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From The Spectator.

CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY. IN" C. S. C.," the world of letters has lost one of the most skilful and ingenious of writers. Mr. Calverley (in these days, Mr. Blaydes) won a scholarship at Balliol, then, as now, perhaps more emphatically then than now, the "blue ribbon" among such distinctions. A disagreement with the authorities caused his migration to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated as second classic in 1856. Shortly afterwards appeared his first volume, "Verses and Translations."

centre of all his thoughts, the theologi- false prophets. They do not believe that cal tendencies of the day. That he pre- facts are angels of the Lord, saying, dicted again and again in years long past Thus far shalt thou go, and no farthe outbreak of atheism which, in its ther; they merely kick, and beat, and fulness, we have only seen since his rave, determined to do what they cannot death, and have then seen at its worst, in do, always mistaking adherence to their the very form in which he predicted it, own maxims for obedience to the divine the atheistic persecution of atheism, will." There is a great share of the every one who knows his writings will ad- luminousness of the true prophet there. mit. But that on secondary subjects, But it was in his insight into the evils of such as the political drift of popular ten- our social life that Maurice's prophetic dencies, he was much more misled by his insight was most powerfully illustrated. deep Conservatism, and his profound sensitiveness to English feeling, than some others political observers, we freely admit. Undoubtedly, he was hardly more farsighted than Mr. Gladstone in relation to the American Civil War, and was sur. passed in moral discernment on that subject by some of his own most intimate friends. Undoubtedly, again, he was much less far-sighted than Mr. Gladstone in relation to the political destiny of the Mahommedan races, and he more or less misled some of us, - the present writer amongst the number, in his relative appreciation of the political worth of Russia and Turkey. These were subjects on which Mr. Maurice's moral insight was more or less blinded by his historical Conservatism, and his passionate love for Mr. Calverley's reputation as a scholar the old lines as regards both constitutional has been so thoroughly well established, government and English traditions. But that we venture to recall, for the encour these are, indeed, small matters, when we agement of learners, and perhaps we may compare them with that far-sighted and add, of teachers, two curious mistakes purifying teaching of his on theology, and which occurred on the first page of a Latin that noble protest against a narrow and version of "Lycidas." Baccar (commonly petty commercialism, by which he raised translated "foxglove," but possibly "va the whole temper of English artisans. lerian "), was confounded with bacca, a Nor was his personal insight without a "berry;" and prae was constructed with prophetic force. Witness this passage, an accusative. These were mistakes in a letter written concerning the Oxford which the ideal "fifth-form boy," of course, election in 1847: "Mr. Gladstone gave would not have made; but which, it is up place that he might confess, what he instructive to observe, were quite possible need not have confessed, what it would to one of the most elegant and accom have done him good with his Oxford conplished scholars of his day. The" Transstituents not to have confessed. Wheth-lations" which formed part of this volume er he was wrong or right about Maynooth, were republished in 1867, with many addi this was the reverse of following expeditions. Some of these are as masterly in ency; it was acting upon principle. It their way as anything which modern is a kind of principle which you have scholarship has produced. It would not need of at Oxford; it is the very principle be easy to surpass, or perhaps to match, which saves a man from becoming the this rendering of a stanza from "In Meslave of circumstances, which is in effect moriam: " the same thing as making his steadfastness depend on his determination not to understand circumstances. For the stead. fastness of Balaam in refusing to turn aside when the creature on which he rode refused to go forward, is precisely the steadfastness of our country gentlemen, be they High or Low Churchmen, and

We keep the day with festal cheer,

With books and music. Surely we
Will drink to him, whate'er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear :
Hunc dedicamus laetitiae diem,
Lyraeque, musisque. Illius, illius
Da quicquid audit: nec silebunt
Qui numeri placuere vivo.

As we are speaking of Mr. Calverley's | And their Q's, and not court every form of
Latin verse, we must not pass over with-
out notice the exquisitely humorous "Car-
men Seculare." What could be happier
than the warning to the purchaser of to-
bacco, a slander, we should say, too funny
for even the slandered to resent?-

Then Tommy eats up the three last ratafias,
And pretty Louise wraps her robe de cerise
Round a bosom as tender as Widow Ma-

on Esch., Ag. Illustrate the theory in volved by a remark of the parent Wel ler."

It has been doubted whether Mr. Cal

verley was really a poet. Only once, as far as we remember, is he serious, and that is in the last ten stanzas of "Dover to Munich;" but these forty verses are almost enough to prove his title. And now and then, when he is in his lightest

Through God's own heather we wound to mood, there is a touch of pathos in him

gether,

I and my Willie (O love, my love!)

I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitter-bats waver'd alow, above.

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands wore a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sun dazzle on bark and bight!

