THE MAGAZINES FOR DECEMBER..

sult of a neuralgia which has long tormented him. . . . The nose, which THE Magazines are full this month of vitality and freshness, many is fine and somewhat sharp-pointed, is bent a little to the left. The lips having at least one paper full of new thoughts, or very recent Ia. are closed like the New Englander's, and the teeth, especially those of the formation upon some pressing topic of the hour. Blacktcood, for under jaw, are imperfect. The cheeks are rather fleshy, and the line between example, gives us a " Month with the Rebels," an account of a rapid the aloe of the nose and mouth is broken; the chin is somewhat peaked, and trip through the South, made by an English traveller so recently as the face clean shaven, except under the jaws, where the beard is allowed October. The writer actually saw Fremont's camp, talked to the to grow. The hands are well made, and not disfigured by rings. The Charleston planters, tried to comprehend Mr. at Mn plans,

and studied the chances of the army encamped at Manassas ; and though he displays an unreasoning bias towards the Southern side, he

homespun, except the cravat and waistcoat. His coat was of antique cut, is the latest English eye-witness to the tone of the South. He and, like the pantaloons, baggy, and the buttons were black. A necktie of entered " Secessm" vitt Kentucky, the Federal Government refusing dark silk, with a large bow, was loosely passed round a starchls collar,assports into the "insurrectionary States;" and he describes the which turned down of its own accord. The waistcoat was of black satin— Feeling of that State fairly enough. Its legislature is for the Union, once an article of almost national dress—single-breasted and buttoned nearly and so is the population of entire counties ; but the active majority to the neck, and a plain gold chain was passed into the pocket. The boots are with the South, and the feeling among them is one of intense were Wellingtons, apparently of American make. bitterness against the Yankees. As he passed South this feeling " Altogether the Prophet's appearance was that of a gentleman farmer deepened, until in the cotton States he found absolute unanimity, a

in New England." resolution to perish rather than submit, "stamped," he says, " upon

He is an abstinent man, as far as liquors are concerned, and has every countenance." The statement does not tally with information become very wealthy, chiefly by trade. He evidently gave our received from Georgia and North Carolina, but still it must be held traveller an impression of great ability and an indomitable will. This to mean this :—so large a proportion of Southerners approve the war, personage controls a body of men who in extremis would number that the Government has no difficulty in silencing the opinions of the from six to eight thousand, and who would be assisted by from thirty remainder, a state of affairs which strengthens the Administration to forty thousand Indians. The Mormon creed, says Captain Barton, almost as much as unanimity. The writer evidently disbelieves in makes them kind to all Indians, and the savages prefer them to all all stories of danger from the slaves: " Many plantations may now be seen without a white man upon them, ready at any moment at the call of the govenior, the children are se- except the overseers; and instances occur daily of the fidelity with which dulously trained to arms, and if the theocracy is not broken up, the sue- servants' who have acoompanied their masters to the war serve them in Lessor of Brigham Young may have a formidable army. The first and the camp and field. Further, the generals employ the negroes in the corn- indeed only great political object of the Mormon leader is to become in- missariat, and upon earthworks in situations where desertions and conse- dependent, which, in presence of the existing contest, he may succeed quent freedom would be perfectly easy, thereby showing in the slaves a in becoming. He will then forbid the consumption of liquors, and confidence which is justified by the fact that the Northern army, now on punish adultery with death, and perhaps prohibit residence in Utah Arlington Heights, find it almost impossible to obtain correct information of to all but Mormons. Much, however, depends upon his successor, what is going on in the Confederate camp, two miles distant from the who is still unnamed. The Church thinks well of his son, an edu- Union outPosta•"

which a negro generally rides. The resources of the country produce the fresh meat necessary for the enormous daily consumption; and we frequently

country gentleman informed us that there were animals enough in two that defeat is impossible. In a second article,' evidently from the same pen, the writer repeats his assurances of Southern unity, re- marks justly and strongly on the confidence reposed by the South in its leaders, so different from the low distrust of the North in its ablest men, and adds in a note the following important testimony to the character of General Fremont : "So much has been said of General Fremont's magnificence in St. Louis that it may be worth mentioning in what state he was living when the writer was there in September last. He was occupying a substantial house in a good quarter, placed at his disposal by a friend. Most of the sunk and basement floors were taken up by busy secretaries and clerks. The general was incessantly engaged in organizing and providing transport for a force which should subjugate Missouri—a state half as large as Ireland— the Legislature and people of which were hostile to the Union, and of which he had been less than a month in nominal military command. Regiments were pouring in to him from the neighbouring states in various degrees of rawness, generally without arms, and unacquainted with their use. He had no rifles in store. His troops were being drawn away to reinforce points further east. The insanity of plunging into such a country when so un- prepared needs no remark, but was Mustrated by the fate of the garrison of Lexington.

