the child, and I was too quick for her and got hold of it, and she was at the door and out of it before I could get hold of her.' The woman was his sister, who is among them and has taught him his unearthly knowledge.

In November 'the others' are said to fight for the harvest, and I may find, when I know more, that this fight is between the friends of the living among the dead, and those among the dead who would carry it away. The shadow of battle was over all Celtic mythology, for the gods established themselves and the fruitfulness of the world, in battle against the Fomor, or powers of darkness and barrenness; and the children of Mill, or the living, and perhaps the friends of the living, established themselves in battle against the gods and made them hide in the green hills and in the barrows of the dead, and they still wage an endless battle against the gods and against the dead.

W. B. YEATS.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH: A SKETCH

AN article by Mr. Reginald Statham in the National Review for last April reminded me that, in spite of the bewildering rush of quickly succeeding celebrities, the name and the genius of Clough were far from being forgotten, and that a kind of duty rested upon the few still living who knew him well, to make known any relevant facts and recollections, not hitherto made public property, which they retained in memory, concerning a personality so remarkable. He and I were close friends for several years; and although circumstances kept us apart for a long time before his death, the deep affection and respect which he inspired would not have allowed me to refrain, after he was gone, from bearing testimony to his admirable gifts, were it not that the publication of my brother's Thyrsis seemed to render the weaker words that I could utter unnecessary and inopportune. But many years have passed since Thyrsis appeared; and now, that the slight contribution which I can render to the just estimate of that singularly beautiful soul may not be lost, I desire

Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus

to revive the recollections of fifty years ago, and speak of Clough as he was in the brimming fulness of his powers, ere too much thinking, and those quick revulsions to which his mind was subject, had dulled the edge of his marvellous intelligence.

Apart from the gifts of imagination and mental analysis, Clough was of a noble, pure, and self-controlling nature. His friends felt certain that the temptations to excess which assail young men, at Universities and elsewhere, had by him been resolutely and victoriously resisted. His clear black eyes, under a broad, full, and lofty forehead, were often partly closed, as if through the pressure of thought; but when the problem occupying him was solved, a glorious flash would break from the eyes, expressive of an inner joy and sudden illumination, which fascinated any who were present. For though his sense of humour was keen, the spirit of satire was absent; benevolence in his kindly heart never finding a difficulty in quelling ill-nature. It will be said that there are many satirical strokes in

Dipsychus, and this is true; but they are aimed at classes-their follies and hypocrisies-never at any individual, except himself. His mouth was beautifully formed, but both it and the chin were characterised by some lack of determination and firmness. This deficiency, however, so far as it existed, was harmful only to himself; those who sought his counsel or help found in him the wisest of advisers, the steadiest and kindest of friends.

I first knew him as a boy at Rugby School. He was in the School-house, my brother and I at that time living at home, and preparing for Winchester with a private tutor. He was, I think, not seldom in the private part of the house; for my mother, who marked his somewhat delicate health, conceived a great liking for him; and his gentleness, and that unwonted humanity of nature which made him unlike the ordinary schoolboy, caused him to be a welcome guest in her drawing-room. What Mr. Statham says of his excellence as a goal-keeper in the football matches is quite true. He wore neither jersey nor cap; in a white shirt, and with bare head, he would face the rush of the other side as they pressed the ball within the line of the goal-posts; and not seldom, by desperate struggling, he was the first to touch it down,' thus baulking the enemy of his expected 'try at goal.'

My brother left Winchester and entered at Rugby in the summer of 1837; I followed him three months later. Clough, who had been elected a Scholar of Balliol in November 1836, and then returned to Rugby with a view to an exhibition from the School (which of course he obtained), went into residence at Oxford in October 1837, three or four days after I came from Winchester. The general impression in the School about him then was, that he was of an ability quite extraordinary, and would certainly do great things.

From that time till I went up to Oxford myself in October 1842 I saw but little of him. But we heard that he did not carry all before him, as we thought he ought to have done; and without in the least altering our opinion of his intellectual strength, we speculated on what could be the cause of failure. I remember-it must have been, I think, after his comparative failure in the schools in 1841-his coming up to my father in the front court of the Schoolhouse, standing in front of him with face partly flushed and partly pale, and saying simply, 'I have failed.' My father looked gravely and kindly at him, but what he said in reply I do not remember, or whether he said anything. In the spring of 1842 he was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel. After I came up to University in October, Clough, Theodore Walrond, my brother and I formed a little interior company, and saw a great deal of one another. We used often to go skiffing up the Cherwell, or else in the network of river channels that

1 Foems and Prose Remains, i. 22.

meander through the broad meadows facing Iffley and Sandford. After a time it was arranged that we four should always breakfast in Clough's rooms on Sunday morning. These were times of great enjoyment. Sir Robert Peel was in power; he was breaking loose more and more from the trammels of mere party connexion, and the shrewd Rentoul, who then edited the Spectator, welcomed in the Conservative chief the only true statesman that England had seen since the days of Canning. The Spectator of the day before used to arrive at breakfast-time, and the leading articles were eagerly read and discussed. Ireland especially-Rentoul seemed to hold-conciliated by the Maynooth Bill, the Colleges Act, and other healing measures, bade fair to pose no longer as England's difficulty. With this estimate of Peel Clough seemed on the whole to be in cordial agreement.