Through the rare red heather we danced to-
gether,

(O love, my Willie !) and smelt for flowers; I must mention again it was gorgeous weather, Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours.

By rises that flush'd with their purple favors,
Thro' becks that brattled o'er graver sheen,
We walked and waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.
Of parodies of style there is nothing bet-
ter than "Forever: "-

Forever; 'tis a single word!

Our rude forefathers deemed it two; Can you imagine so absurd

Be one.

Forever! passion-fraught, it throws
O'er the dim page a glow, a glamor;
It's sweet, it's strange; and I suppose
It's grammar.

Forever! 'tis a single word!

And yet our fathers deem'd it two; Nor am I confident they err'd;

Are you?

which goes to show the same thing. The reminiscence of "little Em'ly" in "David little maiden in "First Love" (possibly a Copperfield ") is not altogether comic, even when we read:

There she sat so near me, yet remoter

Than a star- a blue-eyed, bashful imp; On her lap she held a happy bloater,

'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp. It matters but little, however; he followed his own bent, and followed it with a success which has enriched our literature with work which is quite perfect in its way.

translation of Theocritus, a work of ele Mr. Calverley published in 1869 a verse gant scholarship, and exhibiting much of the felicity of diction which was his peculiar gift. His life, though not as busy as it might have been had the stimulus of necessity been present in it, was not inactive. He had begun to acquire considerable practice as a local barrister when, about two years ago, an accident on the ice shattered his powers both of mind and body.

From Knowledge.

GREEK FIRE.

AT what period the ancient Greek fire was invented has never been certainly determined. There are many writers who place the invention in a far antiquity. Historical details have been adduced pointing to the period of the earlier wars between the Greeks and Romans as the true era of the discovery. But we do not find any certain evidence of the use of Greek fire until the sieges of Constantinople, in We must not forget to mention that mas- the seventh and eighth centuries, though terpiece of ingenuity, the "Pickwick Ex- a Father of the Christian Church, writing amination Paper." Not only is it funny, in the fifth century, gave receipts for makbut it would puzzle many, who, like the ing a combustible substance of similar present writer, have studied "Pickwick " qualities from the compounds resin, sulfrom their youth up. Here is a sample: phur, pitch, pigeons' dung, turpentine, Пpoзaroyviμov: a good judge of cattle; and the juice of the herb "allbeal." It is bence, a good judge of character." "Note, related that the true Greek fire was in

The se

the engine - literally a fire-engine-propelled to a great distance. Hand-engines were also constructed by which the destructive compound could be spurted by the soldiers, Beckman tells us. cret, as we have said, was carefully kept by the Byzantines. The emperor Constantine suggested the answers which in his opinion were best fitted to elude the pertinacious questioning of the barbarians. "They should be told that the mys tery of the Greek fire had been revealed by an angel to the first and greatest of the Constantines, with the sacred injunction that this gift of Heaven - this peculiar blessing of the Romans - should never be communicated to any foreign nation; that the prince and subject were alike bound to religious silence under the temporal and spiritual penalties of treason and sacrilege; and that the infamous attempt would provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance of the God of the Christians." Gibbon adds that the secret thus religiously guarded was "confined for above four hundred years to the Romans of the East; and at the end of the eleventh century the Pisans, to whom every sea and every art were familiar, suffered the effects without understanding the composition of Greek fire." This, however, is not wholly true. The secret was preserved, indeed, from the Romans of the West, but the Saracens managed

vented by a certain Callinicus, an architect of Heliopolis, in Syria (Baalbec) in 678. The secret of the composition of this artificial flame, and the art of directing its action, were imparted by Callinicus who had deserted from the caliph to the emperor of Constantinople. From this period until the year 1291 the use of Greek fire was an important element in the military power of the Byzantine empire. The progress of the Saracens was, more than once, decisively checked by the destructive action of this powerful and terrible flame. The important art of compounding the fire "was preserved at Constantinople," says Gibbon, "as the palladium of the State; the galleys and artillery might occasionally be lent to the allies of Rome; but the composition of the Greek fire was concealed with the most zealous scruple, and the terror of the enemy was increased and prolonged by their ignorance and surprise." The accounts which have reached us respecting the properties of the Greek fire are such as to justify the high value attached by the Byzantine emperors to the secret of its composition. It was a liquid, which was propelled by various methods against the ships or engines of the enemy. So long as it was kept from the air, or remained in large masses, the liquid appears to have been perfectly safe from combustion; but as soon as it was poured forth it burned with an intense flame which to possess themselves of it very much consumed everything around not merely burning upward, but with equal fury downward and laterally. Water not only failed to quench it, but made it burn with new ardor. To subdue the flames it was nec essary to employ, in large quantities, either sand or vinegar. Various methods were employed for propelling the liquid fire toward the enemy. Sometimes it was inclosed in vessels made of some brittle substance, and these were flung at the enemy by means of suitable projectile machines. "It was either," says Gibbon, "poured from the rampart in large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil.” But the effectual use of the destructive compound seems to have been best secured by means of a species of fire-ships specially constructed for the purpose. Copper and iron machines were placed in the fore part of these ships. Long tubes, fantastically shaped, so as to resemble the mouth and jaws of savage animals, formed the outlet for a stream of liquid fire, which

