A VIOLET'S ADVENTURES.

[H. A. Page (nom de plume), born at Dun, near Brechin, Forfarshire, 1837. Studied at the Edinburgh University, where he distinguished himself in rhetoric, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. He early became connected with newspapers as contributor and editor; removed to London in 1864, and since then has been an active contributor to the Contemporary Review, under Dean Alford; to the British Quarterly, London Quarterly, Good Words, and other reviews and magazines. He has written much in various styles on various topics. Of his separate works we may mention: Memoir of Hawthorne, with Stories now first published in England; Golden Lives-an admirable series of biographies; and Out and all About, a book of fables from which the following is taken, and by which the author will be probably best known for some time to come. This work is full

of quaint fancy, picturesque humour, and skill in quiet satire; it displays in a remarkable degree the power of happily selecting symbols and of conveying great moral lessons in simple language.]

"True fame is hardly to be bought,

She sometimes follows where she is not sought." -Paraphrase of Persian Proverb.

A wild Violet that grew very snugly sheltered at the foot of a high hill, once shook hands with a wandering Fairy, and was immediately seized with a great desire to know where the sun went to when it set and sank. This was perhaps a mere excuse for a wish to see the world, and to gratify vanity on the Violet's part; for it no sooner found that it could hold intercourse with beings of a superior order, than it began to look down upon its neighbours and old friends. It very ungraciously snubbed a young Fern that had been attentive to it, and had helped to carry water to it many a time. As for the young Primrose which it used to admire so much, the Violet would not vouchsafe the poor creature so much as a single word.

And the wild Violet was very firm; for the Fairy had told it that it could only succeed, if it kept itself aloof from all companions, and told no one of its secret. So it lay and waited, and, whenever it felt a warmer glow of life thrilling through its fibres, it hoped and dreamed its deliverance was now near at hand, and shut its ears to all that was going on near by, which before used to interest it much. And it fell into the habit of speaking to itself and laughing at the low aims of its old friends.

"As for affection," it would reflect, "that's all humbug! The Fern helped me because it was its nature to and couldn't help it; and as

for that Primrose, she thought to mate with me and be honoured-poor, pale, yellow thing!" and even as he looked the Primrose seemed to fade and shrink away.

But the Violet had no time to make any work about that: he had his own business to mind; and just as the Primrose shrivelled and died, the Violet was loosed from earth, and, with a cheer that escaped him in spite of his resolution, he broke away from his old home without so much as an adieu, and made directly towards the sunsetting, as he had intended.

"Ah!" he said to himself, "I'll soon be famous,-men will learn to speak of me with respect and admiration; for I'll find out the secret of the sun, and come back and tell all about it, notwithstanding that I once lived in that mean hole east there;" and he quickened his pace again as he thought of it. So he wandered all day, till the sun-setting, when he sat down to see if he was making any progress. He could not convince himself that he had made much; but then he thought, "It is a great work, and doubtless demands much time;" and in sheer weariness he lay down on the bank to rest. He had not lain very long, when he was rudely shaken, and, looking up, he saw his friend the Fairy and a great number of others, some of them with heads like men, and others with the strangest appear ance; but almost all of them giggling, and laughing, and dancing about in the oddest manner.

"Rise, and join us!" said the Fairy.

"I need rest," said the Violet, rubbing his eyes and looking round in amazement. "We are your friends," said the Fairy, "and friendship is better than sleep."

"I don't know that," the Violet ventured to say, a little shortly, for he was almost unable to keep his eyes open.

"We'll prove it to you," said a pair of Compasses and a Triangle, that trotted up together, and peered into the Violet's face, in a way that would have been disrespectful if it hadn't been so evidently serious. "We are masters of the ceremonies," said they, "and look to the rules; so get up; it is our pleasure so! When the rest dance, we work; but, for all that, we're the masters here!"

"It's all right," said the Fairy, who had all this while been listening; "take this, and that will do for sleep, and better too;" and he gave the Violet a little white powder and sprinkled some liquid over his face.

"Put the powder on your tongue," said a Fairy Leaf that came up at the moment,

"and that'll make you right;" and he turned and pirouetted away again.

The Violet did as he was bid, and in a moment O delightful sensation!—all weariness had vanished; and, like the others, he felt impelled to dance and sing. It was as though all the dull bliss of growing was pressed or concentrated into a single instant of time. So he mixed with the rest, and gave himself up to the spirit of the party, and poured forth his thoughts to any one that would listen, in language so sweet and convincing that he wondered at himself.

A Drumhead was very attentive and proved a remarkably good listener, gaining the Violet's respect immensely by his quietness, and his easy way of saying "Ha, ha!" "Yes, yes!" "So!" " Quite so!" "Re-ally!" "Do you say so!" "Hum!" "Well, I never!" and so forth. The awkward thing was, that they were followed by a Trombone, whose weakness was not to listen, but to make himself heard, as he went alongside blowing every now and then, on which the Drumhead once or twice whispered to the Violet, "He's a good fellow, and very useful to me, but he's cracked, quite cracked with vanity," here touching his forehead significantly-" and one must just humour him."

