Duchess. Follow me to my cabinet. [Both go out.

SCENE THE EIGHTH.

Count, (entering cautiously through the centre door.) I cannot leave the palace. I am beaten, it is true; but if İ abandon the field of battle without another attempt at resistance, my defeat is complete. The Grand Chamberlain has overthrown me, he, the Secret Agent of the Duke. The corn seemed to him to be ripe, and yet I suspect he has been in too great a hurry to reap. What means did they employ to bring about my fall?-as yet I know not, but neither do I care. I will take my own measures; in a struggle for existence all means are good. I quit not the palace; the

Duchess shall know that the Grand

Chamberlain is her son's Secret Agent.

Ha! here he is!

SCENE THE NINTH.

Chamberlain, (with a paper in his hand, starts back when he sees the Count.) Your Excellency still here? If her Highness the Duchess comes to know it-her anger-!

Count. After what has happened this evening, her anger can no longer affect me.

Chamberlain. May I inquire your Excellency's object in remaining here. Count. To speak to the Duchess ! When she is calm, she cannot refuse her prime minister an audience.

Chamberlain. Her prime minister, certainly, but (he looks over the paper.)

Count. What means your but? Chamberlain. I was always frank with your Excellency whilst you were in favour, and I will be so now in spite of this terrible disgrace. Read these lines addressed to the Duke.

Count, (reads,) "I find myself moved to dismiss the ministry. Whilst I beg of you, my son, to form another, I give you my promise henceforward not to meddle in any state affairs, on the sole condition that no member of the present ministry shall retain his post." That is clear enough!

Chamberlain. Very clear! Count. And am I to congratulate my Lord Chamberlain on his accession to the office of premier?

Chamberlain. Me? What are you

thinking about? I assure your Excellency I hold it for wisest and best, at least for some time to come, to keep as much as possible in the background at this court.

Count. In order the better to work from your ambush! I understand. Chamberlain. But I do not understand your Excellency.

Count. You soon will. Do not ima

gine that I so easily abandon the

field to you.

Chamberlain. To me?

Count. Yes, to you- Mr Secret Agent.

Chamberlain. Your Excellency, I am astounded! But it can only be your recent misfortune that betrays you into such extraordinary language; be frank with me.

Count. In what? then to persist in a denial? Chamberlain. It is your intention

Count. A denial of what?

Chamberlain. In denying the Duke, whom you have so well served; but I cannot help laughing-what harm can this paper do you? The prime minister is dead-long live the prime minister!

Count. How so?

Chamberlain. Certainly it is not agreeable to be in disgrace with the Duchess, but do you not retain the fullest favour and confidence of the now really reigning sovereign?

Count. My Lord Chamberlain, I will not endure your mockery. I am decided not to quit this place, though I should remain here until to-morrow morning, though I should remain a week or a month. There can no longer be any forbearance between you and me. I am determined to declare to her Highness who it is that has crept into the confidence of the Duke; I will prove to her, my Lord Chamberlain, that You were the Duke's Secret Agent.

Chamberlain. Are you in earnest? Would you stoop to bring so false an accusation? I the Secret Agent? I should not have expected this from your Excellency! I have not betrayed you, but the Duchess learned this very evening, that it is you who are the Secret Agent.

Count. I the Secret Agent? Very clever indeed, my Lord Chamberlain, -but it will avail you nothing; I will bring forward the necessary proofs !

SCENE THE TENTH.

George, (coming from the Duke's private apartments.) His Highness is inquiring for my Lord Chamberlain. Chamberlain. Immediately! Where is his Highness?

George. He will be in his cabinet in a few moments. He is speaking with his Secret Agent.

[George goes out. Chamberlain, (in great astonishment.) With his Secret Agent?

Count, (equally astounded.) With his Secret Agent?

Chamberlain. But it is you who are his Secret Agent?

Count. No, the Secret Agent is yourself!

