THE MAGAZINES.

Timicrying evil of our ablest Magazines—want of connexion with the current interests of life—is not so conspicuous this month. Black- wood, for instance, has five papers—the "Epic of the Budget," the "Disruption of the Union," the "Demise of the Indian Army," the " Barbarisms of Civilization," and the "Orleans Manifesto"—which do nof suggest the Gentleman's Magazine or any other mausoleum of in- formation. "Norman Sinclair," the only story going on, gets exceed- ingly tiresome, but there are evidently election scenes at hand which will give the author's forte, a kind of thoughtful satire on society, somewhat fairer play. We wonder what induced him, by the way, to reduce Attie Faunce, the best, because the most original character in the tale, to silence7 or to enter the lists with Dickens, by importing that absurd Detective, who finds out so little. A review of Dr. Hook's " Archbishops of Canterbury" is remarkable for that mixture of learn- ing and fun which was once the speciality of Maga, and gave to its pages a flavour, for the loss of which its elder readers find newer delicacies but partial consolation. "Judicial Puzzles—Spencer Cow- per's Case"—is an attempt, not very well executed, to set aside Lord Macaulay's verdict of acquittal in favour of Spencer Cowper on the charge of murdering the pretty Quakeress. All that. the reviewer proves is that Sarah Stout was last seen in company with Spencer Cowper, and that the neighbourhood believed him guilty. The exist- ence of a motive remains as obscure as before, for Cowper's shame. lessuess about the connexion, as the writer admits, really tells heavily for his innocence. Why should a man who showed his mistress's love-letters try to kill her because she was too fond of him ? The whole tenor of the little evidence left points to the result at which Lord Macaulay arrived, that the girl, in a paroxysm of baffled passion, drowned herself, and that the neighbourhood was roused to indigna- tion, not by a mistaken belief in Cowpees guilt, but by an accurate idea of his profligacy and hardness. The light article of the number is the "Barbarisms of Civilization," an amusing sketch of some social absurdities and modern inventions, though why fish-shces and butter- knives should be classed among modern barbarisms it is not easy to conceive. Why not condemn silver forks too ? The three po- litical articles at the end are sensible, but contain nothing of no- velty, unless there be novelty in a long paper on the "Demise of the Indian Army," which does not once even casually allude to the true reasons for that measure. It is curious that Indians, familiar as they are with the subject, can never see that the crea- tion of a great Queen's army in India has completely altered the aspect of the Eastern question, and enabled the British Govern- ment, whenever the "sick man" dies, to stand forward as residuary legatee, or sole executor, as the policy of the day may dictate. We should like to know the sentiment with which the editor of Blackwood, a poet, and a real one, regards the song he has admitted, under the title of the "Farewell of the Seal."If he does not know that it is trash of the very worst kind, his critical faculty is lower than we have been accustomed to believe. — Fraser begins with an article on William Pitt, a propos of Lord Mahon's biography, remarkable only for the thorough belief of the writer in his hero, though he does not go quite the length of a writer in the National, who believes Pitt to have been a great financier as well as governor of men. He makes a great deal of Pitt's disin- terestedness, the fact being that Pitt frequently betrayed an intense self-interest, only the thing he sought was power, and not money. For the latter, undoubtedly, he had a contempt, which extended im- partially to payments as well as to receipts. It is easy to be con- temptuous of cash when you can get credit, as Pitt did, for 40,0001. "All down Hill" we still think unequal to the reputation of its author. We very much doubt if any broken gentleman ever talked like Latimer; and Gilbert Orme is precisely the character to whom no conceivable opportunity would offer a temptation to commit murder. "Ancient Law" is a favourable and just summary of Mr. Sumner Maine's able book, a work which, if there is sufficient freedom from prejudice at the India House, will earn him a more substantial reward than the sale of fifty editions. We may pass over " Catullus" with the remark that the reviewer has detected the deep melancholy so often missed in the songs of the old Pagan, and which, though it was not necessary .to his subject to remark it, at the foundation of the Roman as it does of the Italian character. So we may over the " Sphynx," a very alight attempt to remonstrate against the popular

estimate of character, as illustrated especially in the lives of Shelley, Claverhouse, and Sir Robert Peel. In the latter case the writer employs as his illustration of the little value to be attached to history, Suit. Peel's denial that he had ever stated in 1829 his conviction that the time for concession to the Catholics had arrived. The statement was re- ported in the Times, and in the Mirror of Parliament, while Sir E. Knatchbull replied on the moment, quoted the admission, and sat down unanswered. Sir R. Peel distinctly denied the accuracy of the Times, Hansard, and Sir E. Knatchbull, and the writer considers the

denial proof that evidence is of no value. He might have selected a stronger instance. Fifteen years elapsed before the charge was adduced, and no man's character can stand so high as to guarantee his memory. Perhaps the best, certainly the most thoughtful, article in the number is the one on " Pelt-arch," from which we extract the fol- lowing suggestive remark :

" We have seen on a former occasion how frequently Dante was employed on

embassies. We meet with the same fact in the life of Petrarch. Doubtless, when the beauties of style first began to be appreciated, more was expected from the magic of eloquence than it is now likely to effect as an engine of business. In our days it is chiefly the cultured classes that are less strongly affected by rheto- rical artifice: in the fourteenth century sovereigns and nobles were mostly as

uncultured as the lower classes are now."

