a statement which is vital to the whole system, and that is, that the human figure was included in a circle and a square-how, he does not say. Leonardo da Vinci supposed he meant that the figure with its arms stretched out touched the boundaries of a square or circle drawn round it; and by his system, as well as that of most of those that have followed, the figure was divided into so many heads. Others take the cubit or fore-arm as the norm of measurement; and others, still unsatisfied with these, have sought to work out a different system. But I will not go into these. There is no time, and it has already been done in a treatise on Proportion, with all the diagrams and rules and measurements. Let us come back to Polycleitus. His system was founded, in my opinion, on the circle and square for so Vitruvius would indicate-and I add, also probably the triangle.

Bel. But what is your system? Mal. The simplest in the world. I take of the height of any figure I wish to make as the radius of a circle, and in this circle I inscribe an equilateral triangle and a square, subdividing each of them into 3ds and 4ths. This diagram contains all the proportions of the human figure of the size I wish to represent it, with exactitude and precision. Having it before me, I can at once and absolutely give you every length, depth, or breadth of the whole figure, as well as of all its parts, without looking at the figure, and entirely independent of it. Every one of these measures, taken either by the triangle or the square or the diameter, coincides with and proves the measures taken by the other.

In this way the figure can be mathematically laid out in its proportions.

Bel. Explain a little more: give me an instance.

Mal. It is difficult to do so without this diagram of the circle, with the diameter, the equilateral triangle, and the square inscribed.

But here is one on the wall, and I will show you practically what I cannot clearly explain by words. Observe! the diameter, which is the longest measure, gives the five great measurements of the body-(1st) from the heel to the middle of the patella (or knee-pan); (2d) thence to the process of the pelvis, at the angle where the great abdominal muscle folds over it, and which is always with the ancients a marked and distinctly asserted point; and (3d) thence to the highest angle of the shoulder. It also measures (4th) from the fontanella to the base of the abdomen, and (5th) the utmost breadth across the shoulders of the male figure outside the deltoids. The side of the triangle measures the whole figure into four parts-from the heel to the base of the patella, thence to the pubis, thence to the nipples, thence to the top of the head. The square divides it into five parts, and measures the arms. Take, as indicating the coincidence of these measures, the lower leg. The diameter measures from the heel to the middle of the patella; the triangle from the heel to the base of the patella, or from the middle of the patella to the ankle; and the square from the ankle

to the base of the patella. Again, the radius divides the total height into 7 parts-half the base of the triangle into 8 parts, the square into 5 parts, and, of course, half the square into 10 parts. Taking the supposed and ordinarily affirmed height of the whole human figure at 8 heads, the head would be half the base of the triangle; or, as in some systems, taking the whole height to be 7 heads, the head would be the radius. But practically, and in Nature, the head is always more than of the height, and in the best proportioned figures is less than. This is equally true in Art. There is not of all the antique statues a single one which is 8 heads high. The head in Nature and in Art always divides the figure fractionally, and is therefore a very bad norm of measure in itself, and very difficult of application. What is the absolute measure of any head is difficult with perfect accuracy to determine -the measure having necessarily to be taken on the curve of the cranium and a little more in front or a little more behind the absolute centre variés the measure. In this system I am endeavouring to explain, the head is not a norm of measure at all. It is neither (the radius) nor (the half of the side of the triangle)—it is of the square, which represents a fraction between the two. That fraction is precisely the difference between 8 times the base of the triangle, and 5 times the side of the square. On this point I could say much more, about squaring the circle, &c., but I spare you. One thing more let me, however, say. Oddly enough, in all the systems of proportions that I ever saw, the measures only are given of the body and limbs when erect or straight, while no cognisance is taken of the fact that the measures entirely differ

when the body or limbs are bent. In this system, however, cognisance is taken of this fact. For instance, when the arm is straight the measure from the shoulder to the elbow, and thence to the knuckles, is the square. When the arm is bent at an angle, the condyle at the elbow is thrown out, and the measure of both parts is necessarily longer, and is of the triangle. But I have already said too much I fear, and I will enter into no more particulars. I will only add that there on the wall is a drawing of the human figure, with the proportions as given by this diagram applied to it; and, as you can see for yourself, every part is thus measured, even to the smallest, and each measurement proves the other. There is an absolute coincidence of all to the same result. this system, therefore, we have a scientific and mathematical standard of proportions which is perfectly easy to apply in practice, and absolute, not proximate.