Chamberlain. God be good to us! This is worse and worse! So now there are three Secret Agents! If things go on in this way, there will soon be nothing public left at this court. But I must go to his Highness! (Hurries towards the cabinet.)

Count. And that paper? It is now all a misunderstanding!

Chamberlain. I must deliver it to the Duke.

Count, (falling into an arm-chair.) Then I am lost! [Curtain falls. The reader may be told in few words the contents of the fifth, and shortest act, in which all things are satisfactorily wound up. The best scene in it is between Count Steinhausen and his nephew. Oscar bitterly reproaches his uncle with having planned his marriage with a woman whom he well knew to be in love with himself.

The Duchess, on learning that she has been fighting against a shadow, thinks for a moment that she may perhaps again grasp the reins of power-but it is too late. The Duke has lost no time. Agreeably with her written request, he has already appointed new ministers, and just as the Duchess inquires of the Grand Chamberlain if he had delivered her memorandum to her son, the sound of joy-bells is heard, and a military band plays in the distance. The formation of a popular ministry is the cause of these demonstrations, which jar upon the nerves of the Duchess, who orders the Chamberlain to put an immediate end to them. The ex

perienced old courtier hesitates, and shyly asks if he may venture to communicate her wish to the Duke. "A wish!" she exclaims; "it is my command! And why announce it to the Duke?" "That the order may proceed direct from his Highness," is the Chamberlain's reply. The Duchess takes the hint: her power is gone-the game is lost. She is about to depart for her villa, there to sulk at leisure, but her son gracefully and affectionately urges her to remain, and insists that she has freely and willingly given up to him that which he has in reality won in spite of her utmost opposition. But to the court and to the whole country the contrary shall be made to appear. The Duchess, despite her somewhat harsh and imperious character, cannot but be touched by this dutiful and friendly conduct on the part of her son, and perhaps is still more moved by the advantage of having her retreat covered and her discomfiture concealed. So mother and son are again on the best of terms, and the former consents to the union of the Duke and Eugenie. And the departure of the Secret Agent is announced. He leaves everybody indebted to him and loud in his praise. In a paper left for the Duke he spoke with warmth of Count Steinhausen's long services and fidelity, and in consequence of his recommendation the Duke names the expremier his master-of-the-horse. Oscar, who begs his uncle's pardon, has also been spoken well of, and receives a diplomatic appointment; and the Grand Chamberlain, who had ordered the waterworks to play for the entertainment of the Secret Agent, is thanked by the Duke for the attention he had shown to his friend, and assured of his favour and goodwill. The termination is as neat and pointed as the whole play is piquant and amusing. Our British playwrights draw largely on the French stage; but, when Germany produces such comedies as that of Mr Hackländer, it surely would be worth their while to make an occasional foray across the Rhine. And, for the sake of English playgoers, it is to be hoped that when they do so, the first capture they make may be that of "The Secret Agent."

NATURE is no mere utilitarian. That so-called utility which regards only the lower half of human nature,which cares for bodily wants and pecuniary profits, but which ignores the higher emotions from the regulated play of whose fountains proceeds all that is worthy of the name of Joy,finds nothing in the economy of nature to support its materialistic exclusiveness. If the utilitarians had had the making of our world, they would doubtless have made it very fertile and free of weeds, and Quaker-like have dressed it in shapes and hues savouring strongly of the sombre and the useful; but alas for the beautiful! That cream of life and bloom of nature, what is it to them? Working unseen upon the spirit, and only revealing itself by the lighting of the eye and the beaming of the countenance, exciting an emotion which, though brilliant and elevating and full of the divine, seems to produce nothing, and rather to lessen men's devotion to materialistic pursuits, -Utilitarians ignore it, and in the world of their own devising, would have flung aside flowers as cumberers of the ground, and looked upon roses as but painted weeds. They

"Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To them, their verdure from the fields,
And take the radiance from the clouds
With which the sun his setting shrouds."

