THE MAGAZINES.

TEE Magazines of the month are fairly interesting. The solid paper of the Nineteenth Century is the conclusion of Mr. Rathbone's essay on self-government in England, in which, after describing the infinite confusion of the present system, he advises that the Union should be the unit of self-government, that the Union Council should concentrate all local powers, and that it should be responsible to the County Board, with which the sole power of taxation should rest, besides the control of workhouses, asylums, highways, licences, rivers, and public buildings. The Union Council would, of course, be elected by the ratepayers, but the County Board by three sets of electors, —the Justices, the ratepayers, and the Union Councils. Mr. Rathbone would, at the same time, simplify rural finance, by substituting for the complex rates now levied one single rate, which he would raise in part like the district-rate and in part like the poor-rate ; but, in order to make the local burden fall in part on personalty, would supplement the rate by grants from the Treasury, assigned, like the Education grants, on condition of good work. The whole paper is worth careful study, as the plan of a thoroughly competent and in- formed mind, and to us suggests only one criticism. It is a little wanting in rough simplicity. Practically, interests are a little too well balanced, and indirect election by the Union Coun- cils only would be easier and more workable. The J.P.'s would always have the best chance as candidates for the Board, as they have for seats in the House of Commons. Mr. F. Harrison puts in a most eloquent plea for the "Eighteenth Century," which he declares was a period not of exhaustion, but of pre- paration for the remoulding of Society which we now witness. That is true, as it is true that only from the death of the seed can arise the corn. But still, in the imperfect lan- guage of humanity, though death is rebirth, it is hard to describe it save as death. Surely, if we may say anything BD ridiculous as that "a century," a purely artificial period of time, has a character at all, we may say that the Eighteenth was the century of the fall of the leaf. Everything in that little corner of the planet which historians insist on considering "the world "—whereas it is a tenth of it—was slowly rotting down, no doubt to feed a renascence, but still rotting into manure. Mr. Theodore Watts gives us another vigorous enlogiurn on Rossetti, in whom he sees an imagination vigorous and lofty beyond compare; and Lady Paget a rather dogmatic and scattered paper on dress and fashion, the most notable idea of which, apparently, is that every woman should dress specially to her own figure. "A person with a large nose will do well to wear mach hair at the back of her head, so as to re-establish the balance." In other words, every woman should perceive where her own charm lies, and dress to that. As about one woman in fifty is competent to do anything of the kind, the dress of a reasonable age would be somewhat anarchical. Fashion is tyrannical, but at least it is started by artists, and places the sexes for a time in costume. Crinolines and "pull- backs," curls and chignons, worn at the same period, would fright- fully accentuate each other's defects. Mr. Leslie Stephen begins

what promises to be a very thoughtful argument against the sup- pression of poisonous opinions by force, but his paper as yet is injured by too much concession to practical men. The unsettled question is not whether you can suppress a poisonous opinion by force, but whether you ought to try.. Most men see what is and is not possible at any given time ; what worries them is the difficulty of seeing the ideally right course. The common-sense of the majority has on this subject arrived at a " working" con-

clusion, but it has not arrived as yet at a certain conclusion of any kind. The majority objects to persecution, unless the idea persecuted, e.g., that of the Peculiar People, injures society. Then it "persecutes,"—that is, punishes an honestly held and in itself quite moral opinion. What we want to know is the intellectual formula according to which it should or should not do this. That case of the Peculiar People is a crucial one, because it does not rouse either the social abhorrence created by some forms of belief hostile to property, or the instinctive abhorrence created by some forms of belief hostile to morality. May society punish a man who honestly believes and acts on his belief that, when

God has stricken him with scarlet-fever, it is wrong to call in a doctor to resist the will of God ? Mr. Kebbel, in a good paper

on "Party Obligations," pleads hard for stiff fighting in Oppo- sition. He thinks it silently prepares the public mind for a

change of policy. There is much to be said for his view, but we are convinced that the illustration which seems to him so unanswerable is a mistake. He will have it that the bold fighting of Opposition against Lord Beaconsfield changed the public mind. We wish we could think it, for we should then give still higher value to debate; but we do not. We do not believe that Lord Beaconsfield ever had a majority for one minute for his foreign policy. He was put in power as a lesson to the Liberals; but from the moment his line was perceived, he lost the people, and a dissolution on any single day between 1877 and 1880 would have ended in his dismissal. The Liberal speeches expressed, much more than they made, the general opinion.