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Bel. Well, though you began in the mystical clouds, you have at last come down on terra firma. Do you always use this system, and do you find it practical }

Mal. Certainly! I never should think of using any other since I discovered this. It is the only simple, easy, practical, and accurate system I know. There is not the least difficulty in using it, and I know absolutely when I am wrong.

Bel. Have you ever applied it to the ancient statues?

Mal. Yes; to many, and with great care, and it so exactly conforms to them that I cannot but be persuaded that they adopted some such method. But we have had enough of this. I did not mean to go on so far, but it came into our talk about dreams, and you have led me on.

Bel. Milton is usually so correct in his names and quantities that it is amazing how he could thus have mispronounced the Cambus Khan of Chaucer. Could he have been familiar with the original?

Mål. It was probably the exigency of the rhythm which induced the change. But I am not sure that in this poem Coleridge did not, as he did in "Christabel," leave it purposely untold

Bel. No matter; Martin Farquhar Tupper finished "Christabel" for him.

Mal. Can presumption go farther! "Fools will rush in where angels fear to tread."

Bel. What do you think of the old maxim about keeping a work seven years, and constantly correcting it.

Mal. I disbelieve in it utterly. When a writer has the accomplishment of writing, and is full of enthusiasm in his work, it is for

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more probable that he will. in the heat of the moment and the pressure of the feeling, seize the fittest modes of expression; and I cannot but think he should be careful what changes he afterwards makes in the exercise of a cold critical faculty. Undoubtedly, on carefully re-reading it, he may often change passages with advantage, give it more closeness and accuracy, charge it more with feeling, or retrench it in its looseness. But he may also work out of a composition all its life and freedom by over-elaboration, and make it stiff, artificial, or affected. Writing should at least seem easy and natural, however much we work over it, and there is great danger in making too many changes and retouching too often. going over and over anything its freshness is gradually lost, until, at last, to the tired sense any change seems an improvement. On the contrary, in the enthusiasm of composition we often snatch a grace beyond the reach of artbeyond what we could in colder moments have caught. Invariably when an author, after his poems have become known and popular, attempts to change them, the world rebels, and generally with justice. The change is scarcely ever an improvement. Some poems that I could instance have, I know, before they were printed, been so fingered and finished and altered that they have lost all nature out of them, and many a one, I have no doubt, was fresher and stronger when it first came from the brain before it had been tampered with. An author should be careless of critics while he is writing, or he will risk losing his freshness and originality; and I fairly believe that this fear of what might be said has hampered many a man and spoiled his work.

Bel. You cannot lay down any

universal rule on this point. Some writers do their best at once; the strain of thought bursts out like a spring and will have its way.

"Etrusci

Quale fuit Cassi rapido ferventius amni Ingenium,"

as Horace says. With others invention is slow, and takes form with difficulty, oozing forth as it were like lava, and not gushing out like a torrent. John Webster, for instance, wrote so slowly and with such difficulty those wonderful tragedies of his, that his contemporaries and friends jeered bim ironically for his easy parturition; but his work, though born with such pains, still lives. Shakespeare, on the contrary, wrote evidently fast, and Ben Jonson reproaches him with never correcting; but his mind was exceeding full, and his power over his materials extraordinary. Ben Jonson himself often corrected his own verse into stiffness and artificiality. As for Shakespeare, I doubt whether he would have improved anything he did by going over it a second time. I know that in the first printed play of "Hamlet" some of the finest passages are wanting which are to be seen in the second, but I have no belief that he ever rewrote it, as critics say.

