SOME OF THE MAGAZINES.

THE half-crown magazines are somewhat deficient in interest this. month. Spiritualism in the United States is described by a writer in Fraser, who has attended many seances, watched many mediums, and listened to many stories, but who has apparently come to the same conclusion as most other sensible men, viz., that. though some of the phenomena are still unexplained, there is no reason for connecting them with any spiritual agency. The writer tells a curious story to illustrate the sincerity of many of the believers in spiritualism. He was himself present at the scene he describes :—

" One old gentleman, who had risen to make some observations, was asked by a neighbour if he had heard from his son lately. The old

gentleman replied that the spirit of his deceased son had visited him on the previous night, awakened him, and told him that he was in the third sphere ; that he was much pleased with this information, because, as they all knew, dear Johnny had previously been in the second. Vehe- ment cheering followed this announcement, and the narrator sat down, beaming with satisfaction at his son's promotion."

Oatnessiana " promises, in spite of its whimsical title, to be a better story than most of those published in Fraser, a story of quiet life in a Scotch village ; and there is pleasant reading in the 4' Rambles by the Stour and Avon," rambles by a man who under- stands song as well as scenery, a poet as well as a hill or valley. lie quotes and gossips of George Herbert, and Mr. Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, with a gusto that has a charm for all who love song, and does not disdain to give, for the sake of comparison, -extracts from the songs popular in the music halls and streets of London. The following anecdote will interest many who remem- ber a time when its subject's name was on every dead wall in _London :— " Sam Cowell had constant engagements, and was well paid. What more? Only the common story—' unbounded applause,' unwholesome living, drink, broken health. Said our host of the Crown one day (being alp in London, and knowing all these celebrities): You're not looking -well, Sam ; come down to Blandford, and we'll set you right again.' -Some months after which, a ghostly pale man arrived at the Crown in the railway omnibus, and this was the celebrated Mr. Cowell. The waiter and chambermaids regarded him with curiosity; the stablemen -talked of him over their beer ; his arrival made more or less sensation throughout the town. He was very ill; grow worse and worse ; con- sumed a bottle of brandy per diem, when he could get it ; and was -sometimes noisy. At length the Crown's hospitality being worn out, though not the host's kindness, a lodging was taken in the town, and the sick man's wife brought from London. He was carried down stairs in an arm-chair ; and next and lastly, before many days, his body was laid in the cemetery, among these Dorset fields and orchards. A little -subscription was made for his wife and children, and a stone placed over his grave. Some well-meaning people had administered ghostly consola- tion of the usual kind to the poor Grotesque, and his last words were, 4 Safe ! safe !' On his tomb is engraved : Here lies all that is mortal of Sam Cowell. Born April 5th, 1819. Died March 11th, 1864 ; ' with the words of a text—Hebrews vii., 25."

The majority of the papers in this number of Fraser, however, like that on Emanuel Swedenborg, Baron von Bunsen, and, in a less degree, on Sir Philip Sydney, give us an impression as of twice-cooked meat, of a want of originality alike in subjects and their treatment.

Blackwood has one political article on the President's impeach- ment, a very clear and not unreasonable statement of the case for the President, whom the writer believes to have been attacked mainly from party motives. He is, however, by no means so hostile to America as Black-wood's contributors usually are, and -actually commences his argument with the assertion that " men of such lofty views, of such mature wisdom, and of such unselfish patriotism as the founders of the American Republic have seldom appeared in any age or country." That is surely an enormous -concession for our " Church and King " contemporary, and almost -suggests that its editors have ceased to think republicanism in itself a crime. There is an admission, too, that Mr. Lincoln was -a great as well as a kindly man, and a tendency throughout the -article to judge the men and the ways of the United States very much as we should all judge those of France or Germany. If 'Tories adopt that tone, their views will have far more weight in American affairs than they have ever yet obtained. " Cornelius .{)'Dowd " is a little hazier than usual this month, given to bloomy predictions, and regrets over passed-away security, but is worth reading still. His notion that Baron Beust is making a voyage of discovery to see what Repeal is like, for the special benefit of Great Britain, is extremely happy, and he gives us one of the curious diplomatic stories of which his memory retains such store. He vouches for it in full confidence:—