The most interesting article in the Fortnighay is Mr. Labouchere's, on " The Coming Democracy," on which we said

enough last week; and the best written is Mr. Auberon Herbert's, with the odd title, a "Politician in Trouble about His Soul."

Mr. Herbert accuses both parties of failing to lay down. clear principles of right and wrong which it is possible to follow, and supports his opinion with a shower of epigrammatic santences. The general effect is not, however, enlightening, but only cynical, the conclusion hinted at being that politicians and parties have no principles, and only do their best to keep in power. The Tory interlocutor, for instance—for the paper is in forth a dialogue—talks in this style :—

" I am often tempted to despair about ourselves. Oar misfortunes seem to do us no good ; they give us no steadiness of purpose ; we- show none of the better qualities which belong to minorities; our highest aim seems to be to make a damaging speech against Glad- stone—and how can you damage a man whose supporters are an caucused F—or to make some new combination, some flank move- ment, or do some clever sleight-of-hand. Our leaders are always ready at a moment's notice to pour out any quantity of criticism, as if they were engaged to do it by the piece, and they are good enough to throw in a certain number of epigrams for us without charge; but even the epigrams, when we get them, only seem to leave us in much the same unimproving condition of mental health after as before. Of any distinct leading, of any attempt to rally the party to definite opinions, to touch our reason and redeem us with a faith,— of these things there is no spark to be seen in our darkness. All that happens is material for party criticism, and nothing more. But low in the world as we are, I still hope more from our men than from yours. There is an incurable 'Sand-the-sugar and come-to- prayers' snuffle about your Government, which they share with the grocer of pions and practical habits. I suppose you can't help it ; and perhaps some day, when you are all Republicans and atheists, and are no longer half-ashamed of your own opinions, and are not trimming between two or three seta of supporters, you will get rid of it."

Whether Mr. Herbert quite believes statesmen to be dishonest, we do not know, for he propounds a theory about the collective forces of the age always acting on them; but certainly his: interlocutors are so. The writing of his paper is, however,

delightful; full of sparkle, and quite free from the prolixity which, in his letters to the Times, is his besetting temptation. Mr. Bryce sends a thoughtful paper on "The Future of the English Universities," which, he says, ought to attract and educate the whole nation, to offer to all comers the best teach-

ing on every subject, bringing the teaching power of the country,. as it were, into a focus, to advance inquiry, and to stimulate study in men who cannot enter their walls. These functions are not now fully performed, and the reasons are, in Mr.

Bryce's judgment, cost, the late age of- entrance, and the absence of professional instruction. He contends that the-

Commission has done little or nothing to secure improvement,

and would, as practical steps thereto, increase the pecuniary con- tribution from the Colleges to the University, greatly enlarge,

the number of Professors, make much of their income depend on fees, admit scholars at sixteen, and attract students who intend to lake up one subject or group of subjects only. Mr. Kebbel writes sensibly and moderately on County Boards, on which he would seat at least one-third of the members through

selection by Quarter Sessions ; but his object evidently is to preserve the ascendancy of a class whom he greatly admires, the country gentry with estates large enough to make them seek culture. Mr. E. Gurney and Mr. F. Myers have in- jured a remarkable collection of stories of apparitions and dream appearances by calling it a paper on "Transferred Impressions and Telepathy," a nomenclature which vvill only excite prejudice. The collection of cases is, how-

ever, well worth study, and. we honour the courage of corn- pilers who can face so coolly the charge of being credulous fools, and can demand that, whatever they are, their facts, or alleged facts, shall be studied, and accepted, or rejected, like any other set of phenomena. This particular critic being a total un- believer in the whole theory, the story which "fetches" him most is, as usual in all such cases, one of which the evidence is pro- bably the slightest. It gives us an impression of truth, but is too old to teat

