After Thoughts. By the Right Hon. George W. E. Russell.
(Grant Richards. 7s. ed. not.)—Mr. Russell has collected in this volume a miscellany of essays, reviews of books, obituary notices of distinguished persons, &o. Sometimes wo have literature, sometimes polities, sometimes religion. Now he is grave and now he is gay. Always he is readable and almost always agree- able. If those is an exception it is when ho is dealing with politics. Among the best of the papers—they number forty-six— we should place first "Charles Kingsley" and "The Christian Socialists," with the sketch of F. D. Maurice (it is a. happy idea that the name "John," which Maurice born but never used, expressed the Son of Thunder element in his nature) and " James Payn" (an affectionate tribute to one of the most humorous and lovable of men). Perhaps we may say that if Mr. Russell is least pleasing when ho is writing about politics, he is most so when there is a touch of personal affection in what he says. "John Talbot" is a sketch of the high-minded man who for some thirty years represented the University of Oxford, and shows that he can do ample justice to one of whom he says, "I shared none of his political opinions." Hero we have a little criticism to make. Mr. Russell tells us that at the Oxford election of 1878, made necessary by the removal of Mr. Gathorne Hardy to the House of Lords, "the Liberals, by a strange perversity of choice, brought forward Professor Henry Smith, so half-hearted a politician that E. A. Freeman said he was better qualified to sit as member for Laodicea in the Parliament of Asia Minor." Now there was no "perversity of choice" at all. Henry Smith did not, of course, please such politicians as E. A. Freeman and Liddon, Mr. Russell's own mentor, but it was not intended that ho should. Any such candidate would have been impossible. He was the " Academical
Candidate." It was hoped that his unrivalled distinction as a mathematician and scholar would unite mon of both parties. It was a really hopeless scheme. The country clergy defeated it, as ReIlicaIs of Mr. Russell's type would have defeated it had they been in a majority. To both the University member is a political pawn and nothing more.
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