The operation of precisely the same feeling may be seen in America now, a half-educated middle class nominating its litterateurs to em- bassies, under the notion that nations can best be convinced by written

argument. " Saint Saturday" is a description of the amusements of the working man, too slightly done, but with a drift towards a very sound remark, " What the poor man wants is a public-house without drink." He has, in fact, reached the precise stage our forefathers reached one hundred years ago, and wants a coffee-house, where. he can smoke, chat, and be comforted with warmth and light. Is in quite certain that such a speculation would not pay ? The poetry in this number is as bad as in Blackwood, and reminds us of nothing so much as the late Mr. Smedley's imitations of Magazine verses. Does anybody in the world feel this kind of thing ?—

" Soon, soon my home her voice shall know, And she shall sylvan homage claim ; And her sweet playful English name About these fields shall blow."

— Corn/sill is a fair number this month, every article excellent of its kind, though there is, perhaps, a little too much of essay writing ; and we miss the semi-political article, which so often adds weight to the Corn/sill. The "Wrong Side of the Stuff" is simply a superfluity in a magazine in which Mr. Thaekeray gives us the wrong side of the stuff, i.e. the difference between the apparent character of a man as revealed in his public acts, and his real disposition, ad nauseam. The argument in favour of the "study of history" as a science is concluded, and is well worth careful perusal. We have not seen anything much more thorough or more temperate than the writer's defence of the influence of individual men on history, while demonstrating that such influence in no way de- prives history of its scientific character. "Philip," who in the last num- ber fell among thieves, has found one or two Samaritans, and has given up his right to exact his mother's fortune from her executor in a scene described by Mr. Thackeray in a woman's letter? which perhaps no man living but himself could have written. Certamly no one could have made it so full of the unconscious evidence of vulg,arity, temper, right feeling, and gratitude all mixed up together. 'Agnes of Sorrento" also advances, but Mrs. Beecher Stowe cannot leave her accustomed groove of thought, and to us an Italian girl of the sixteenth century reasoning about everlasting punishment, and her nurse talking modern orthodoxy, is inexpressibly tiresome. The uneasiness is not relieved by what we suppose is meant for comic verse, "A Cumberland Mare's Nest," a production slightly below the ordinary level of a street- ballad.

— Macmillan opens, as might be expected, with a defence of Scot- land against Mr. Buckle, rather historical than thoughtful, and which strong Scotehmen will consider almost weak in its temperance and fair- ness i of argument. "Torn Brown at Oxford" has come to an end,

as

and t will no doubt be shortly republished we withhold our criticism till it appears in improving. form. Air. H. Kingsley's " Ravenshoe," on i

the other hand, s A scene between the priest and Lord

Saltire is admirable, and once the priest's plot has exploded, we hope we may be rid in a great degree of machinery which vocals to a vexa- tious extent the old novels of the Minerva Press. A paper by Mr. Ludlow, on the "new Indian Budget," is as thoughtful as Mr. Lud- low's Indian papers usually are, but we think mistaken. He is probably the only man really acquainted with the subject who would aver that the services of Sir Charles Trevelyan, the most iron doctrinaire who ever reformed a department and ruined an administration, were essential. to the Indian.Empre. The "Royal Academy" is but a news- paper critique, and articles like that on the " Oriental Pearl" should be left to theEncyclopedias, to which they properly belong. We ex- tract from the very readable "Recollections of Cavoues last Debate" the following minute description of his face and figure. It will do hereafter for some Italian Walpole:

" Theform, and figure, and features were such that portrait-painters and

caricaturists could and did seize them easily and truly. The squat and I know no truer word—pot-bellied form; the small stumpy legs; the short, round arms, with the hands stuck constantly in the trousers-pockets; the thick neck, in which you could see the veins swelling; the scant, thin hair; the slurred, blotched face; and the sharp, grey eyes, covered with the goggle spectacles- thexe things must be known to all who have cured enough about Italy to ex- amine the likeness of her greatest statesman. The dress itself seemed a part and property of the man. The snuff-coloured tail-coat; the grey, creased, and crumpled trousers; the black silk double tie, seeming, loose as it was, a world too tight for the swollen neck it was bound around; the crumpled shirt ; the brown satin, single-breasted waistcoat, half unbuttoned, as though the wearer wanted breath, with the short, massive gold chain dangling down its front—seemed all to be in fitness with that quaint, world-known figure. What, however, no por- trait that I have seen has ever given, was the great kindliness of look and manner. It is Balzac, I believe, who says that dogs and women have an un- failing instinct which teaches them whom they can make up to safely' and I think that a dog who wanted his head patted, or a woman who sought for a kind word in trouble, would have come to Count Cavour without doubt or fear. Whether, when the pat was given and the kind word spoken, there was room for a deeper and more personal affection, may perhaps be doubtful." —We can say nothing of Temple Bar but what we said last month. No one who began the "Seven Sons of Mamixton" is likely to leave it off till it is finished, but no one really likes the tale, which he feels compelled to read, and except Mr. Sala's writing, there is, this num- ber, simply nothing in Temple Bar. —W We must notice the remaining Magazines somewhat more rapidly. Coltrane's and dinsworth's supply the usual quantity of stories, as well suited as usual to those who enjoy stories even if not above the average, and the former gives an account of the early years of Pitt, interesting as a non-political view of the great minister. The St. James's Magazine keeps on its way neither worse nor better, unless Mr. Fairholt's "Plagues of Egypt" deserves the latter epithet. It is a very correct narrative of travel in Egypt by one who can see nothing except the physical discomfort which surrounds travelling in that un- happy land. It is Egypt seen from the London point of view, and as a warning to travellers of the very worst they can have to endure, is not without merit. The sum of it is, that a traveller who dreads fleas, wants unbroken rest, and can find nothing poetic in Egypt, had better .keep out of it.