When the first faint light of morning came, all the Fairies vanished, and the Violet felt solitary and worn out. But whenever he thought of his great object, he resolved to go

on.

So he wandered for a while, till the sun became strong, and, reaching the border of a field, he thought to himself that he had better lie down and rest. But the buzzing of bees, and the chirping of crickets, and the singing of birds, and the very sound of the branches as they waved in the breeze that languidly stirred now and then, distressed him, and wouldn't let him sleep; and while he listened, as he really could not help doing, he began to fancy he heard words distinctly. At first it was just a vague hum, such as you, my reader, may sometimes have heard on suddenly coming close to a village school; but by-and-by he could more and more clearly make out words: "The Violet is full; the Violet is full!" He felt flattered at this notice; but turned round desiring sleep. He could not banish the words, however. They kept ringing in his ears, till his brain was quite in a fever, and he rose and walked on through the wood. The sun had sunk, and he had some difficulty in finding his way, as he had nothing to guide him aright now. He was sorry that he had not asked some advice on the point from the

Compasses and the Triangle, who seemed to be so grave and so knowing; but he had not mentioned his secret to them, as he had not had any opportunity of asking the Fairy if it would be right for him to do so. The windings of the wood and the confused state of his mind at length made him lose all reckoning. He tried and tried to discover his exact whereabouts, but could not manage it, and went round and round in a maze as it seemed to him. To his horror, as he sat on a bank looking about, he beheld a great red bull feeding quite close to him, and at sight of it he rose and ran, for he was afraid of being eaten up and dying the most terrible of deaths. He was sure it was following him, and held on wildly, till his breath was almost spent in his breast. He fell prone into a field, over a treeroot, from beneath which, as it chanced, a Mole was just then looking out.

"Ah!" said the Mole, "you're in haste, and hasty folks are seldom well served. You look faint can I do anything for you?" "I want water sorely," said the Violet. "You'll have plenty of it soon enough," said the Mole. If it hadn't been for that, you wouldn't have found me here just at this moment." And as he spoke, thunder pealed through the wood, lightning darted through the trees, and struck some of them, rending their strong trunks in pieces.

"Come into my house!" said the Mole, roughly pulling the Violet, "till I close the door against the rain. It was for that I came up, and I may be too late, and we may both be ruined." And he at once set to throwing up earth in all directions. The atmosphere was so close, and the place so dark, that the Violet thought he would have died; but the Mole pulled him along passage after passageup and down, and down and up-till they came to a round hall, and there they sat down.

"I wonder to see you out at such a time," said the Mole.

"I was seeking for my home-I'd lost my way," answered the Violet; for he remembered what the Fairy had said about keeping his great search a secret; but his chief reason was that he thought the Mole would laugh if he was told that a Violet had been trying to find where the sun went to when it set and sank out of sight. And then he began to describe the hill at the foot of which he had lived for so long.

"Oh, that must be Snow-cap," said the Mole; "you're very nearly lost in your own castle, for it's just at the border of the wood.

If you keep round to the left, five minutes, or even less, will bring you to it. But you can stay here quietly for the night, and then leave in the morning." To this the Violet, faint to exhaustion, at length agreed, and lay down. But there was little rest for him. The Mole was busy most part of the night. Now and again, the Violet heard the rain patter-pattering on the earth above, and a thunder-peal would rise over all else, and then he would tremble, so that the Mole would stop working, and look at him, and laugh to himself quietly, as he poked his sharp nose and his hand-like paws in the wet earth. "He's a tender fellow," thought the Mole; "but Violets are a good sort, and not given to travel. He looks as if he'd had trouble, and so I'm glad I befriended him. | His folk may serve me some day, who

knows?"

At length the morning came, clear and calm; the air and the sky, with their freshness and odour, seeming as though Nature strove through them to atone for her angry passion of the night. The Mole pointed out the way to the Violet, and after warm expressions of gratitude, he bade the Mole good-bye, and soon found himself at his old home, where he at once went to bed, and slept soundly for a good many hours.

When he awoke, he found changes among his neighbours, though his absence had been so short. Some had gone away, others had come. The Wood-Sorrels and the Starworts were in the lodgings the Cousins Primrose and Cowslip had had, and the Ferns had added to their family, and were all the prouder and more overbearing-looking that they had got a little red-headed.

The Violet took in these facts as he opened his eyes in a half-dreamy way, and he felt that he was being scanned and criticized by all and sundry around, and that the Ferns were speaking about him to the others in a very disparaging manner. At first the Violet could not make out the words, but he shut his eyes and listened intently, and was sure he caught, amongst the gabble of flower-dialects, "The Violet is full! the Violet is full!" and he was seized with terrible chagrin and selfcontempt in thinking of the airs he had given himself towards his neighbours before he had set out to find the secret of the sun. 66 "And here I am again," he thought, " and perhaps they will contrive to make the place too hot for me. If they do, I'll take staff in hand

once more and ascend the hill; they can't follow me there!"