"In 1739, Mrs. Birkbeck, wife of William Birkbeck, banker, of Settle, and a member of the Society of Friends, was taken 111, and died at Cockerraouth, while returning from a journey to Scotland, which she had undertaken alone—her husband and three children, aged seven, five and four years respectively, remaining at Settle. The friends at Whose house the death occurred made notes of every circumstance attending Mrs. Birkbeck's last hours, so that the accuracy of the several statements as to time as well as place was beyond the doubtfulness of man's memory, or of any even unconscious attempt to bring them into agreement with each other. One morning, between seven and eight o'clock, the relation to whom the care of the children at Settle had been entrusted, and who kept a minute journal of all that concerned them, went into their bedroom as usual, and found them all sitting up in their beds in great excitement and delight. 'Mamma has been here !' they cried ; and the little one said, She

" Come, Esther !" ' Nothing could make them doubt the fact, and it was carefully noted down, to entertain the mother on her retain home. That same morning as their mother lay on her dying bed at Cockermouth, she said, 'I should be ready to go, if I could but see my children.' She then closed her eyes, to reopen them, as they thought, no more. But after ten minutes of perfect stillness, she looked up brightly and said, 'Iam ready now : I have been with my children ;' and then at once peacefully passed away. When the notes taken at the two places were compared, the day, hour, and minutes were the same. One of the three children was my grandmother, née Sarah Birkbeck, afterwards the wife of Dr. Fell, of Inverstone. From her lips I beard the above almost literally as I have repeated it. The elder was Morris Birkbeck, afterwards of Guildford, Both these lived to old age, and retained to the last so solemn and reverential a remembrance of the circumstance that they rarely would speak of it."

We note that "Home and Foreign Affairs" has again become, as under the old management, decidedly Liberal. Its main thesis is the imbecility of the present method of Opposition.

Sir Richard Cross, in. the Contemporary, evidently wants the new Comity Boards to be as feeble and as full of J.P.'s as can be managed, and would suggest, apparently, that Boards half of nominees and half of elected members chosen by the Boards of Guardians would do very well ; but he evidently anticipates a much more revolutionary scheme. We hope he is right, or that the counties will be let alone, for elected bodies

never work unless they have within their area independ- ent power; and County Boards weaker than Municipal Councils would simply be contemned. Who would go through the turmoil of an election, if his vote at the end was to be neutralised by some nominated J.P., selected solely be- cause of his acres and of his presumed support at the last election ? Mr. Rae sends a most convincing account of the diffi- culties in the Highland Croft system, which are now attracting such attention. He thinks that the old clan tenancy and family tenancy, called usually " runrig," and which was a complicated 'system of co-operative tenancy, worked better than the croft aystem, which is one of cottier tenancy-at-will. The people had grazings in common which were most valuable to them, and are now absorbed into the large sheep-farms. Even at present, where the old tenure subsists, it works well; and Mr. Carmichael, a resident of long experience in the Hebrides, gives a most in- teresting account of Long Island, where the old runrig com- mune still subsists, and where it manages its affairs like a Hindoo village. The system, whatever its other faults, begets brotherhood :—

" 'Compassion for the poor,' says Mr. Carmichael, consideration towards the distressed, and respect for the dead, are characteristic traits of these people.' They indulge, says he, in a wholesome and friendly rivalry, but nothing more; and when they meet on the village knoll at the summons of the constable, they discuss their common affairs with force and, he adds, with eloquence, but they sternly repress everything calculated to mar good neighbourhood. They conduct their open-air court by a procedure more ancient than that of the Imperial Parliament. The constable sits on the knoll with big face to the east, and if, after deliberation, a division is required, the ayes go snnwise to his right, and the noes sanwise to his left, just as their ancestors did ages ago, when they worshipped the Sun. If any one still argues after the vote, he is hooted down with cries of Goat tooth,' and finds it convenient to submit. In the summer months, the whole village goes to the hill shoaling, as the Swiss herds- men go to the chalet. Their shealing is a group of low beehive huts, a prehistoric British village, situated on the green banks of a mountain -stream. They move to it in a long procession over the moor, and when they arrive they sit down together on the grass, to their sbeal- ing feast. The fare is simple, but it is the bread of a village com- munion. Every head is uncovered, every knee is bowed, as they dedicate themselves and their flocks to the care of Israel's Shepherd."