" I remember, said my friend, one evening when we sat over the fire -together in my room, in a country house where we both chanced to be visitors, as much to indulge Louis Napoleon's passion for a favourite theme as to dispense myself from the labour of talk, 1 asked him what he would do when he became Emperor. He spoke calmly, collectedly, and with a force of expression that implied confidence in his own words ; he detailed all that France needed to be done, and carefully went over -whatever he thought possible. The finances of the State were to be his first charge, and in these groat reform and some reductions were possible. The whole system of secret service, grown to a fearful extent amder Louis Philippe, was to be abolished at once. The Navy should be reconstructed: France must be at least the equal, if not the superior, of England at sea, and, having no distant possessions or far-away in- terest to protect, she might reasonably hope to bo a match for England on the waters of Europe. As for the Army, it was an easy task to revive the spirit of French glory, so lamentably depressed by the reign of the Orleans family. Next, he sketched out French projects in the East. The first Emperor's designs on Egypt were to be carried out, but in a different way. French commercial enterprise and her mis- sionary influence must be the pioneers of French conquest. We must prepare these people to accept us as deliverers, was the expression he employed. He then adverted to the extension of France by colonial possessions, and clearly sketched the contest that must come between the Latin and the Teutonic races. Wars in Europe there'must be, and it would be to the advantage of France to revive, as she was sure to do, the prestige of the First Empire. Every legacy of ambition that his great uncle had bequeathed was to be paid in full. France was to be supreme over the whole South of Europe, and Germany was to stand in awe of her in the North. Meanwhile, matters at home were not to be neg- lected. Municipalities were to be encouraged to beautify and adorn the various cities of the land, not only to give employment to labour, bat to serve as a counterpoise to that spirit of centralization in the government which an absolute rule needed and could not dispense with. And at last, said he, drawing a long breath, but only at last, when policy, when necessity, will demand it, we war with you in England."

The Emperor has certainly abandoned one part of that plan, the abolition of the secret police, and may have abandoned the still more difficult portion, the abolition of England. A story is con- cluded in this number, called "Unlucky Tim Griffin," of a kind which for years has been almost peculiar to Blackwood, and which resembles rather a narrative of adventure told by a cheerful old major or sportsman, than an ordinary tale. It is capitally done, and would make a good basis for a stirring comedy of the kind. Englishmen are beginning to forget.

St. Pails, besides Mr. Trollope's story, which includes this month an admirable sketch of an election for a nominee borough, contains some excellent padding, particularly a description of the Wilds of Cheshire, the district of which Macclesfield Forest is the centre, and which belongs chiefly to the Stanleys, a district in which civilization has penetrated so little that foxes are killed as vermin. Hawking is carried on here as a sport, and the writer gives an amusing account of his methods and his birds, showing that the hawks care as much for the sport as the men who train them. If the pointers do not start the game soon enough the hawks swoop down and hit the dogs, " making them howl," as a gentle reminder not to be lazy.

"The scenery of this neighbourhood reminds one of that of the Scotch Highlands, but it is very much in miniature. Hills,—mountains, per- haps,—crags, heather, bilberries, rushes, peat, burns, a pure invigorating air, mists in season and sometimes out of season, scattered cottages, sheep, stone walls,—these are some of the characteristics of the ' Wilds of Cheshire.' The winters are long and white, but I think not excep- tionally cold. Sometimes we have great storms of wind, when no one could live on the hill-tops. We have little spring, but the summer is generally beautiful, and so is the autumn. In May there are a hundred great banks, blue with the wild hyacinth, or bright with the first green of the bracken fern. Later on, there are skies bluer than the banks, with a hot sun, which drives the cattle to the brooks ; and the country, which in winter does not hold a bird beside grouse, a few partridges, a snipe, and a passing crow, is full of the song and the presence of summer visitants. Tho hills stand about us, and shut out a distant view, but you can climb them and look over forty miles into Wales. By the 12th of August the heather is ,purple and smells like honey ; the hot air comes off the crags, and you see it mixing with a cooler atmosphere all along the hill ; tho tributaries to the one large brook shine as they come down their irregular beds ; the shepherd, for once in his life, calls his dog to heel, and keeps the wall as he passes on ; the grouse lie for this day, and perhaps for the next, almost like partridges in the south ; and we labour along till the evening, in our dreamed-of, hoped-for, prayed- for, magnificent toil."

There is a rage just now for describing England, and we trust these papers ou less known districts will be continued in St. Paul& The answer to the Saturday Review's diatribes on " the women of the day" will interest most women, the main point being the following bit of veiled but biting satire :—

" But, on the other hand, very few men,—or, at any rate, very few men of much ability,—would or could have written the papers in ques- tion. The infiniment petit,' the fiddle-faddle, the foibles and trifles of the social aspect of female life, do not attract or interest men who lead active lives in the world. Both for good and for bad, other cares and other thoughts than the consideration of the merits or demerits of female fashions occupy the minds of busy men. Yet it is obvious that the author of the articles in question has given an amount of study to women hardly consistent with the occupations of a man-like existence. His only books may not have been women's looks; but he has studied the books which women read, and the talk which women talk, and the thoughts which women think. Judging, then, entirely from internal evidence, I should say that the writer of these papers must be looked for in the list of young curates. In the words of the French play, `Nourri dans le serail, j'en connais les dkours.' The secrets of the gynesceum are open to him. He has lived in the harem, though not of it. He has suffered beneath the matronly yoke ; ho has been oppressed by the feminine protectorate ; ho has groaned under the patronage of pious spinsters ; and out of the fullness of his heart the mouth has spoken. Moreover, this theory, if it be correct, excuses what to our minds is the most Offensive feature of these attacks on women,"

