Is out of rivalry, which thus you can

Love, tho' unloving all conceived by man-
What need! And of-noue the minutest duct
To that out-nature, nought that would instruct
And so let rivalry begin to live-
But of a Power its Representative
Who, being for authority the same,
Communication different, should claim

A course, the first chose and this last revealed-
This Human clear, as that Divine concealed-

What utter need!"

Let this be compared with that sacred effusion entitled "Fears and Scruples" in Pacchiarotto. From Pauline down to his latest swansongs, if we must begin so to speak, the same lowly evangelical tone runs; the same sense, amidst all display of strength and consciousness of freedom, of the frailty and dependence of human nature on the Power and Love of its Maker and Redeemer. In the remarkable Epilogue to Vol. vi. he shows how idle is that habit of thought which fixes the revelation of God to mankind to place and time of the past. Each soul, becoming in turn the centre of the Universe, may read anew the revelation of the Being who knows and feels for us, as distinctly as He can be known by the historic imagination. In other words, God is incarnate now to faith and love as fully as He was in any age of the past. The closing paragraphs of Fifine may be viewed as an expansion of 1 Cor. xiii. I do not think there can be much danger of Browning's writings being made a sectarian battle-ground amongst us. His conceptions are far above the extreme and partial views which prevail. Whatever differences of opinion exist, or are fancied to exist, among us, I believe there is one criticism on our poet in which all will agree; and that is, that he has done our hearts good. And this is the best criticism, for it is appreciation. In other respects, Time is the only critic. I confess I have often thought of the poet's lines and applied them to himself, where he speaks of

66

'mighty works which tell some spirit there
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen
And left us, never to return, and all

Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain."

Absit omen! Mr. Carlyle, the beloved friend of Browning, once uttered the dictum, "Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe!" We, I presume, in this Society desire to close the pages of none of those great poets who have spiritually enriched this our island of poets, but shall rejoice if anything we say and do here shall lead the younger among us Pauline, p. 8.

seriously and earnestly to "open their Browning," and keep him open. To wrestle with his pages is a fine gymnastic of the intellect, and there is moral blessing in the society of the gentle and mighty heart that throbs behind them.

SCRAPS.

1880. Thomas Bayne. Mr. Browning's Dramatic Idyls. 'St. James's Magazine,' August 1880.-T. LANE.

1881. Browning.

Islington Gazette,' Jan. 1. Sonnet by W. G. Kingsland "to Robert
O thou large-hearted Poet of our time," &c.

66

1881. Rev. G. Gilfillan. 'Sketches, Literary and Theological.' Edinburgh. D. Douglas, p. 85-6. R. Browning. There ought to be a Browning Dictionary compiled by himself." "Sour austerities of B."-T. W. CARSON.

1882. Le Parlement' du 15 Aout. A French prose translation of Hervé Riel, with an excellent account of the event, of Browning, our Society, &c., by M. James Darmesteter, the best Zend scholar in the world, the accomplisht Editor of Macbeth, &c.

1882. 'Journal of Education,' May 1, p. Browning.' By Arthur Sidgwick (M.A. 'Another Aspect of Browning's Love Poetry.'

On the Love Poems of ib. Sept. 1, p. 285-8.

139-143.
Oxon.).
(By A. S[torr?].)

1882. 'Islington Gazette,' May 8, 1882. attainment of his 70th birthday, May 7th, 1882. our age," &c. By W. G. Kingsland.

"To Robert Browning, on the
Teacher of men, great Poet of

1882. Punch,' July 22. Drawing, and lines on R. B.-B. Sagar.

Editor in Chief:-F. J. FURNIVALL, Esq., 3, St. George's Sq., Primrose Hill, N.W. Hon. Sec.-W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67, Victoria Road, Finsbury Park, N.

To do honour to CHAUCER, and to let the lovers and students of him see how far the best unprinted Manuscripts of his works differd from the printed texts, this Society was founded in 1868. The founder (Mr. Furnivall) began with The Canterbury Tales, and has given of them (in parallel columns in Royal 4to) six of the best theretofore unprinted Manuscripts known. Inasmuch as the parallel arrangement necessitated the alteration of the places of certain tales in some of the MSS., a print of each MS. has been issued separately, following the order of its original. The first six MSS. printed have been: the Ellesmere (by leave of the Earl of Ellesmere); the Hengwrt (by leave of W. W. E. Wynne, Esq.); the Camb. Univ. Libr., MS. Gg. 4. 27; the Corpus, Oxford; the Petworth (by leave of Lord Leconfield); and the Lansdowne 851 (Brit. Mus.). The Harleian 3374 will follow.

Of Chaucer's Minor Poems,-the MSS. of which are generally later than the best MSS. of the Canterbury Tales,-all the available MSS. have been printed, so as to secure all the existing evidence for the true text.

Of Chaucer's Troilus, a Parallel-Text of the 3 best MSS. has been issued, and a 4th text set opposite its englisht original, Boccaccio's Filostrato, is all in type. The Boece from the best MS. is now in type too.

Mr. F. J. Furnivall has read and will read all the texts with their MSS. Autotypes of all the best Chaucer MSS. either have been or will be publisht.

The Society's publications are issued in two Series, of which the first contains the texts of Chaucer's works; and the Second, such originals of and essays on these as can be procured, with other illustrative treatises, and Supplementary Tales.

Messrs. Trübner & Co., of 57 & 59, Ludgate Hill, London, E. C., are the Society's publishers, Messrs. Clay and Taylor of Bungay its printers, and the Alliance Bank, Bartholomew Lane, London, E.C., its bankers. The yearly subscription is two guineas, due on every 1st January, beginning with Jan. 1, 1868. More Members are wanted. All the Society's Publications can still be had. Those of the first year have just been reprinted.

Prof. Child of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the Society' Honorary Secretary for America.

Hon. Sec., W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67, Victoria Road, Finsbury Park

THE WYCLIF SOCIETY.

Founded by Mr. Furnivall in March, 1882, to print the Latin Works of the gi early Reformer, JOHN WYCLIF, which have, to England's shame, been left in man script for now 500 years. These Latin works are far more important than Wycli English ones. Subscription 1 guinea a year, to be sent to the Hon. Sec., J. W Standerwick, General Post Office, E.C. Books I and II of Wyclif's chief work, Summa Theologia, will be issued in 1883. Probably Books III-V, and VI (De Veritate Scripturæ Sacra) in 1884 and 1885. A volume of Wyclif's Polemical Writings, edited by Dr. R. Briddensieg, will be issued for 1882, early in January, 1883.

The Honorary Secretary of the Ballad Society is Mr. W. A. Dalziel.

The Honorary Secretary of the English Dialect Society is J. H. Nodal, Esq., The Grange, Heaton Moor, near Stockport. Subscription a guinea a year.

The Hunterian Club, Glasgow, has reprinted in 4to the complete works of Samuel Rowlands, is doing those of Lodge, &c. Subscription 2 guineas a year. Hon. Sec., Mr. John Alexander, Regent Street, West, Glasgow.

The Spenser Society, Manchester, 2 guineas a year, is reprinting the complete works of Taylor the Water-Poet, Withers, &c. Messrs. Simms, printers, Manchester. The Honorary Secretary of the Index Society is Mr. Hy. B. Wheatley, 6, Minford Gardens, West Kensington Park, London, W.

The Honorary Secretary of the Folk-Lore Society is Mr. Lawrence Gomme, Castlenau, Barnes, London, S.W.

Prof. E. Arber's excellent English Reprints, &c., are now publisht by him at the Mason College, Birmingham. He will send a Catalogue to any applicant.