The brotherhood could withstand an arbitrary rise of rent, and they could not subdivide beyond reason, as is the tendency of the Crofters, who have fallen back more and more on the pro.

fitable, but most uncertain, culture of the potato. The present state of the Crofters Mr. Rae believes to be entirely bad, and the most immediate remedy is to restore their old grazings in common, which made to them the difference between rough com- fort and starvation. His paper is:a most valuable and, what is of the first consequence, intelligible contribution to the literature of the subject. Sir Richard Temple supports, in the main, Lord Ripon's proposals for introducing "self-government in India," and approves the extension of the elective principle, though he sees more clearly than some critics do the vastness of the scale upon which elective institutions must be intro- duced :—" Thus local funds amounting:to several millions ster- ling annually, roads of many thousands of miles in total length, rustic school-houses numbered by tens of thousands, medical

and other institutions to be-counted by hundreds, will be here- after administered by Boards elected by electors from the

villages of British India,—in number about 400,000. This is of itself a considerable piece of administration." Besides the villages, there are 1,500 towns, large and small, in British India, and in each it is intended that a local municipality should govern. Sir Richard remarks that the electoral qualification is singularly well defined, being in rural districts the peasant-proprietor and the tenant not liable to eviction, and in the towns the ratepayer. Mr. Kay, in a careful account of existing land tenures in Egypt, which seem to bear a singular analogy to the Zemindaree tenures of India, the peasant being irremovable, but the rent-paying grantee over him entitled to a permanent share of the produce, argues strongly that the peasants' right to create a mortgage should be limited to his crops, and should not extend to his laud. Otherwise, the fellah will mortgage all, will be dispossessed of all, and will become disaffected to a degree unknown in the history of Egypt. He

thinks the present average taxation, which amounts to twenty shillings an am.e, is not excessive, but urges the completion of a new cadastral survey. "Miss Barney's Own Story" is an account of Miss Barney's life, by Miss Christie, which clears up many points left obscure in Macaulay's well-known sketch,

and especially Miss Barney's motive in submitting to the thraldom of Court life,—it was clearly filial affection, her father having fallen into deep, though secret, poverty ; but, perhaps, the gem of the number is the "Enchanted Lake," Mr. E. Arnold's translation of an episode in the " Mahiibharata." We have seen nothing better done. We suppose it is hopeless to ask him to attempt the translation of the whole epic, though he could do it, if he only boldly stated that there must be a Pope's "Iliad" before a perfect one can be produced, and that his duty is intelligible rather than literal rendering. We must quote this one of thirty-four conundrums asked by a fairy, or rather a " Spirit " in the Shakespearian sense, of King Yudhisthira :—

" Yoksha. Whose eyes are unclosed, though he slumbers all day ? And what's born alive without motion ? and, say, What moveth, yet lives not ? and what, as it goes, Wastes not, but still waxes ? Resolve me now those.'

King. With unclosed eyes a fish doth sleep ; And new-laid eggs their place will keep ; Stones roll ; and streams, that seek the sea, The more they flow the wider be.'"

Mrs. Oliphant continues her admirable work in Blackwood and Macmillan. In the former, in "The Ladies Lindores," an

incident has occurred which brings half-laughing, half-painful tears to the eyes ; but in the latter, in "The Wizard's Son," the authoress has for a moment shrank from her own supernatural machinery. We expected her to tell us why the heir suddenly tamed into a gloomy man, but after introducing the Wizard, she reports nothing that he has said. Perhaps that is reserved for the sequel ; but without this explanation, the tale, admirably clever as it is, will fall comparatively dead.

Longman's would be heavy, but for Mr. Hardy's "Three Strangers," a slight tale, admirably told ; and in the Cornhill we note nothing except "Le Marquis de Grignau," a little memoir of the grandson of Madame de S4vign4, quite exquisitely done by "M. F. Domvile," a name which we do not recall, but which we trust we shall speedily meet again below a paper dealing with some one of more importance to French history than the well-educated and well-conducted, but rather unin- teresting Marquis, who seems Oily to have done nothing admirably well, and whose fit epitaph would have been,—" A Peer of promise."