—the want of perspective of discrimination between mere obedience to fashion, which often proceeds from a modest wish not to be conspicuous, and immodesty. The writer defends women, too, from the charge, so constantly advanced by people over fifty, that they are bad housekeepers, and asserts that they cannot be "bustling housekeepers and intellectual companions." That is true, if by housekeeper we understand cook, but there is no more reason why a woman who directly governs her menage,—governs it, we mean, in detail,—should not be intellectual, than why a man with an office to control should not be.

The most valuable paper in the Cornhill is the one headed " A City of Refuge," a most pathetic account of the Hospital for Incurables on Putney Common, an account which might make a tender heart ache for weeks, and will bring, we may hope, thou- sands of pounds to the hospital. We extract a singular para- graph about a corner of the institution kept with some care from the world, shrouding a form of misery unknown to half of it :-

"Upstairs, higher still, there is a room which is not generally shown, where a strange weird party of poor little deformities are assembled. Little women with huge heads, so sad, so grotesque, and horrible, that one's very pity is scarcely pity, but wonder. They were sitting round a little tea-table, which they were preparing for themselves ; one of thorn was toiling the kettle. They seemed quite happy and busy. It was like some pantomime of nature ; like some strange people out of another planet, sitting together and staring at us with those huge weird-like laces, supported by living bodies."

Mr. Matthew Arnold finishes his fine paper on " Anarchy and Authority," an elaborate contrast between Hellenism and Hebra- ism, the philosophy the end of which is to make men think rightly, and that which has for object to make them act with righteousness :—

" The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really ere ; the uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can do away with this ineffaceable difference ; the Greek .quarrel with the body and its desires is, that they hinder right think- ing; the Hebrew quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting. He that keepeth the law, happy is he ;" There is nothing sweeter than to take heed unto the commandments of the Lord ;' that is tho Hebrew notion of felicity ; and, pursued with passion and tenacity, this notion 'would not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had, at last, got out of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his whole life, to govern every moment of it, every impulse, every action. The Greek motion of felicity, on the other hand, is perfectly conveyed in these -words of a great French moralist, ' C'est Is bonheur des hommes' — when? when they turn from their iniquities ?—no; when they exercise themselves in the law of the Lord day and night?—no ; when they lose their life to save it ?—no ; when they walk about the New Jerusalem with palms in their hands ?—no ; but when they think aright, when their thought hits—' guand ils pensent juste.' At the bottom of both the Greek and the Hebrew notion is the desire, native in man, for reason and the will of God, the fooling after the universal order, in sword, the love of God ; but, while Hebraism seizes on certain plain, capital inti- mations of the universal order, and rivets itself, one may say, with unequalled grandeur of earnestness and intensity to the study and observance of them, the bent of Hellenism is to follow, with flexible -activity, the whole play of the universal order, to be apprehensive of missing any part of it, of sacrificing one part to another, to slip away from resting in this or that intimation of it, however capital. An unclouded clearnesi of mind, an unimpeded play of thought, is what this bent drives at. The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of ,consciousness; that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience."

Neither Hellenism nor Hebraism is, he argues, the law of human development, but only a contribution to it ; but his .own bias is clearly towards Hellenism, and he seems to us to omit or underrate the great failure which the Hellenes themselves acknowledge in their method, its total inability to remove melancholy, to dissipate that black cloud which -through all the bright light of Hellenic literature can be seen in the horizon, ready at any moment to advance and crush the hearts of men, the sense that nature, Providence, call it 'what you will, is hostile ; that the mysteries screened from the intellect are painful mysteries, influences against which that intellect, whatever its sweetness or its light, will contend in vain. Hebraism, besides its active side, has a contemplative one, and the result is to dissipate this cloud, to make Heaven the back- ground of life instead of the shadowed Hades, to substitute for inexorable Fate a deity who, dark as the Hebrew conception of him was, is, even with them, still the deity who orders cities of refuge for the soul.

It is our fate, we suppose, never to enjoy Macmillan, but to us 4' Realmah " seems an elaborate waste of writing power, and the

Chaplet of Pearls" is intolerable. The only paper which interests us at all is the thoughtful one by Mr. Llewellyn Davies on "The New College for Women," in which he contends moder- ately, but still strongly, for applying the methods of education which have succeeded with men to women, trying to cultivate them through Latin and Greek, Euclid and algebra. Well, any scientific education is better than the present haphazard system of " accomplishments ;" but we still believe that a method may be discovered which will " educate " women in the best sense more rapidly than a female Eton, and with greater com- pleteness.