22 OCTOBER 1870, Page 19

CURRENT LITERATURE. article is on " Father Arndt," the author of

the great song What is the German Fatherland?" a song which, in the remembrance of many of us, was a joke, but now represents a very serious reality. The article is founded in part on personal reminiscences of the old man, who died in extreme age about ten years ago, and contains, also, spirited translations of some of the ballads. Mr. J. Gairdner's "Jack Cade's Rebellion" is an historical study, from which many readers will get new lights. And in Mr. Max Callinan's "Trinity College, Dublin," there is an exposure of abuses, which, as seems to be the custom of such growths on Irish soil, have risen to a most monstrous height. Imagine four resident fellows occupying seven whole buildings, and one hundred and twenty rooms besides! But the essay which will probably attract most attention is that by the editor on "England and the War," in which he discussea the questions "Ought we to intervene ?" and "Ought we to arm ?" and answers both in the negative. To intervene would be to go beyond dur duty; immense advantage as it would be to have a Republic established close to us, we must be sure that this Republic is genuine and durable, that we shalt not find that we have been helping Orleanism or some other form of government that seems equally despicable to Mr. Morley and his friends. Mr. Morley is manifestly an' irreconcilable.' To him Lord Salisbury and Mr. Gladstone are exactly alike. He is so high in the air that the petty distinctions of Liberal and Conservative are obliterated to his vision. We can have no objection to his holding such views ; only the Republicanism of England is not of this colour, and looks with strong dislike upon the "Red Spectre" which the bitterness of hatred that is to be distinguished in these utterances calls up. But there is one fault which Mr. Morley, whatever his views, might avoid. We do not like Lord Echo's politics, but we hold it to be beyond the mark to speak of him as "a lord who, under the cloak of Liberal professions, conceals an obstructiveness that the possession of a little intellectual force would have, perhaps, made a serious public nuisance." The world has yet to see the proofs of such transcendent intellectual power in Mr. Morley that would entitle him thus to speak de haut en bas of other men.