Not so, however, has acted the Divine Maker. All that is useful is indeed around us, but how much more is there beside? We stroll out of a morning, and lo! birds are singing, and waters murmuring, and the sun is rising with a cool brightness that makes everything look young,— dancing like dazzling silver on the wavelets of the brook, and filling the skies with a joyous splendour, and the heart with an ethereal merriment. Who has not felt, in the bright hours of all seasons, but especially in the radiant days of summer, what the poet has well called

"The strange superfluous glory of the air!" as if, beside all the combined gases

needful for our respiration, there were present some ethereal nectarine element, baffling the analysis of the chemist, yet revealing its power in the thrill of exuberant life which it excites in the human frame,—a true elixir vitæ, a superfluous glory added for the sole purpose of producing joy? Enter the garden, and forthwith the eye is charmed with the sight of flowers,—the nostrils thrill with the scents floating on the morning air,—and peaches and all manner of fruit are there, pleasing both eye and palate far more than utility demands. The very hedgerows, and woody dells of nature's own planting, are full of beauty,—bright and sweet with the hawthorn, the sweetbriar, and the honeysuckle. Hill and valley meet each other by picturesque gradation; and brooks and rivers leap and run in courses which please all the more because dissimilar from the rectilinearism of utility. All things proclaim that the Divine Architect, while amply providing for the wants, has not forgotten the enjoyment, of his creatures; and having implanted in the human soul a yearning after the beautiful, has surrounded us with a thousand objects by whose presence that yearning may be gratified.

Perhaps the most striking example of this Divine care for human enjoyment is to be seen in the lovely mantle of Colour in which the earth is robed. Like all things very common, we do not half prize this robe of beauty which Nature puts on for our gratification. It is in such complete harmony with our visual sense, that-like musical harmony also, when long continuedits sweetness fails to impress us if not broken at times by a discord. But suppose the case of a man born blind, and to whom the aspect of the outer world-nay, the very meaning of the word "colour," has remained a mystery until he has reached the years of reflection. Fancy such a man's eye at length released from darkness, and endeavour to imagine his impressions. A thrill passes through him as the coloured beams first rush in, and awaken the emotions of a new sense.

---

All around, he beholds a tinted mass: earth and sky, land and water, are seen by him only as expanses of varied colour. Everything is coloured, and the forms of nature are to him but tinted surfaces, whose outline consists simply of the bordering of one colour upon another. Below and around him is a far-reaching expanse of green, above him, a mighty canopy of blue; and he feels that nothing could suit so well, for wide and permanent beholding, as this lively green of the earth, and the cool calm azure of the skies.* But variegating those vast surfaces of blue and green, he sees spots and shadings of all diverse hues: the purple of the heath-clad mountains, the golden bloom of the furze upon their lower slopes, the rich mosaic of the autumnal woods, the grey of rocks and ruins, or the yellow of the waving cornfields. Above, by night, he sees the dark-blue expanse sparkling all over with the light of stars, or decked with a silvery veil by the radiance of the moon;-by day, he sees it checkered and sailed over by clouds, ever-changing in aspect, and at length bursting into the gorgeous magnificence of sunset, when clouds and sky are alike filled with richest colouring, with brilliant ever-shifting hues which at once dazzle and mock the gaze. All this is new to him. He has walked the earth for years, tasted its fruits, felt and understood many of its forms, -he has known how useful it is, but not till now does he comprehend its beauty. He stands amazed at the spectacle which his new-born vision reveals to him;-the sights are all strange, but not so the emotion which they produce in him. The same nameless pleasure, the same indescribable sensation of enjoyment, which now swells and thrills within him, he

has felt before, when listening to the strains of music, or when some loveborn joy has set the chords of his heart a-vibrating. It is a joyous excitement, he nor any man can tell you no more; but he knows from previous experience that it is a sign of the soul having found something in rare harmony with itself.

