A FEW OF THE MAGAZINES.
EVERYBODY knows what satisfaction there sometimes is in giving in, in relinquishing the effort to find good in everything, or even alleviation in anything. When one has tried all sorts of remedies for rheumatism and assuagements for neuralgia, there is a certain sort of peace attendant upon making up one's mind that one will try no more ; and in other aggravating circumstances it is nice to fling away cheerful endurance, and indulge in a good, steady grumble. A motive is seldom far to seek, a grievance, as Dickens says of a quarrel, "can be taken up at any time ;" and here, in the prime of the dull season, is a first-class grievance,—the dullness of the Magazines. It is portentous. It would exhaust Madame de Sevigne's stock of adjectives to describe it, and it is so surprisingly unanimous ! A general congress of contributors and editors, convened for the purpose of celebrating the month of September,
by writing, on the one part, and accepting, on the other, the least interesting articles procurable, could hardly have succeeded better in producing what is, of course, the result of individual effort. For instance, there is Black -wood, which has been quite charming of late, notwithstanding the intellect-depressing influence of political prosperity, but is mercilessly heavy this month, with an old- fashioned heaviness, desperately uninteresting, like garments of bygone mode. A letter to "Dear Maga " on "Horatian Lyrics," though it is enlivened a little by some cheery verses laudatory of the life of a farmer of an uncommon kind—for he is supposed to be "from business free," and to resemble the "merry men of old" in that respect, and, likewise, in that he "knows not the lust of gold "—is not much more readable than the Captain Clutterbuck and Jedidiah Cleishbotham correspondence which was funny in Sir Walter Scott's time. A reverie of sporting achievements, an invasion of the Muse, a symposium, and whisky-and-water, we have forgotten them all, with much content, long ago, and wish they had continued to rest undisturbed, with Christopher North and the lumbering learning and coarse jollity of the Nodes. "In a Studio" would be tolerable, if it were not so transparently teachy ; it has no spontaneity, and the jokes are meagre. The notion of the guests to be bidden to the imaginary banquet is good, but why has the writer dragged in a discussion on the ancient method of manufacturing wine, which is instructive, of course, but ruins the illusion he wants to produce, and why has he finished with a vulgar jest about spirit-photographs? " Elegies " is merely several famous poems, or bits of them, strung together on a thread of the slenderest comment and reflection ; and though we feel that the quiet, rambling talk over old books and old times which is meted to us "In My Study-Chair," might be acceptable another time, it is so full of the same tameness of the general contents that it has no relieving influence, The author of an article on Mr. Tennyson's "Queen Mary" remarks that the death of Lady Jane Grey "might well be the prominent object in a play which had the reign of Mary Tudor for its theme ; but in a tragedy, the interest of which is to centre on Mary's person, the paramount claim of unity in design demands its exclusion." We entirely agree with the latter portion of this sentence, but the former shows that the writer is not aware that a very fine dramatic poem which has the reign of Queen Mary for its theme exists, and that the lamentable story of the Lady Jane is treated as he implies. The poem is the late Sir Aubrey de Vere's "Mary Tudor," and it was published in 1847. The new chapters of "The Dilemma" are by no means dull ; the siege of the Residency by the mutineers is told with all the force and vigour of a military Defoe, and it is obvious that the next instalment of the tale Will be deeply, terribly interesting. A plan of the Residency gives a most realistic air to the present chapters, and enhances the interest of the strategic details, to people who know anything about strategics or plans; people who don't, it pleasantly puzzles.
