THE VICTORIAN AGE.t Those who- are fond of singing the
songs of the past and regretting the great days of old will be pleased with The Victorian Age. For ourselves, we find the book far too- little sympathetic to the present. We yield to none in admiration for the age of the great Queen. It was great in war, great in peace, great in the arts, great in the sciences, and great in its inspirations. But, after all, its virtues belong to the past, and we have got to deal with the present and the future. We should honour the Victorians, but the best way to do so is to excel them, not to regret them. They are the challengers. We must take up the gauntlet that they have thrown down, enter the lists, and overcome- them in honourable combat. But we may love them even as we triumph. The author of Ionica put the true attitude of the new generation to the old with an exquisite felicity ;— " As when ancestral portraits look gravely from the walls Upon the youthful baron who treads their echoing Halls, And while he builds new turrets the thrice ennobled heir Would gladly call his grandsire his• home and feast to share."
We cannot, alas ! call them back to share our feast, but at least we may honour them in a loving-cup, and as we pledge them remember that but for their persistence in high deeds, their instinct for what was noble and of promise, their strength of soul, haw mean and starved a place in the world, might now be ours. He is surely accursed who despises and derides the foundations upon which he huilds.
• Prints of British Military Operations. Compiled by Colonel Crookshank• London Adlard and Son and West Bowman, Ltd., 23 Bartholomew. Close, [52 25. net.' t Ths Victorian gigs. By a Later Victorian. London : Humphreys. ps. net.l
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