he
assigns various motives. But he was a Frenchman, and the cynicism of
that nation (to parody a speech of Tom Jones's) cannot understand the
delicacy of ours. Mr. Blackmore (in "Lorna Doone") lets his lover make
quite a neat and appropriate speech, but that was in the seventeenth
century. When Artemus Ward began a harangue of this sort, Betsy Jane
knocked him off the fence on which he was sitting, and first criticising
his eloquence in a trenchant style, added, "If you mean being hitched,
I'm in it." In other respects the lover of Lorna Doone behaved as the
best authorities recommend.

Mr. Whyte Melville ventured to describe Chastelard's proposal to Mary
Stuart, but it was not exactly in Mr. Swinburne's manner, and, where
historical opinions disagree, no reliance can be placed on speeches which
were not taken down by the intelligent reporters. Mr. Slope had his ears
boxed when he proposed to Mrs. Bold, but such Amazonian conduct is
probably rare, and neither party is apt to boast of it. He also, being
accepted, behaved in the manner to which the highest authorities have
lent their sanction, or, at least, he meant to do so, when the lady "fled
like a roe to her chamber." For all widows are not like widow Malone
(ochone!) renowned in song. When Arbaces, the magician, proposed to
Ione, he did so in the most necromantic and hierophantic manner in which
it could be done; his "properties" including a statue of Isis, an altar,
"and a quick, blue, darting, irregular flame." But his flame, quick,
blue, darting, and irregular as it was, lighted no answering blaze in the
ice-cold breast of the lovely lone. When rejected (in spite of a
splendid arrangement of magic lanterns, then a novelty, got up regardless
of expense) Arbaces swore like an intoxicated mariner, rather than a
necromaunt accustomed to move in the highest circles and pentacles.
Nancy, Miss Broughton's heroine, tells her middle-aged wooer, among other
things, that she accepts him, because "I did think it would be nice for
the boys; but I like you myself, besides." After this ardent confession,
he "kissed her with a sort of diffidence." Many men would have preferred
to go out and kick "the boys."

Mr. Rochester's proposal to Jane Eyre should be read in the works both of
Bret Harte and of Miss Bronte. We own that we prefer Bret Harte's Mr.
Rawjester, who wearily ran the poker through his hair, and wiped his
boots on the dress of his beloved. Even in the