A grumble may fairly be allowed when we find in the Corals ill, a propos of Stagnelius, a Swedish poet, such expressions as, "With the Muse his dealings were of the coyest and most unobtrusive," and, "In the company of gay comrades, centred round the glow- ing bowl, at the sight of which most Northern natures will kindle up, Stagnelius was renowned for wit, wanton exuberance of spirits, and unrestrained humour." It appears that Stagnelius was a de- formed sufferer, and "it was therefore that be, himself of a voluptuous nature, sought to blunt the sting of bodily pain and mental agony by a frequent recourse to the Lethean draughts of the glass." These remarkable sentences have all the effect of an ill-executed translation from a silly original, but if the reader will bear them, and a great many others like them, patiently, he will come to a poem, "Birds of Passage," which will reward the effort. We have seen somewhere a much more elegant version of Tdgner's lyric on the same subject—so naturally suggestive to every Northern poet—but Runeberg's is beautifully rendered. In "The Building of the Bridge, a Chinese Legend," there is nothing grand, and nothing picturesque ; and without either element no legend has the charm which we pecu- liarly attach to the notion of "legends," and which we find in all others of Oriental origin. There is nothing but the bizarre in the story of A Choi, and it is only another instance, in spite of the pains the writer has taken to make the story intelligible, of the absence of points of contact between Europeans and Chinese, that one cannot care in the least for these people, who are supposed to live and love, to suffer and die, during the building of "the Bridge of Ten Thousand Ages." Mr. Symonds is as elegant, as polished, and as acute as usual in his "Prometheus Bound," in which he argues that the great drama of lEsehylus is only the second of a trilogy, which, if we had it entire, would show us that Prometheus had been really and gravely in the wrong, and that his obstinacy was in the highest sense tragic, according to the Greek conception,. inasmuch as it displayed the aberration of a sublime character. Mr. Hardy's new tale, "The Hand of Ethelberta," turns a difficult corner, with very great spirit and all the usual quaintness. We hope Mrs. Lynn Linton is not going to spoil her novel,. which opened with considerable power, if not with any pleasant- ness, but there are signs and tokens of spoiling in the present instalment. A book without a single person in it with heart, conscience, kindliness, honour, or any elevation at all of principle or character, is as unlike life as it is wearisome and ill-tasting ; and as yet the people in "The Atonement of Learn Dundas" are all shadow, all ill-intentioned, all mean. The adventuress is breaking down, just as Dora broke down in "Patricia Kemball." No woman daring and clever enough to play such a game as that of the soi-disant Marquise de Montfort would select subjects of conversation of which she was ignorant, or risk being addressed in a Language in which she could not speak a sentence. This is like Dora's stealing ten sovereigns out of Mrs. Hamley'& drawer, which nobody but a fool would have done. Mrs. Lynn Linton is overdrawing her Spanish savage, too. That Hareton in "Wuthering Heights" should hang puppies over the back of a chair, fits in with the scenery and decorations of the repulsive drama, but Learn Dundas has to be made in- teresting by-and-by, and the hanging of the cat in her acquiescent presence is a blunder, in view of that eventuality. Mr. Dundas, too, is not a fool, and he is not meek ; he says very brutal things to his wife, whom he hates, and is by no means the sort of person to put up with "small white teeth gnawing at his arms like a wild beast at a bone." The story is a revel of hate, fury, scheming, and meanness ; there is nothing more difficult to keep within bounds, and the author is on the brink of breaking them. She has bit upon a clever device ; the secret marriage is far more skilfully contrived than Dora's, and D unda.s is a more presentable victim of an adventuress's attractions than Mr. Hamley was ; no doubt he will be murdered with more skill, if it comes to that ; but the whole story is in danger, not from the author's "meaning venom," but because she means too much of it.
In Macmillan, Mr. Routledge's "Indian Notes" get among commerce and manufactures, and are not so entertaining as their predecessors until the conclusion, when he brightens them up with a bit of speculation upon trade routes, and a description of "the Canal," which are as refreshing as oases. The first part of a sketch of " Torquato Tasso, his Life and Works," is admirable, as all the interpretations of the Italian poets, signed "Catherine Phillimore," have been ; but the next article is the conclusion of "The Convent of San Marco," and the next but one after that is " Vintaging in Tuscany," and so a grumbler feels that he is rather overdone with Italy. Colonel Chesney's paper on "The Military Future of Germany" is the most interesting and important magazine article of the month. It is too closely reasoned to admit of adequately representative extracts, but we may give its con- clusions. They are briefly, that Germany might be at war to- morrow with one and all the lesser Powers without deducting a man from the field army, with which she would carry on the struggle with more formidable foes, and that she is stronger than all those combined.
The St. James's Magazine has a pleasant article on "Thomas Love Peacock," by Mr. Mortimer Collins—very little about eating in it, and Freeburg biscuits not mentioned even once—and some odd, characteristic letters of George III. and Queen Char- lotte, which form "a bundle of old papers" worth looking over..
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