Mal. No, nor I. My own belief is that the first "Hamlet" was a surreptitious copy, taken down from the actors or the theatre, published without his knowledge, and full of errors and omissions. So, too, I believe this was the case with some of the historical plays which were printed in his lifetime. In these there are great differences from the plays as they appear in the first folio, but this was because originally he wrote them in connection with others, and afterwards struck out the VOL. CXLVI.-NO. DCCCLXXXVII.

scenes written by his collaboratora, and wrote them himself. Mr Richard Grant White's masterly essay on the Henrys I think establishes this beyond question, as far as those plays are concerned. In fact, I doubt whether we have the true text of any of the plays precisely as Shakespeare wrote them, but rather in many parts as they were "accommodated" by the actors on the stage, or changed in the transcribing. Evidently Shakespeare himself was utterly indifferent as to his plays, and took no care to have correct copies made and preserved. He seems to have left the actors to do as they pleased with them, and probably the first folio was printed ery much from the actors' transcripts, and not from the original manuscripts by Shakespeare himself. Many of the passages are plainly interpretations of actors' so-called "gag,"-others are plainly printer's mistakes.

But

Bel. Yes, undoubtedly; but how unwilling we are even to correct what are plainly misprints! perhaps we are wise in this; for otherwise, heaven knows what would be corrected away and refashioned! I, for my part, am glad that there is a superstition about correcting even what is manifestly wrong.

Mal. I could not go as far as that-indeed I have even been so presumptuous as to try my hand at such corrections.

Bel. Let me have some. Mal. Not now-another time. Bel. Rogers wrote slowly and corrected indefatigably. He is said to have rewritten a score of times the anecdotes in the Notes to his 'Italy.'

Mal. He was just the man to do it, and I daresay he improved them each time; but this was because he was utterly without fire

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in his brain, and could only attain his end by elaboration. Such men ought to correct. Giusti, the Italian poet, did the same. He never wearied of correcting, and his poems, which seem so spontaneous and unstudied, cost him infinite labour. Shelley's manuscripts, also, are almost illegible from corrections and elaborations and second thoughts. Landor also rewrote and revised very much, or so, at least, he told me. "Nothing," he said, "can be too good. I have thrown away as much as I have written, and most people would think it the best half of what I have done."

Bel. I wanted to say something about dreams. Let me see what was it? Oh, I remember. Did you ever have delusions during fever?

Mal. Yes; why?

Bel. Is it not strange that during the delirium our visions alone are real, while the realities about us are purely visionary. The eyes are open, the senses exceedingly acute; a rustling dress distresses us, a ray of light annoys us; and yet the things which do not exist to our outward senses are the only real things. The nurse is vague, we scarcely notice her; but the dream-figures are absolute. Do we not really see these ghosts of the mind? Can you persuade a faver patient that they have no existence ?

Mal. It is unaccountable. I remember to this day, with perfect vividness, figures which moved before me, many years ago, during a severe fever-one in particular. It was a queer little dwarf, with a large head surmounted by a cap and feathers, who came one day and perched himself on one of the bed-posts at the foot of the bed. He had a large portfolio under his arm, which he held closely, and there he sat and smiled at me. He

was grotesque but pleasant, and I looked at him with a sort of amused interest. After staying there a little while, he crept along to the opposite post, and perched himself there, and we smiled and nodded at each, other. Then he slipped along the bed, got up behind my pillow, drew out the portfolio, placed it before me, opened it, and turned slowly over the leaves. I would I could see that book again, for of all books I ever saw it was the most remarkable. As he turned over each leaf, there was a new picture, and every picture was alive. Now it was a vast landscape with gloomy clouds piled on the horizon, and lofty mountains whose close platoons of pointed pines went clambering up their slopes, and gleaming snowpeaks with flashing glaciers, over which grey, loitering clouds drooped and trailed. I heard the simmering of the wind in the pines. I heard the far roar of the torrents that whitened in the cloven gorges. A dark eagle sailed around high up in the deep air, and swept his large circles over the valley. Then the leaf was turned. I saw the interior of a splendid Gothic cathedral. Banners were floating from its pillars, the sunlight streamed through gorgeous painted windows upon a dense and murmurous crowd that were gathered to some great ceremony. As I looked, a procession with splendid dresses-knights, soldiers, priests-came streaming in, and a wild burst of trumpets shook the vaulted and groined roof, and thrilled every sense. The crowd fell on their knees. The odorous incense-smoke wavered in the air from swinging censers, and saluted the sense;

and then came a solemn stillness, and a symphony of music, such as I never heard before and never shall hear again, swelled and died and rose again, and filled my