The days passed slowly and heavily, and the Violet did not feel any more at peace; his neighbours treated him coldly, and seemed to combine against him, and kept up a constant chatter in which he was sure he heard himself named. So one fine morning he started, saying to himself—

"It may be all for the best. Why should I remain to disturb their peace or destroy my own self-respect by staying among people who despise me? I've heard say it's cold up there, but I deserve no better, and perhaps even there I may grow a little!"

So with a sore and humbled heart he set forth on his road. He journeyed for three days, only resting as long as to enable him to take refreshment. On the evening of the third day he found himself resting on a jutting spur of the mountain. The sun was sinking, and as he looked he suddenly exclaimed

"I have found the secret, when I no more hoped to gain it, but only peace and quietness. Instead of travelling the plains, one must clamber higher and higher up towards the cold snow-peaks to see the sun the longer. Perhaps if I struggle to the top of this mountain it may be made all clear to me."

So, nerved with a new hope, he pushed on day by day, higher and higher, till he reached near to the summit, where patches of snow lingered in the shaded hollows even until summer time. There was a murmur of water and a cold air stirring, but he said to himself

"I like it; this is the place for me." And planting himself in a crevice where some grass grew sweet and green on a little ridge, he settled himself and waited for the sunset. It was so glorious that it completely overwhelmed him; for long after the sun was lost to all below he could see it, and see it growing more brilliant and beautiful every moment.

"It is worth the trouble and the sacrifice," said the Violet; "here will I abide and do my duty, and strive to grow in the added light of the sun; and though men may call me the Mountain Violet, and tell of my past foolish ambitions, that will not matter, since they will once more speak of me with respect, if not with honour, and since, in spite of the coldness of my dwelling, I shall be longer than any of my old friends in the blessed light of the sun."

THE TROUBADOURS.

[Henry Hallam, LL.D., born 1778; died 21st January, 1859. Educated at Eton and Oxford. One of the greatest historians of our century. View of the State of Burope during the Middle Ages, from which the following is taken; The Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II., and the Introduction to the Literature of Europe in Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, are his principal works. He was a cordial co-operator with Wilberforce for the suppression of the slave trade; and in 1830 received one of the two fifty-guinea gold medals awarded by George IV. for eminence in historical composition; the other medal was given to Washington Irving. "In extent and variety of learning, and a deep acquaintance with antiquarian lore, the historian of the middle ages may deservedly take a place with the most eminent writers in that style that Europe has produced."- Sir A. Alison.]

For three or four centuries after what was called the Romance tongue was spoken in France, there remain but few vestiges of its employment in writing; though we cannot draw an absolute inference from our want of proof, and a critic of much authority supposes translations to have been made into it for religious purposes from the time of Charlemagne. During this period the language was split into two very separate dialects, the regions of which may be considered, though by no means strictly, as divided by the Loire. These were called the Langue d'Oil, and the Langue d'Oc: or in more modern terms, the French and Provençal dialects. In the latter of these I know of nothing which can even by name be traced beyond the year 1100. About that time, Gregory de Bechada, a gentleman of Limousin, recorded the memorable events of the first crusade, then recent, in a metrical history of great length. This poem has altogether perished; which, considering the popularity of its subject, as M. Sismondi justly remarks, would probably not have been the case if it had possessed any merit. But very soon afterwards a multitude of poets, like a swarm of summer insects, appeared in the southern provinces of France. These were the celebrated Troubadours, whose fame depends far less on their positive excellence, than on the darkness of preceding ages, on the temporary sensation they excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry. From William, count of Poitou, the earliest troubadour on record, who died in 1126, to their extinction about the end of the next century, there were probably several hundred of these versifiers in the language of

Provence, though not always natives of France. Millot has published the lives of one hundred and forty-two, besides the names of many more whose history is unknown; and a still greater number, it cannot be doubted, are unknown by name. Among those poets are reckoned a king of England (Richard I.), two of Aragon, one of Sicily, a dauphin of Auvergne, a count of Foix, a prince of Orange, many noblemen, and several ladies. One can hardly pretend to account for this sudden and transitory love of verse; but it is manifestly one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human mind received in the twelfth century, and contemporaneous with the severer studies that began to flourish in the universities. It was encouraged by the prosperity of Languedoc and Provence, undisturbed, comparatively with other countries, by internal warfare, and disposed by the temper of their inhabitants to feel with voluptuous sensibility the charm of music and amorous poetry. But the tremendous storm that fell upon Languedoc in the crusade against the Albigeois shook off the flowers of Provençal verse; and the final extinction of the fief of Toulouse, with the removal of the counts of Provence to Naples, deprived the troubadours of their most eminent patrons. An attempt was made in the next century to revive them, by distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher antiquity. This institution perhaps still remains; but, even in its earliest period, it did not establish the name of any Provençal poet. Nor can we deem those fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate, however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for poetry, and the manners of those chivalrous ages.

The great reputation acquired by the troubadours, and panegyrics lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of Provençal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed. Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet with passages in his three