CURRENT LITE RAT URE.
THE QUARTERLIES.
The place of honour in the new Edinburgh Review is given to a long and discriminating review of Mr. Winston Churchill's Life of his father. The writer objects to the claim that Lord Randolph discovered Tory democracy. The change in the suffrage had long made it transparently evident that the Tory Party in democratic times could only obtain power by getting the support of demo- cracy itself. Lord Randolph, in his opinion, was far too much concerned with the needs of a party and with the work of the caucus, and too little with the permanent requirements of the State. His resignation showed a temper which would have always made him impossible for the highest rank in our political life. While fully admitting his great ability and his keen political instinct, he finds him lacking in "any real depth of political principles." The book, he remarks, is "the first biography of a leading English statesman in which the caucus system plays much part."—Perhaps the most interesting article is one on "Illuminism and the French Revolu- tion," a brilliant and original study of a most obscure subject. Some force must have been at work popularising the ideas of the Encyclopaedists, so that when the Revolution came it found a prepared soil to work upon. The writer finds this force in the secret societies which began with freemasonry and ended with occultism. Freemasonry was first introduced into France, oddly enough, by Lord Derwentwater,—Jacobitism thus preparing the way for Jacobinism. Numerous occultist associations grew out of it, and finally the German Weishaupt organised the different lodges. "Every secret engagement," he said, "is a source of enthusiasm ; it is useless to seek for the reasons ; the fact exists, that is enough" Among his emissaries were the famous Cagliostro, and the equally famous and more mysterious Comte de Saint- Germain. "At the great Revolution the doctrines of the lodges were at last translated from the silent world of secrecy to the common world of practice ; a few months sufficed to depose ecclesiasticism from its pedestal and monarchy from its throne ; to make the army republican, and the word of Rousseau law. The half-mystical phantasies of the lodges became the habits of daily life. The Phrygian cap of the 'illuminati' became the headgear of the populace, and the adoption of the classic appellations used by Spartacus and his Areopagites the earnest of good citizenship." —The article on "The Political Situation in Asia" pleads for a final understanding with Russia on frontier questions. "No other combination can guarantee to England the precise object of her policy, the preservation of the status quo in Asia."—The concluding paper is a moderate and convincing defence of the principles underlying the Government's Education Bill. We are glad to notice that the writer asks for those changes in detail which we have always advocated.
In the new Quarterly politics are less in evidence. The article on "The Government and the Session" attacks the Ministry with great vigour on their Trade Disputes Bill, and advocates the German system of concurrent endowment as the only solution of the education difficulty.-1 paper on "The General Election in France" contains much valuable information on the exact position of the French Church under the new regime. One grievance the clergy have which is little understood in England. "The budget of public worship, which amounted to 41,700,000 last year, was not an act of grace but a measure of compensation. Before the outbreak of the French Revolution the tithe alone brought in 43,200,000, or nearly double the income secured to the Church under the Concordat." The conclusion which the writer reaches is that there are far more Roman Catholics in France than people think. "If ever persecution were to become acute, if the churches were to be closed, this would become clear
to the world."—The paper on "The Government of the English Church" discusses the recent Report of the Com- mittee on Ecclesiastical Discipline, which it vigorously defends. It urges that the Report be considered as a whole, and that the Government act upon it. "If the conflicting elements in the Church are allowed to develop into sharp antagonism, there will be every reason to fear that an actual disruption may be the resnit."—But the main interest of an excellent number is literary and historical. "The Literature of Egotism" is an acute study of the literary mode which is represented by such books as "The House of Quiet," "The Garden that I Love," and "A Solitary Summer." "This literature though it may often be the work of powerful and active minds, never represents such minds in their more vigorous and active moments; and many of the most important forces now at work in the world lie beyond the reach both of the moods and the literary methods of which works such as these are the result."—Of the other contents, we would specially commend a paper on "Modern British Art and the Nation," in which an admirably sane and catholic view of art is developed; and a brilliant essay on "John Knox and the Scottish Reformation" by Mr. R. S. Rait, of Oxford.
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