SOME OF THE MAGAZINES.

Macmillan contains two excellent papers, the "Fall of Magdala," by Mr. Markham, geographer to the expedition ; and au account of Cardinal d'Andrea, by his friend Mr. Wreford. The former is penetrated with a sort of regret for Theodore, whom the writer evidently believes to have been a man of grand will and energy somewhat hardly used. He declares that the King himself planned out the road across the Jita ravine which so greatly assisted our troops, and which seems from this account to have been a most remarkable work :—

" Teiideros formed his camp early in December, at a place called Beat-hor, on the western edge of the Jita ravine ; whore an immense area of ground was covered with the remains of fires, and with the little bowers of branches which are used by Abyssinian soldiers instead of tents. The plateaux of Wadela and Talanta are on the same level, about 9,000 feet above the sea, and the deep gorge of the Jita, which divides them, is 3,200 feet deep—the sides of columnar basalt being precipitous, with terraces of broken ground about half-way down on either side. Looking at so formidable an obstacle from Beat-hor, TeOdoros never hesitated, but at once set about the construction of a first-class road, practicable for heavy artillery. The trace is well selected, though there are some very steep gradients ; but there is an average width of thirty to forty feet, with zigzags, high revetment walls of stones and earth, with layers of branches, and much blasting out of rock on the inner scarps. The details of blasting and reveting were done, of course, under the direction of his German artisans ; but the King himself was the chief engineer who selected the trace, and organized the labour. From Beat-her to the river-bed, 3,200 feet in perpendicular distance, is four miles and six furlongs by Te&clores's road. The ascent on the other side is shorter but more difficult, being three miles and two fur- longs in length ; and here much of the road had been hewn and blasted out of the rock, or built up the sides of gorges with stones and earth- work—a strengthening hedge of branches of trees being placed at the outer side of the road to prevent the earth from slipping. Every morn- ing the King himself commenced work with his own hands, and in con- quering the Jita ravine, he has raised to himself a monument of his dogged perseverance and invincible resolution."

Mr. Markham believes that the prisoners were released and the cattle sent as a measure of conciliation, and implies that Sir Robert Napier ought to have informed Theodore that his presents could not be accepted: It must, however, be remembered that Sir Robert had already explained his ultimatum, that Theodore knew the delivery of the prisoners would not be sufficient, and that the cattle, though they could not be returned, were not accepted. Mr. Markham rises to eloquence in his narrative of the last hours of the King, and the nine followers who adhered to him to the last till they fell one by one under the fire of the Solders. The King himself was the last to retreat from the gate, flinging up his arms in the air as a gesture of defiance from behind the last rock. Mr. Markham does not doubt that Theodore shot himself, preferring death to any position save that of King. " The body was that of a man of medium stature, well built, with broad chest, small waist, and muscular limbs. The hair was much dishevelled, crisp and coarse, and done in three high plaits, with little stumpy tails behind. The complexion was dark for an Abyssinian, but the features showed no trace of negro blood. The eyebrows had a peculiar curve downwards and over the nose, and there was a deep curved furrow in the centre of the forehead. The nose was aquiline and finely cut, with a low bridge ; the lips thin and cruel ; the face, though thin, rather round than oval. The once changeful eyes had lost their meaning—one closed, the other staring. The scanty beard and moustache contained many grey hairs. Tetidoros was born in 1818, and was consequently in his fiftieth year." It should not be forgotten that in Sir Robert Napier's last despatch he declares his opinion that although all Abyssinia was in rebellion, any province entered by the King would have submitted to his authority.

Cardinal d'Andrea appears in Mr. Wreford's sketch as a kind of Whig among Cardinals, anxious for reform, but persistently declining all proposals to head a Free Church of Italy. He was, however, a friend to the unity of the Peninsula, and this coupled with the presumed Liberalism of his opinions created such hostility among the Ultramontanes that many of them believed him mad. He was, in truth, a highly nervous, susceptible man, and his death was ultimately due to the persecutions he underwent in Rome, persecutions which took the form of elaborate and studied insult :—

"A post mortem examination of the body of the victim has certified that the Cardinal died of tubercular phthisis and angina pectoris, thus in few words summing up and certifying a long series of cruelties. Refused permission to breathe the air which was necessary to his life, he Was morally compelled to return and breathe an atmosphere which was poison to him. Deprived of his bishopric, of his ecclesiastical authority, and menaced with the loss of his cardinalate, he was made to dance attendance in antechambers, and assume the costume of a penitent, or one not accordant with his rank. Persuaded, contrary to his inten- tions, to sign a recantation against which his conscience revolted, on condition of being restored to his authority as bishop and abbot, these promises were never kept. Is is necessary to have recourse to the hypo- thesis of poison, when the means of procuring a slow and certain death were so ready at hand, and so ably used? Tubercular phthisis—angina pectoris ! What bodily and mental torments are comprised in those four words !"