"The 'body guard' which had so stunk in the Republican nostrils consisted of a troop of volunteer cavalry, the members of which had enrolled them- selves for the purpose of so serving. It presented the appearance of a raw and shabby squad of yeomanry, but it furnished the sentries at the general's gate, who only admitted persons on business, and so prevented bis house from becoming what in America is called levee, but in England a bear-garden."

Finally, he asserts that the press of the South is as free as ever, and instances the Charleston Mercury, which criticizes government and generals with almost licentious independence. We dare say it does, and as long as the criticism suits the local authorities of the state the editor will be unmolested. But let the Mercury attack slavery in the abstract, or even express an opinion in favour of the old Union, and he will be treated like Mr. Buckner, who, under precisely the same circumstances, saved his life by calmly going to prison. The "Doctor's Family" advances as pleasantly as ever, and there is an impudently clever paper directed against ...Punch, and the modern talk about "flunkeyism. ' We must protest, however, against sentences like the following being considered arguments :

"After all, the best evidence in favour of such social distinctions is of the strict legal kind—adverse possession ; they have held their ground, identical in the main from such time as the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.' If these new teachers of ours were genuine philosophers, they would know that shams' do notlast long."

So have thieves held their ground, but that does not prove that thieves ought to continue, still less that they ought to be reverenced. The real defence for an aristocracy is that it supplies a distinct want i in the nature of most men, the crave for leaders imposed by authority other than their own will, and of hereditary aristocracy, that men born to power, and particularly restricted power, do as a class take wider views than those who have not that mentalstimulus. A tailor may have really broad ideas, but the class of tailors will not think so broadly, or obey rules of policy so proudly consistent as the class of great peers. The people supported the Roman wars, but it was only the Patriciat which received Brennus sitting. Fraser opens with a paper by Mr. Stuart Mill, which we shall notice separately, but the article of the number is one on Mexico, evidently written from the fulness of personal knowledge. The writer is unusually tolerant of Mexicans, and defends—or rather ex- plains—some of their political characteristics which seem most offen- sive to outside observers. He implies that they have reason for their detestation of foreigners. The most prominent foreigners are Americans, and the Americans, besides assuming a sort of pro- tectorate, bitterly galling to a proud people, have systematically lent aid to every local pretender, and incessantly menaced the frontier pro- vinces. The hostility they excite extends to other nationalities, who are themselves, however, not wholly free from guilt. All traders, for instance, connive at smuggling, and even get up revolts in the ports, in order to enjoy for a few weeks a saturnalia of free trade. The modus operandi is for the merchant.4 to offer the local ruler a heavy bribe to let their cargoes pass in, and that failing, they supply funds for a local imeute, which any discontented notable in command of funds can at once get up. The " pronuneiamiento" is made, the agent of the central government disappears, the goods are introduced, and there is again what in Mexico is called order. Even the British are far from pure, the writer alleging that in the Pacific ports British men-of-war habitually aid in smuggling silver out of the country, a practice wholly prohibited by the Mexican laws, which, preposterous as they may be, it is not our duty to break :

"It is to be hoped that within the last year or two a change for the better may have taken place in the relations existing between British ships of war and foreign commercial houses, and between those last and the local autho- rities, but it will be long before the memory of former transactions can be entirely effaced from the minds of men."

That is a grave charge, which demands inquiry. The writer believes that the two great parties between which Mexico is divided really contend for a principle, the object of one being to divide Mexico into a federation, that of the other to fuse it into a strong and united military monarchy. Miramon, described as a young and successful general, of brilliant personal gallantry, is the present successor of Santa Anna, and leads the party who hope for centralization, and defy the Anglo-Americans. The total want of stability in every form of government is accounted for by the enthusiasm instinctive in Southern races, which know nothing of compromise, and the numerical power of the Indians, now the most numerous class of the popula- tion, and always ready to follow a leader who studies their prejudices and is of their own blood. The writer distrusts intervention, as tending directly to Spanish advantage, but he fails altogether to answer the great charge against Mexico, that, whatever the cause, i civilization is losing its hold on an Empire which it once possessed absolutely, or to suggest a plan other than intervention, by which its predominance may be again asserted. We may discuss abstract principles for ever, but the instinct of Europe In Mexico, as well as us India, will not permit a territory once held by civilized men to pass to races more nearly allied to savages or barbarians. Fraser has an excellent paper on "Justice to India," the writer of which advises the introduction of trial by jury, the admission of natives to high office, local treasuries, and a privileged class to which natives as well as Europeans should be admitted. The first sugges- tion, though we have no doubt of its wisdom, will be delayed, but Lord Canning has already cleared the way for the other two. He has at once improved the tenure of land, and admitted great land- holders, native as well as European, to local offices, an innovation which must very soon be followed by throwing open almost every office of state. From the moment the loyalty of a native is abso- lutely certain, the political objections to his promotion begin to vanish. There is no reason that we know of why men like the Rajah of Kupoorthulla should not be judges or commissioners, provided that Europeans are exempt from their authority, an exemption very easy inpractice, and justifiable in theory, on the simple ground that the difference of civilization compels us to exempt them even in inde- pendent states, like Japan or Turkey. We would recommend to our readers also the paper by Mr. Cayley, called " Between the Cataracts without a Dragoman," a most pleasant and original episode in life in the East, told by a man who really understands Orientals, and knows both sides of their lives : the outside, painted by every travelling littlrateur; and the inside, of which there are only two descriptions extant—one in the Old Testament, and the other in the "Arabian Nights."

