BOOKS.

A SEER OF 1830.*

"IN the old days," writes Mr. Espinasse in his recently pub- lished Reminiscences, "the ladies and gentlemen who now occupy, most undeservedly, foremost places even in the better class of periodicals, had their vanity innocently gratified by. contributing to the now extinct annuals—the Keepsakes and, Amulets, the Literary Souvenirs and Books of Beauty. Per- sons of quality' had a literature of their own, written solely. and read solely by themselves. Its gradual extinction is,. from one point of view, very much to be regretted in the

interests both of the reading public and the promising young author." There is a certain measure of justice in this indict- ment of the encroaching amateur, but the statement that the fashionable annuals of the Keepsake type were written solely. by "persons of quality" is decidedly misleading. For there lies before us as we write the Keepsake for 1830, bound in watered red silk with gilt edges, and presenting, though.

frayed and faded, a vastly genteel appearance. Of aristo- cratic authors there is certainly no lack in the list of con- tributors, which includes the names of Lords Holland, Nor- manby, Nugent, Porchester, and Morpeth, and a sprinkling of Honourables. But it is worthy of note that the list is headed, by Sir Walter Scott, and contains, amongst others, the names of S. T. Coleridge, William Roscoe, Theodore Hook, and. Thomas Haynes Bayly. In other words, professional literary men of varying degrees of eminence are associated with the. enterprise. Now Mr. Espinasse, in the chapter from which we have quoted, complains that in the periodicals of to-day. enterprising editors "welcome with eagerness commonplace,.

which they would reject, unless they could parade it as con- tributed by a Peer or a Peeress, a Bishop or a Dean, a well- known politician or M.P." On the other hand, we are bound to say that, in the Keepsake for 1830, the work of the profes- sionals is by no means up to the level of their reputations. Sir Walter Scott's "House of Aspen" is not a representative specimen of his genius. Roscoe's sonnet on the "Camellia is a decidedly forced and hot-house production, and Theodore Hook's romantic tale, "The Bride," is steeped in sickly senti- mentality. From the blameless muse of Haply we do not expect much, but his "Songs of a Soldier's Story" are super-- eminently insipid. For here we have that miles lacrimosus. who was for ever leaning on his sword and wiping away a tear. The last stanza is quite worth quoting He turn'd and left the spot,— Oh ! do not deem him weak ; For dauntless was the soldier's heart, Though tears were on his cheek : Go watch the foremost rank, In danger's dark career ; Be sure the hand most potent there,

Has wiped away a tear."

• The Keepsake for MDCCCXXX. Edited by Frederic Manna Reynoldr. London: Hurst, Chance, and Co.

'The italics are Bayly'a, not ours. Verily it is a far cry from the "Songs of a Soldier's Story" to Mr. Kipling's "Barrack- Room Ballads."

There is, however, one contribution in The Keepsake for 1830 which we have read with the liveliest interest. It is from the pen of the author of Granby, a spirited society novel which may still be perused with pleasure ; and though it possesses no special literary merit, is of peculiar value, as emphasising -the extraordinary progress of science and invention in the last sixty years. The title of the piece is "A Dialogue for the year 2130, extracted from the Album of a Modern Sibyl,"

and is nothing more nor less than an attempt to foreshadow the altered conditions of life three hundred years ahead. The author gives free rein to his fancy, but, as we shall show by extracts from his dialogue, often falls far short of the accom- plished facts of 1894 :—

(The Scene is laid in Kensington Square. Enter Lord A— and Sir James B—, meeting Mr. C - .

"Lord A—. Ah ! C—, I am delighted to meet you. You are an unexpected novelty. I thought you were in Africa.

Mr. 0—. I have been there ; but I left it a month ago—every- body was leaving when I came away. I am just arrived from out of Scotland ; breakfasted this morning at Edinburgh ; and have not been in town above a couple of hours. The roads are dreadfully heavy now. Conceive my having been seven hours and a half coming from Edinburgh to London ! "

When the Great Northern and North Western lines were racing a couple of years ago, the time occupied in the transit was reduced to within eight hours. Mr. C— then goes on to describe a shooting-party at the Duke of Birmingham's, when the company consisted of "a Chinese, two South Americans, the Duke of Paramatta, the Australian ambassa- dor, and a New Zealand man." They had tolerably good sport "killing between four and five thousand head on the last day ; " but Mr. C— lost a match with Pammatta as "he had greatly the advantage in point of equipment. His guns would give twenty-seven discharges in the minute, and mine only twenty-five." The magazine-rifles and Maxim guns of to-day are a long way ahead of Paramatta's weapons. However, Mr. C—'s mechanical hunting-machines, built to

clear fences 10 ft. high, give us the go-by. The galloping horses recently employed in the "Ride to the Abyss" in the stage version of Berlioz's Faust—it ought really to be re- christened Cavalleria Mech.anica—are mere stationary engines,

and not suited to cross-country riding. The reference to a friend who has been "four times round the world in his yacht" need not detain us ; and as for the fashionable dinner-hour-12 o'clock at night—there is nothing in- trinsically remarkable in that. As the party cross the square to call on the D—'s, they are accosted by a crossing-sweeper and a mendicant, both of whom dis-