earlier than Gibbon's account would imply. For, at the siege of Thessalonica, in the year 904, the Saracens, we are told by John Comeniata, threw liquid fire, by means of tubes, upon the wooden defences of the besieged, and by this means princi pally succeeded in capturing the town. In the Holy Wars the Mohammedans freely availed themselves of the use of Greek fire. Gallant knights, who feared little the swords or lances of the Saracen host, were terrified by the uncouth aspect and the hideous noises of machines which belched forth upon them a torrent of liquid fire. Joinville tells us that "it came flying through the air like a winged, long-tailed dragon, about the thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the velocity of lightning; and the darkness of the night was dispelled by this deadly illumination." It does not by any means follow because the invention of gunpowder rendered the ancient Greek fire no longer a very useful military weapon, that the knowledge of the secret of its composition would be of little value. We must remember that the use of fire

arms rendered the old-fashioned engines, | tion to add to the anagrammatic difficulty. by means of which the liquid was pro- Many others have tried to elucidate the pelled, no longer available, since those question. Friar Bungay, Charles du who worked the engines could no longer Frene, Ducange, and Joinvillea host, venture near enough to the enemy. It in fact, of commentators, historians, and was to this cause, we suspect, rather than antiquaries - have all had something to to any want of efficiency in the compound say more or less to the purpose. But the itself, that the discontinuance of the use satisfactory solution of the problem has of Greek fire should be ascribed. The not yet been obtained, nor perhaps is it time had not yet come for making gun- likely to be. It has been well remarked powder itself a useful adjunct to the em- by a writer on the subject that "gunpowployment of liquid flame. It is not so der blew the ancient Greek fire out of the clear, however, that the ancient Greek field." But during the American war of fire was much more efficient than that 1860-65 it was shown that gunpowder which has recently come into use. Still, might be used to blow modern Greek fire the inquiry into the nature of its composi- into cities. Whether the example will tion is not without interest. The prin- ever become a recognized military prececess Anna Comnena states that Greek dent is uncertain. But it has been shown fire was compounded of sulphur, resin, that Greek fire may be flung into a city and oil. It may be well to dwell on this by means of a suitably prepared shell, and point, since many writers have been dis- that its destructive properties may thus posed to consider naphtha, or liquid bitu be made available when the besieging men, to have been the principal ingredient force is four miles or more from the cenof the Greek fire. Possibly, however, the tral parts of the city. Charleston was oil mentioned by Anna Comnena may certainly not destroyed by General Gillhave been naphtha, and not, as one would more's fire shells; in fact, there are diffi be disposed to infer, any of the ordinary culties connected with the construction of vegetable or mineral oils; for the use of such shells which, though far from being naphtha in lamps is of great antiquity. insuperable, were not wholly mastered by Gibbon writes: "Naphtha was mingled, the artillerists under Gillmore. But that I know not in what proportions, with sul- an immense amount of damage was ef phur and with the pitch that is extracted fected is shown by the fact that General from evergreen firsthat is, resin in Beauregard hurled from the mouth of his forming Greek fire." It is a moot point cannon denunciations against Gillmore whether Friar Bacon ever discovered the for employing "the most villanous comtrue composition of the liquid fire. Many pound ever used in war." That Greek supposed that he concealed a real igno- fire will one day be employed as a fearrance on the subject, when he supplied an fully destructive agent in warfare seems apparently unmeaning answer to the ques- scarcely probable. Yet, so far from look tions addressed to him. Others, however, ing forward with dismay to the prospect assert that two of the components of of such an application for its properties, Greek fire were, as Bacon said, sulphur we may rather, perhaps, consider that and saltpetre, and that the third is to be prospect as favorable to the interests of detected in the logogriph-"Luru vopo peace. We may apply to this case the vir Can utriet." We leave this anagram remarks applied by Fuller to the use of to the ingenuity of our readers, mention- cannon: "Though some may say that ing, in passing, that it contains the apro- the finding of such appliances hath been pos words, urit voraciter, but that the the losing of many men's lives, yet it will extraction of these words leaves us only appear that wars are now fought with the combination lupovun, from which it more expedition, and that victory standwill not be found easy to form a word. eth not so long a neuter, before she exPossibly there is a mistake in transcrip- press herself on one side or the other."