The number contains two capital travellers' papers, of the kind so greatly appreciated by most Englishmen, light sketches by keen- witted, good-humoured observers, one in the Nivernais, and the other in Norway. The writer of the latter makes a sharp remark on an evil which is becoming noticed on the Continent, the exces- sive stinginess of some English and more American travellers. They fancy, we believe, that every charge is a robbery, and do more to keep up the greediness and haggling spirit of the people with whom they come in contact, than even the other class who give dollars where shillings should suffice.

We have noticed the most important paper in the Fortnightly else- where, but the number contains also a very brilliant criticism by Mr. Swinburne on some sketches by old masters at Florence, full of poetic feeling and subtle observation, and a most exhaustive paper on the " Question of Central Asia " by Mr. Giffen, who has, we believe, for years past made a study of Russian politics. Mr. Giffen, though very moderate in his statements, is in favour, on the whole, of the dangerous policy of conquering Afghanistan, and thus giving Russia another province to fight through on her way to India. If that is the true policy, it would be far better to occupy only the mighty valley beyond the Suleiman, and thus separate ourselves as little as possible from our base ; but the true province to defend is

the Punjab, where we can obtain the assistance of an acclimatized and martial race, and where our railway system will speedily be complete. Mr. Giffen does not realize what the Suleiman wall really is when he talks of piercing it by a railway, and he himself shadows out an infinitely wiser policy in the following most sug- gestive paragraph, a paragraph worth the most careful attention of politicians :—

" In deciding this question there are some other points to be kept in view. Indian politicians, coolly taking stock of what is occurring, can- not but observe that, empire for empire, India is stronger than Russia.. This may not be the Russian belief, but it is the fact nevertheless. The Indian revenue is nearly as large as the Russian, though Indian taxes. are very much lighter ; the population is larger than that of Russia„ including millions of warlike tribes as effective at least as the Cossacks, which form so large a part of the Russian Army ; and India is backed by England, the strongest State in the world in an economical view, which means the strongest State for any material contest. The question, then, is hardly one on which the existence of the Indian Empire need depend, provided due care be taken. Indian politicians likewise do not fail to observe that if India is exposed to a new danger, Russia is also exposed. By creating within our reach a new and important province of the empire, Russia has given a hostage to England of no little value. The Indian Empire has had its times of peril, but so has Russia ; and hence- forth in Russian perils, when we are singly or in alliance opposed to her, we have a new means of exercising pressure. The whole force of India may be brought into play as it could not be without actually touching, or nearly touching, a Russian frontier. At another time it might have seemed madness to talk of an expedition into Central Asia, but the expedition into Abyssinia was many times more risky and unfathomable —the ten thousand men we sent there might be doubled or trebled in Affghanistan. To defend her Central Asian province, which could be attacked on many points, and whose population might be raised in revolt,. Russia must needs detach largely from any other scene of action—per- haps a hundred thousand Russian troops would fail to hold Turkistan, with an Anglo-Indian army of thirty or forty thousand men on the Oxus. Russian writers say that in another Crimean war their conquests will enable them to bridle England ; but the engineer, if such has been the intention, may be hoist with his own petard."

So true is this, that we believe Russia in advancing to the South is placing herself completely in our power, enabling us at the moment when a supreme effort becomes necessary to call all who- hate her in Asia, from the Persians to the Siberian convicts and the Mussulmans of the Khanates, to arms. Even five thousand English troops commanded by a Napier, and backed with endless supplies of money and guns, would make her position in Asia very difficult. We wish Mr. Giffen had given us an estimate, howev approximate, of the cost Russia is incurring in these regions. It must be heavy, or she would put more men in Turkistan. Mr. W. B. Scott is a poet. Even though men after much reading may not quite catch the drift of "Anthony," it is impossible to mistake the lyric vigour of lines like these against luxury :—

" For surely God Lends the heart a worm, the back a rod, To punish those forgetting Him ; And His punishments are grim !

Abasing the haughty in velvet and fur, Who hold their foreheads against the thunder, And laugh to see the patched poor wonder, Who travel with riders before and behind, Riding over the halt and blind, Who empty the stoup with the wassailer,• Over the chamber of the dying,

Who wear the night with dice and lying—

Lying and cursing over the dice, And to the chirp of the violette, With a headless amorette Dance until the cock crows thrice."

