For three hours he spoke, and then, as Macaulay well describes, sat down amidst such a scene as had never before been known in Parliament. To such a degree of excitement were his hearers roused that the staid legislators did not dare remain in session. They immediately adjourned, to give their feelings time to cool before discussing the charge against Hastings at further length. No one now thought of Sheridan as "the player's son"; he was the orator of England. Later, when he locked himself in against the small army of creditors who dogged him wherever he went, he may have smiled to himself at thought of how times were changed. But his days of prosperity were short. Debts, duns and dissipation; such was the course of his life outside of Parliament. Matters became worse and worse. His friends did for him what they could, but their efforts were unavailing. He went on his way wildly, entertaining as lavishly as the wealthiest of his noble friends; by night, drinking deeply and trying to outshine Fox in wit and brilliancy at the clubs; by day, dodging the Jews. At length the crash came. Fox died, and, his patronage removed, Sheridan was not returned to Parliament. was the beginning of the end. As long as he was a member he could not be arrested for debt; but now his creditors closed in, his friends drew away, and the great orator and dramatist was forced to go to a sponging-house. His health, undermined by long dissipation, gave way, and he took to his bed. He was not so witty and amusing now as he had been formerly, and his

It

fine friends left him severely alone. The Prince, who owed him so much, probably failed to remember that he had ever known a man named Sheridan. He lay in direst poverty, yet never a hand was stretched forth to help him. Even in this extremity his creditors would not leave him to die in peace. They resolved to have him arrested again and carried on his bed to jail, but by a merciful Providence he passed beyond their reach before this inhuman act could be consummated. 'Twas a sad though logical ending for so brilliant but erratic a career.

The "lives of great men all remind us" that mediocrity walks safer ways.

With his last breath, Sheridan, looking back over his life, might have murmured: Vanitas

vanitatum.

FRANKLIN HAMPDON.

THE RESURRECTION TIME.

(COMPETITIVE).

The naked, shivering trees would die,
Nor upward spring the stalks of green,
Nor troops of seeds lift spears on high
In open field or deep ravine,

If joyous Easter, calm, serene,

What time the moistened fields are plowed,
Did not descend, the spring's fair queen,
To bear away the winter's shroud.

Ere long the drooping violet shy,
The daisies bold, with saucy mien,
And stately lilies will be nigh,

Late hidden 'neath a snowy screen.
The gadding vine will climb between
The honeysuckles blossom-bowed;

And all the flowering land be seen To bear away the winter's shroud.

Alas! alas! we breathe a sigh

For showery April's brighter sheen,

And for a warmer, bluer sky;

For dark days bring with anguish keen

The memories of a bitter scene,

Of Christ before the mocking crowd.

Come, glorious dawn, where death has been, And bear away the winter's shroud.

L'ENVOI.

O Christ! my prince, from thy demesne

Look down on cold hearts, dark and proud;

Let Thy blest mercy intervene

To bear away the winter's shroud.

M.

THOUGHT-DEVELOPMENT IN TENNYSON'S

"LOTUS-EATERS."

(COMPETITIVE).

In the Odyssey, Homer rather indefinitely relates the visit of Ulysses to a land where dwelt

"The Lotus-eaters, men whose food is flowers."

Of the character of the inhabitants, he merely states that

"they used

No violence against our lives, but gave
Into our hands the lotus plant to eat,"

and of the plant he says:

"Whoever tasted once

Wished not to see his native country more."

This vague description furnishes the germ of one of the most beautiful of Tennyson's imaginative poems, "The Lotus-eaters." With exquisite skill the English laureate, on the slender foundation of facts supplied by Homer's narrative, erected a poetical structure seemingly perfect in every detail. Remarkable imagery, unusual freshness, constant truthfulness to nature, and marvellous aptness of diction to the sentiments expressed strengthen and beautify every verse.

To obtain pleasing variety, Tennyson divided his poem into two parts. In the first, by skillfully adapting sound to sense, the strange,

unnatural characteristics of the land are shown; in the second, by permitting the sailors to personally relate the pernicious effects of the lotus, greater vividness is attained. In both, all the devices known to poetry are utilized to bring out the poet's conception of this land of peaceful inactivity.

The key-note of the whole work is contented weariness. The all-permeating power of this feeling is shown by an enumeration of its influences; its enervating qualities are reflected in the drowsy figures of speech, the preponderance of mellow-sounding vowels, and the frequent recurrence of flowing liquids:

"All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream."

The rivers, too, seem under the hypnotic spell:

"Like a downward smoke, the slender stream

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem." How completely this long line, with its movement retarded by the introduction of connectives, rounds out the idea of the sleeping waters! And then, in one verse, is concentrated a full description of this region:

"A land where all things always seemed the same."

From the land the poet passes on to the inhabitants," the mild-eyed, melancholy lotuseaters," and their baneful plant, which held them in willing vassalage. New subjects were enrolled in this realm of inertia when the sailors had eaten, for the waves

Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave."

Every word, every syllable, bears eloquent