A garden-or those graceful crystal pavilions which are now devoted to the culture and display of fine exotic plants and flowers-is the place where beauty of colour may be seen in its greatest variety and perfection. There colour is seen in peculiar gorgeousness, and combined with so much else that is attractive, as to constitute Flowers but another name for the beautiful. The most distinguished of Transatlantic writers,† in a burst of enthusiasm, styles them "Earth's raptures and aspirations-her better moments-her lucid intervals." Certainly they are the lovely offspring of earth's brightest hours; and so ravishing are they, from the blended charms of brilliant colour, graceful form, and exquisite odour, that no one need wonder that they should be chosen for so many sweet purposes of life, or to symbolise in the poetic regions of the South the language and emotions of mankind. "The greatest men have always thought much of flowers. Luther always kept a flower in a glass, on his writing-table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckius, he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a beautiful passage about flowers. As to Shakespeare, he is a perfect Alpine valley, he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. Witness the Midsummer Night's Dream. Even Milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite

+ Mrs H. B. Stowe.

gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers, as in Lycidas and Comus." *

Whatever be the subsidiary sources of attraction in flowers, Colour unquestionably is the supreme one. Men often talk disparagingly of this kind of beauty, as if it were something far lower in its nature than the beauty of Form and Sound, and indeed hardly worthy of our regard at all. This is a great mistake, and is owing to the circumstance either that the vast majority of mankind are little sensitive to any kind of beauty, or because a certain fashion of speaking has led them insensibly to disregard this particular manifestation of it. "Such expressions," says Mr Ruskin, “are used for the most part in thoughtlessness; and if such disparagers of colour would only take the pains to imagine what the world and their own existence would become if the blue were taken from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure from the leaves, and the crimson from the blood which is the life of man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance from the hair,-if they could but see for an instant white human creatures living in a white world, they would soon feel what they owe to colour. The fact is, that, of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly of gay colour and sad colour, for colour cannot at once be good and gay. Ali good colour is in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy; and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most."

Mr Ruskin is not a correct thinker. Eminently sensitive to the impressions of external nature and art, he is destitute of the analytic power to ascertain the real character of those impressions. He lacks the turn of mind by which a man is enabled to "know himself;" and hence, when he comes to expound his views, founded upon those impressions, he not seldom arrives at most absurd conclusions. Right as to his feelings, he is far wrong as to the inferences he draws from them. Thus, instead of under

standing the feeling of repose which symmetry tends to produce in the beholder, he roundly charges Greek architecture, which is of all others most symmetrical, with being "dead" and atheistic" in its spirit; while Gothic architecture, which is eminently irregular and expressive in its style, he quite as absurdly discovers to be symbolic of all the Christian graces. In the sentences upon Colour which we have quoted, he falls into a similar error. In speaking of the "sacredness" and "holiness" of colour, and in expressing his conviction that all artists who were fine colourists, (i. c., dealing in pure and bright colours), were good religious men, he falls into another of his fantastic mistakes, although in this case his misinterpretation of his feelings does not lead him very wide of the mark. Gifted with a fine sensibility, he feels, when pure bright colours are harmoniously presented to his eye, a thrill of elevated pleasure,-calm and pure, because free from all tincture of passion, and felt all the more divine because nameless, indefinite, and mysterious, because baffling language to describe, or the mind to analyse it. But this sensation is not occasioned by the "holiness" of colour,-it is produced by its beauty. True, the emotion of the beautiful is in one sense sacred and holy; because it arises from our being brought face to face with perfection,-with objects which bear most deeply impressed upon them the signet-mark of their Maker, and which the soul, made in that Maker's image, yearns towards and welcomes with delight. It is a noble and divine feeling, but not the one for which Ruskin here mistakes it. It is physical beauty, not the "beauty of holiness," which charms us in Colour, just as it does in music or the chefs-d'œuvre of Form. And when Ruskin goes on to say, that colour "cannot be at once good and gay," that "all good colour is pensive, and the loveliest melancholy," he is again treading upon ground which he does not fully understand. He enunciates only a half-truth. In so far as his remark is true, it refers not to colour only, but to every other em

VOL. LXXVI.-NO. CCCCLXIX.

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