The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-11 00:00:00

REAL AND IDEAL.

We have agreed to look upon the ideal in all things, as
the standard towards which—while conscious that it is ua-
attainable—we are always, in all things, to strive. It seems
to me, the:efore, in all ways better that we should some of
us, whether men or women, be lost—as the world counts
"lost," and as the angels perhaps count "saved"—in a re-
coil from straining too passionately and beyond cur power
at a mark too far above us, than that the ideal standard
should bo ignored ; than that we should plant our little flag
upon the level plains of what is common life with common
wen—miscalled by such men real life, as if the martyrdom
of any one saint, patriot, or pure enthusiast, had not more
reality because more spirituality than is in the life of the
common herd through ages of material ease and untroubled
mammon worship !—better, I say, that some of us should
tail and fall and perish miserably than that the truth should
be unrecognised, and we all walk, as men blind to all that
is not in the beaten road, safety and softly towards a show
and sham. If those among us who are artists do net hold
there is more life than can be expressed by re atter, more
than shows and shines upon the surface, things which it is
not those who run may read—if we do not maintain the
reality of the ideal—holding it to be that which is true and
beautiful in the eyes of the All-Perfect—do not maintain
it to be the aim alone, with all the might is in us, worth
struggling towards—such fragments of it as we can grasp,
the only prize worth grappling for—do not hold it to be
the only standard by which to measure ourselves, and so,
while humbled to the dust at our littleness, be enabled, con-
templating greatness, to raise our work above ourselves
and help to draw up our neighbour—if we artists, whether
in life, love, or art— and they are inextricably commingled
--do not strain towards the ideal, and, by vivid faith, make
it our real, who is to do this? And if it is not for this
God made us what we are, what is our work, and where ?
Taken with some reservations, doubtless, Cum-
worth House will recommend itself to many readers,
and Alisoun Grey will win many hearts with the
unconscious charms of her "devoted submissiveness
and tender self.sbaegation"—qualities, says tho
author of " Cumworth House," by one of her cha-
racters, which are no longer essential feminine
characteristics—" the women of this nineteenth
century are striving to rid us of those fond super-
stitions which associated to our idea of womanhood
the almost exclusive possession in exquisite degree
of such exquisite qualities."

" WHIPPING THE 1)0os:1—The parish clerk was,
it need not be observed, at least as important an officer in
those times as now ; but he seems to have been very shabbily
paid, his salary in this parish, at least, being only vs. iijd.
per annum. Of this sum a portion varying from 8d to is
or is 4d a year, was allowed him for the important duty of
Whipping the dog's out of the church." It is quite edify..
ing to see with what regularity this duty is insisted on and
paid for. The animals in question are indeed designated (or
rather spelt) very differently by successive churchwardens,
being variously writien as dogs, dogges, doges, doogs, and
dodges (oie latter name, by the way, being probably as well..
deserved as any) ; and the precess to which they were sub-
jec'ed is variously described as whipping, wiping, and
Weeping, (words all of them which probably convey some
portion of the truth), But, however described, the thing
continues the same. All else is changed by the great revo-
lutions of the century. The ki?..g'c arms are set up, pulled
down, and set up again; tho Prayer-Book is taken away,
and once more is reinstated ; the surplice gives place to the
black Geneva gown, and then again returns ; the office
itself of parish clerk is even lost for a time, or shorn
el its functions; but this remained unchanged, end i n
1649 as in 1601, in 1661 as in 1640, we find in the church-
wardens' books, " To George Fisher (or whoever it may
be) for whipping the dogs for one year, ls."—Riser's
Magazine,