" Charles Ravenshoe," in Macmillan, is as good as ever ; and though it will not, like "Geoffry Handyn," be read by all the young ladies in the kingdom, it is, perhaps on that very account, fuller of evidence of the author's special power, which we hold to be a faculty of comprehending all sides of an apparently ordinamcharacter. Very few among modern novelists would have conceived, far less made the reader perceive, the good in a man like Lord Welter. But far the most interesting paper is the second on "Paris Revisited," and which treats of the three things the author found hopeful in France —the Avociations Ouvriere,s, modern French Protestantism, and Liberal Catholicism. Of the first named he draws a singular picture. Of the hundreds of working associations, started in 1849, but twenty- seven survive ; but these are prosperous, have survived the opposition of the Empire, and, with one exception, maintain their principles, though forbidden to propagate them, or manifest them on sign-boards --compagttie fraternelle being a prohibited name—or to teach their workmen in rhea, r to do anything except act as partnerships en commandite. All are remarkable for the excellence and solidity of their work, whether it be upholstery, jewellery, masonry, iron-work, or small goods; and they possess, it is added, almost a monopoly of the provincial trade. They comprise 400 workmen, or about, with their apprentices and families, 2400 persons, all devoted to the prin- ciple, and acknowledged to be the very flower of the French working class. The moment the pressure of the Empire is removed these societies will be imitated on all sides, and perhaps reorganize labour without state aid in many branches of trade. Their existence under the circumstances is a proof of their enduring vitality. So with Protestantism. The old, steady, dead Protestantism is dying out, and Protestantism " Was never probably more torn asunder than it is at present. Apart from its two great divisions between the Lutheran and the Calvinist bodies, state-churchism and free-churchism, multitudinism, independency, rational- ism, the doctrines of the Baptists or the Plymouth brethren, Wesleyanism, revivalism, are doing battle within it on all sides. The old staid traditional Protestantism, Lutheran or Calvinist, of thirty years ago, content to have won at last a recognized and salaried existence, and an established form of government, is almost a thing of the past. In addition to the salaried churches, unsalaried churches, chapels, schools, are springing np where- ever almost a prefect allows them. Newspaper is set up against news- paper, review against review, to say nothing of pamphlets, volumes of sermons, and other publications. All this, k trust, indicates life, not death- Vieth is so, is proved to a great extent by the ever larger place which Protestants are making for themselves in the life of France."

Protestants are gaining a distinct place in literature, and the Reformed faith has ceased to be a bar to social advance. At the same time the tendency of this new school is to excessive independence, and its leaders in the Revue Chredimuse admit that it can never become national. The best hope of national reform in this direction lies in the national spirit, which tends always, as it has done throughout history, to a separate Gallican Church. The liberal thought. of France—the writer is speaking of the orthodox—inclines to the rejection of the worship of the Virgin, the authority of the priest, the papal infallibility, and the celibacy of the clergy; and with those dogmas depart all that is distinctively Ultramontane. A Catholic Church without the Virgin, images, or priestly or papal authority, would have full liberty of development towards a purer, because more vital form of faith. We have only to advise the editor of Mac- millan to eschew articles like that on " Games at Cards for the coming Winter." They have a fitting place in the penny weeklies, pocket-books, and productions of that kind, and should be left there. Even the million do not purchase Macmillan to discover a substitute for whist. If he will only also act on the conviction, which he must !entertain, that verses like these, though signed "H. Alford," are :unmitigated rubbish, he would save his readers a fit of ill temper:

" Floating away Like cloud on the hill, Pendulous, tremulous, Migrating still : Where to repose ourselves ?

Whither to tend ?

Such our consistency : Where is the end ?"

What law is it which has made "migrating" a dactyl? The Corakill has nothing this month calling for special remark, except an admirable scene in "Philip" between two old officers, who, being fast friends, ehallenge each other; and the only thing there ever has been in Temple Bar," The Seven Sons of Mammon," is ended, and

will be noticed Temple itself. Mr. Sala should leave real names, or names

barely disguised, out of such stories as this.