The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-07-26

[Frazers Magazincl
Maginn was writer of undoubted
learning, and of great versatility and
genius. He delighted in masquerading,
and appears in many guises both in
BlackwOod and Frazer. His facile pen
was ever ready for newspaper or mdga-
zine. "There is scarcely any species of
literature" says Jordan, who knew him
well, 'of which he has not left examples
as masterly as any in the language. Ro-
mancist, parodist, politician, satirist, lin
guist, poet, critic, scholar-pre-emincnt
in all, and in the last all but universal
the eifiux of his genius inexhaustible,
His conversation, already spoken of, is
described as "an outpouring of gorgeous
stores" alike free from "the pomposity
of johnson and the often tedious monot-
ony of Coleridge." 1t is sad to think
that brain of such brilliant capacity
should have been ruined by evil habits,
and that one with 50 many gifts should
have almost closed his days in the Fleet
Prison, into which he was thrown for
debt. He left prison only to die forsaken
and in ignorance of Sir Robert Peeps
generosity, whose gift of G100, in an
swcr to the touching appeal on behalf of
the dying scholar, only arrived in time
to pay his burial fees" bright, broken
Maginn!" as Lockhart said of him in
the witty but somewhat graceless epitaph
which he wrote upon the brilliant but
hapless scholar.
Father Prout survived for many
years, but the haunts of the "Fraseri-
ans" no longer knew him after 1917. In
that year he passed to Rome as CORE
spondent for the Daily News, shortly be-
fore started under the leadership of
Charles Dickens. Later, and for many
years, he is said to have been chiefly CON
nected with the Globe newspaper, and
was quaint familiar figure to many in
Paris where he spent the latter period of
his life. One who saw Father Prout oc-
casionally in his later years in Paris de-
scribes him Gas very fragile in appear
ance, shrunken, and dried up, always un-
tidy, always Bohemian, but with a
quaint, rusty ecclesiasticism about him
which was half-comic, half-pathetic.
So much knocking about the world, so
many strange scenes that he had passed
through, had never oblitcrated the ton
sure. He sent in when he called on me
a very highly-glazed and considerably
crumpled visiting-card, with an elaborate
coat of arms charged with innumerable
quarterings in the corner. | saw him
most in the society of lady, as old and
as shrunken as himself, with the remains
of old beauty and old finery, yellow lace
and limp satin, and cheeks more yellow
still. | don't know what the relations
between them were, or had been. In
their old age they were the faithfulcst of
friends, spending their evenings always
together. One evening, in a Parisian
salon halfway up to the skies, she made
him sing his Bells of Shandon' for my
qualification, which he did, seated by the
fire, his fine, pale, priestly head relieved
against the heavy mantelpiece with all
its gloomy decorations, in voice which
was cracked by age, yet retained here
and there a mellow tone.
The old man singing, the old lady
nodding her haggard, picturesque head
in time, the half-light of the dim candles,
and the little room incumbered with
faded furniture-all come before me like
picture" He, too, was man "of In
finite Jest, of most excellent fancy"
whose CLASHES of merriment were wont
to set the table in a roar" and light up
with mirth sparkling riot the pages of
"Regina." Like Maginn, he excelled in
burlesque translation, and brought fell
citious combination of genuine learning
with wit to adorn and vivify all that he
touched. Let it be confessed, at the
same time, that good deal of the riot.
Gus pleasantly and comic verbalism Of
the 'Reliques" is now rather dead, like
all set fun, however exquisite at the time
and however loudly it once echoed. The
most inspired literature of the sympos
ium rapidly exhales. The very right
ness of the crackle makes it swiftly sink
sometimes into dead ash, and notwith
standing the unfailing lightness of touch
and self-confdent humorousness of the
clever soi-distant incumbent of Water
grass-hill," many of his jocularities nt
longer raise smile.
1t is the fancy at present to use white
ribbons, belt, and sash with thin white
dresses and the Leghorn hat is trimmed
u