Between 1843 and 1845 there was a small society in existence at Oxford called the Decade. Among its members were Jowett, Arthur Stanley, Coleridge, my brother, Chichester Fortescue, John Campbell Shairp, the present writer, and several others. Shairp has described two speeches made by Clough at meetings of the Decade. The impressions of the future Professor of Poetry seem to have been in unison with my own, that no member of the society spoke in so rich, penetrating, original, and convincing a strain as Clough. He was not rapid, yet neither was he slow or hesitating; he seemed just to take time enough to find the right word or phrase wherein to clothe his thought. My recollections have grown sadly dim; but I remember one debate when he spoke to a resolution that I had proposed in favour of Lord Ashley's Ten Hours Bill. In supporting the resolution he combated the doctrines of laissez faire and the omnipotence and sufficiency of the action of Supply and Demand, then hardly disputed in England, with an insight marvellous in one who had so little experience of the industrial life, and at the same time with a strict and conscientious moderation. This must have been in 1844 or 1845.

He had scrupled much about signing the Articles, then a necessary preliminary before taking the M.A. degree; however, he did sign them, though reluctantly, and became a Master of Arts in the course of 1844.

In August 1845 a party of Oxford men, who had planned a walking tour in the Highlands, met at Calder Park, near Glasgow, the home of Theodore Walrond, one of the party. The others were Clough, Shairp, my brother Edward, afterwards an Inspector of Schools in the West of England, and myself. An account of this expedition is given in a long letter from Clough to Burbidge. During the few days that we spent at Calder Park before setting out, Clough

3

2 Poems, &c. i. 25.

3 Ibid. i. 97.

talked very brilliantly, being much drawn out and stimulated by the lively sallies of Miss Walrond. Agnes Walrond was then, though not exactly beautiful, a very charming, handsome, and graceful woman; and she seemed quick to comprehend the intellectual force and manysidedness of Clough. She afterwards married Mr. Henley, son of the well-known member for Oxfordshire, and still, I hope, remembers the pleasant days which her parents' hospitality secured for us Southrons at that far-distant date.

5

When we returned, 'dirty, dusty, and bankrupt,' as Clough says, to Calder Park, we found Scott's grandchildren, Walter and Charlotte Lockhart, staying there. The grandson, then a lively young officer in the 16th Lancers, was much like military men everywhere. I could not trace in him the likeness to Sir Walter which people talked of. But in the sister it was evident enough. The set and expression of the eyes, the height of the somewhat narrow forehead, reminded one strongly of the pictures of her grandfather. She sang old Scotch songs with an exquisite and simple grace. Both Clough* and Shairp speak of the visit to Milton Lockhart, where we saw the famous editor of the Quarterly walking on the terrace. Shairp brought up Clough and introduced him, and Lockhart, though evidently out of health, conversed with him frankly and cordially. Besides speaking of the infidelity common among the Lanarkshire farmers at that time, Clough told us that Lockhart assured him that a number of Burns's songs in MS., much more loose and licentious than any of those published, were circulating among the peasantry. Lockhart was a tall, thin, dark-eyed man; his face, though it wore a severe, not to say harsh, expression, was singularly handsome.

In 1847 he wrote some beautiful quatrains-Qui laborat, orat' -which were first published in 1849. The circumstances under which he wrote them, while staying for a night with me at my London lodgings, are described in Mr. S. Waddington's monograph, Arthur Hugh Clough, at p. 138.

In the long vacation of 1847, Clough took a reading-party to the Highlands. For several weeks he was established at a large farmhouse-since turned into an inn-called Drumnadrochit, on the north shore of Loch Ness and not far from the Fall of Foyers. The party numbered, so far as I recollect, six or seven men; among them were Warde Hunt, afterwards a well-known figure in the House of Commons, and Charles Lloyd, son of a former bishop of Oxford. It was this reading-party that gave occasion to the Long Vacation Pastoral,' which he published under the name of 'The Bothie of Tober na Vuolich.' The origin of the name was this. Several Oxford friends, Shairp, the present Archdeacon Scott of Dublin, with a younger brother, Theodore Walrond, and myself, arranged to beat up the quarters of the Drumnadrochit party while making a walking Poems, &c. i. 99.

5 Ibid. i. 27.