"The Historical Sketches of the Reign of George the Second," most of which have been so good, so full of kindly, thoughtful observation, are continued in Blackwood, the subject being this month Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The sketch is full of in- terest, but too much like that of the regular biographer, too kindly for perfect truth, though the writer, in a brilliant com- parison between Lady Mary and Madame de Sevigne, shows that he appreciates, at least, one defect in his subject's character :— " It is possible that the character of Madame de Sevignd may have affected and moulded the ideal of her nation, as it certainly reaches in her its fullest impersonation. The highest type of excellence to the French mind is the woman who has no passion in her life but that of motherhood, who lives but for her children, and who is made by them, and by the race in general, into a tender idol, worried, no doubt, and vexed and wounded in the ordinary course of existence, but always theoretically worshipped. Madame de Sevignd is the highest typo of this saintly creature ; more tender, more constant, more impassioned, than any lover, giving all, asking nothing except that little recompense of love which she well knows is but a shadow of her own ; content to give up all individual life, to regard the events of her existence only as so many means of interesting or amusing her absent child, living upon that child's recollection, longing for her presence, turning every scene around her into a shrine for the object of her soft idolatry. Such is the Frenchwoman. Lady Mary Wortley is of an entirely differ- ent character. Love and longing for the absent may be, and no doubt are, gnawing at her heart also; but her philosophy is to make herself independent of these, to occupy herself, to fill the remnant of her life with interests which may break the force of that painful longing. In- stead of concentrating her heart and thoughts upon the chance of a momentary meeting now and then, which may cheat with a semblance of reunion only to pierce the sufferer with new pangs of parting, she makes up her mind with a stern but not ignoble philosophy that all such sweet possibilities are over. She takes herself away to hide her solitude, to withdraw the shadow of her deserted life from that of her child. She sets forth in her letters all her surroundings, all her occupations, not by way of amusing her correspondent alone, but by way of showing that her own life is yet worth living, and her individuality unimpaired. It is possible that in this steady and unfaltering purpose there may be almost a higher principle of affection than that which moves the tender outpourings of the other mother's heart; but it is the tenderness of a stoic, content to take what is possible, and to resign what cannot be hoped for, and not the effusion of love which dies for a response. Madame de Sevigne, but for the soft dignity which was inalienable from her as her child's mother, would have been a servant for her love. Lady Mary could not but live her own live, and preserve her independence and personality."

In other words, Madame de Sevigne thought of others, Lady Mary first and mainly of herself. She had something of the " diamond heart" of Mary of Scots, who, we have often thought, placed in her position would have written her letters. There is a very good estimate, too, of " Peter Pindar," Dr. 1Voolcot, ending in a judgment that he was morally better than his works. The strongest proof of this to the writer's mind seems, however, to be that Woolcot was neither blasphemer nor repub- lican at heart, but only assumed those vices, surely the most savage sentence it is well possible to pass upon a poet. The quotations from Peter Finder's West Country songs will be new, we suspect, to many of our readers, and have in them something of the cynical simplicity Thackeray in his Cockney songs knew so well how to assume.

Of course Blackwood has a fierce political article, the value of which may be estimated from the fact that the writer describes Mr. Gladstone as " the vainest and most arrogant of living men," says that one principal motive of his actions is personal hatred of Mr. Disraeli, asserts that he hates all Peers because the Duke of Newcastle deprived him of his seat for Newark in 1846, that he threw over the Irish Church against his own principles rather than see " his evil genius " in power, and has been " all things to all men, and everything to himself." Mr. Gladstone in fact is an arrogant, treacherous, selfish time-server I In the Cornhill, next to Mr. Arnold's paper, noticed last week, we prefer the account of two mediaeval travellers who, in 1465, set out with their master, Leo, Lord of Rozmital and Blatnie, and brother-in-law of the King of Bohemia, to see " all the king- doms of Christendom, and their noteworthy things, both secular and religious." They travelled in Burgundy, England, France, Spain, Portugal, and North Italy, keeping diaries as they went. The diaries, from the specimens here given, are too brief, but withal full of shrewdnesses and observation. The banker traveller Tetzel writes :—" England is very small and narrow, but full of villages and towns, of castles and of woods. But there are great heaths, bearing willows, underwood, and reeds, and the sheep are the staple of the land. They feed on the same pastures winter and summer. There are many preserves (Tiergarten), with many strange beasts, and men burn peat instead of wood ; when they have not much wine, corn, or wood, then they bring them over the sea, and the common folk drink a drink called ‘al'selpir." We note that even at this time the travellers found the fields surrounded by hedges and ditches ; and Ssassek, the courtier traveller, remarks the plenteousness of pleasaunces, then, as now, the most remarkable feature of English life. In France, Tetzel gives us a picture of Louis XI. which Sir Walter Scott ought to have seen :—" Item, the King is not a tall man ; he has black hair, a brownish skin, the eyes stand deep in his head ; he has a long nose and little legs. And they say he hates the Germane. And his greatest fondness is for venery, and he likes being in small towns, and goes seldom to the large ones, and sixty guards always lie fully armed before his door." And in Portugal he notes the curious facts that a hun- dred thousand negro slaves have been already imported there, and that the sale of negro boys is the greatest revenue to the King. The essayist doubts the number, but is he aware of a fact well known to all who have ever seen much of Portuguese and of negroes, that among their lower orders there is a visible touch of the negro blood, and that while other white races crossed with natives of India produce dusky children, the children of a Portuguese and a native are very many shades darker than the mother ? The old arose revives again after three hundred years.