course in very flowery and scientific language. " Neces- sitas, gentlemen," remarks the beggar, "non habet leges,

and necessity, in spite of my reluctance, has compelled me to embrace the profession of an operative mendicant." When Lord A— declares that he has nothing to give him, the operative mendicant retorts, "Then may the maledictions of a wounded spirit fall upon your devoted head ! May your bosoms be lacerated by the hydras of discord ! May a cor- roding colony of cadging cares be ever ready to pullulate afresh out of the secret springs of your anticipated comforts ! And may the purgatorial pitch of the Slough of Despond envelop you eternally like flies in amber !" Thus are the unemployed and free education foreshadowed. On arrival at the D—'s, Lord A— "touches a spring on the door. A self-acting knocker gives a treble knock—door is opened by a steam porter dressed in the D— livery." In answer to the visitor's query, "Is Lady D— at home," the "figure nods its head. Lord A— and Mr. C— enter, repeat their names through the Announcement Tube, are conducted by

the porter to the Introduction Chair, in which they place themselves. The Chair mounts with them through the ceiling, and they find themselves in the presence of Lady D—." The steam porter is a childish fantasy, but the Introduction Chair, in the shape of the lift, has long been a fait accompli. Lady D— informs her guests that

she has been wintering on the Niger, and elicits from Lord A— an account of his last excursion to the North Pole. He bad a moat unpleasant experience, for "we had most im- providently taken with us scarcely enough of the solvent to work our way through the ice, and our concentrated essence of caloric was found to be of a very inferior quality." Here Lady D— interposes with a delightful feminine touch : " Ah ! then I am afraid you did not get it at the right place ; " and Lord A— rejoins, "But I am about to build a new iron yacht, and I shall try again next summer." Then Lady 0— describes how she has been "talking to Mrs. Winterblossom this afternoon through the telescope till my fingers ache."— " Where was ahe P " asks Mr. C—; and the answer is, "About two miles off, at her house in Hamilton Place,"—a singularly modest vaticination, in view of what has already been achieved in the way of long-distance communication. The type-writer is next foreshadowed in the "automaton note-writer," and a rather amusing passage follows, describing the "music of the future" in the shape of an opera called Annibale. "How fine," says Lady D—, "that passage of the Alps' is ! How well the music represents all that one can suppose to have been going on—the trampling and bellowing of the elephants—the thundering of thy avalanches—the repeated blows of the hammers and mattocks—then how magnificent is that chorus, when they pour the vinegar down the rooks!" From music the talk deviates into the arts and literature. Incidentally, we learn that dancing has been abolished as involving unnecessary fatigue, a state of affairs which would doubtless commend itself to the indolent male "wallflower" of to-day. Lord A— takes up a book called Love and Algebra, and Lady D— exclaims, " Oh ! don't look at it; it was bought by mistake. I am ashamed of the book—one of the common scientific novels that are thumbed by coal- heavers and orange-women—the mere trash of a low circu- lating library "; whereon Mr. C— rejoins, "Well, I will plead guilty of having read it, and really found it better than I expected. I rather liked a passage in it where the hero pro- poses to his mistress through the medium of a simple equation, he making himself the unknown quantity z." Everything, we hear, is taught by the scientific novel, a forecast of the trend of fiction which is by no means unlikely of fulfilment. Another good hit is made in Lord A.—'s remark, "The har- vest has failed in Tartary, and you know that the state of foreign harvests affects our prices much more than that of our own." Papers are published four times in the twenty-four hours, the mails take two days to come from Moscow, and monarchical Government has been established in America, Lord A. relating how his friend, the Duke of Massachusetts, has described to him in a letter the visit of the King of Canada to his Majesty Jonathan. III. at Washington, war being shortly expected between these two Powers and the King of Carolina. Lastly, Mr. Cl— gives the latest warlike rumours from the East, where the Emperor of India, the Burmese Republic, and the Kings of Borneo and Sumatra have entered into an alliance to resist the aggressions of Australia.

As we have said above, only one-fifth of the period covered in this spirited little Sibylline fantasy has elapsed, and yet most of the author's predictions have come true, while many other wonderful discoveries and inventions have been made, of which he had no inkling. What, for example, would he have thought of the case of a gentleman in the extreme South- west of Ireland, who, being unable to communicate on Sunday by the ordinary telegraphic means with Dublin, despatched a message by the Waterville cable to America, which was sent back to Dublin viol Valentia! It must, however, be admitted that the year 1830 was a singularly

favourable one for indulging in such flights of fancy. Rail- ways were yet in their infancy, and the " steam-pot " was only beginning to oust the "speed of the tantivy trot" from its supremacy. Seven years had yet to elapse before the date which is generally associated with the birth of the electric telegraph, and nine before that of the Daguerreotype. Con-

cerning photography, the telephone, the phonograph, electric light, dynamite, and the New Humour, the Sibyl is silent.

Should any imaginative writer of to-day attempt to emulate this interesting effort, the lesson of the lad sixty years is not likely to exert a restraining influence on his outlook into futurity.