "if I could see Augustus in harness and at work. He does not know how to live in idleness." She expresses forcibly in one of her journals that high sense of the advantages of public life which no one could feel more strongly than the dispossessed and self-exiled nobility of France.

forth, so far as we are aware, a single objection. But in those days our blood was hotter, or else it was the moment for a panic fit of one kind or other, and the pope kindly furnished the occasion. It was considered wise that Mr. Craven should stand for an Irish constituency to avoid the "No popery!" cry. But even in county Dublin there were voices enough, and these more virulent than in England, to cry "No popery! no doubt to the great and dolorous surprise of those excellent Catholics who never can forget that Ireland was once the Isle of Saints; and Mr. Craven lost his election along with a great deal of This practical life in England is like hope and anticipation and no smail nothing else to be met elsewhere. No amount of money. The disappointroyalty surpasses the power which every ment was so intense that Mrs. Craven man feels himself to possess if he takes a burst into tears when she heard the part in politics. The influence exercised news, and she tells a pathetic story of how, years afterwards, when she read to him an account of a debate in Parliament, she saw two large tears roll down her husband's cheeks, as he sat over the fire, that silent confidant of so many phases of misery.

by certain classes is accepted by the others

with intelligent independence. Some lead while others know how to follow, but all mutually respect each other, for here, in truth, the chiefs are the servants of the rank and file. Their interests are in common, and if any are to be sacrificed in the

ill-nature which is the basis of conversation in Paris. True one unfortunately gets used to it, but the first impression is the right one, and I feel it again, and I am startled and shocked by what is said and what is listened to. Decidedly in proportion as fervent and intelligent Christians are superior here to those who are to be met with in England (for the reason that here they each pursue an ideal, and the Catholic ideal is the nobler of the two), so, in proportion, those who are not fervent in religion are inferior here, for the reason that the human, political, national, perhaps even domestic ideal in England is that natural law which links happiness and higher and nobler, and agrees better with right order together. There is something disorderly in French society which does not exist in that of England.

In the mean time there are many | Paris from England-the country where pleasant scraps of observation and re- respect for women is proved by the comflection to be picked up, notwithstand- plete absence of that mixed coarseness and ing Mrs. Bishop's return, as she moves about from one place to another, always, as she thinks, longing for that "permanence," which probably would have been not at all so delightful to her as she thought, and complaining that in her prettiest dwellings she felt as if in a ship always under sail. It is natural to one so closely connected with two different countries that there should be a frequent return to the inevitable contrasts between one and another. Mrs. Craven has been describing the effect upon her mind of a Lent retraite des hommes at Notre Dame, an exceedingly curious and impressive scene, and is moved to apostrophize the men of Paris" whom she saw there, an immense, unbroken mass, filling the whole nave, which we ourselves remember to have regarded, though a stranger, with something of the same startled and excited feeling.

66

Men of Paris, so powerful alike for good and evil. When I remembered it was their voices I heard, I could not help joining them with confidence, and hope, and faith in the future of our sick and troubled com

country does one feel so happy, so pure,

and so full of energy in the presence of

I know not if there is truth in these re

marks- perhaps not. I do not cling to my generalizations. I know what I feel. However that may be, and whatever its defects, Paris remains a delightful place, and I believe that in the long run it is the only place that entirely suits me. How much has been said to persuade me that it is so!

Some of these statements are surmonwealth which is yet so full of that vig-prising and unexpected, and we can orous sap by which national prosperity only be grateful for the favorable eye may always be resuscitated. It is when I with which Mrs. Craven generally remember this that I love France and that views us; but there are times when I feel I still belong to her. In no other her sympathy for England breaks down, as, for instance, under the very evil. Fighting it at close quarters, not disnatural annoyance and discouragement guising it by specious names, not yielding of finding that though everybody is to it; keeping our souls at their highest delighted to entertain and amuse and level, using the words self-abnegation and flatter her, not the closest acquaintance devotedness in a sense that is more thorough with prime ministers, nor endless visits than the meaning in which they are un- to great households, will procure her derstood elsewhere-a sense that is the that advancement for her husband for highest, and that is forgotten by other na- which she longs. Then she breaks tions. Of such Frenchmen I am the fellow-forth into a little diatribe, if not against citizen and the sister. They were, no England yet against its spirit. doubt, not the majority in that great building, but they were certainly more, many more, than the ten just men who once sufficed to save a nation. (?) God above knows their number, and it may be much greater than we believe. As for those who are worldly and frivolous, I think they are inferior to all others of the same class on earth. The contrast is great on arriving in

Here there is always an immovable barrier, beyond which I cannot hope to find sympathy, and I have not one friend here who can or will aid me in the object which I have in heart. All this, notwithstanding the kindness with which I meet, I might almost say the flattery offered to me, ends by chilling and irritating me. This Prot