ARRESTED FUGITIVES.*
SIB. EDWARD RUSSELL did well, we think, to " arrest " these " fugitive " papers and lectures, and confine them within the boards of a volume. They are all very popular, but that is not against them ; they are not intended for scholars. Sir Edward deals with a large range of subjects. He discusses Plato and Sir Henry Irving, Pliny the Younger, the Bible, Montaigne, and Matthew Arnold, &c. To our mind, the papers which deal with Montaigne and Pliny, and which are respectively beaded "A Roman Gentleman of Trajan's Time" and " A French Gentleman of the Sixteenth Century," are the most interesting. The Roman gentleman is a charming study. There was so much that is modern in Pliny the Younger and so much that is utterly foreign to the social world of to-day. Here is a piece of a letter written by him to a rich friend making holiday upon Lake Como :—
" How is that sweet Como of ours looking ? What about that most enticing of villas, the portico where it is one perpetual spring, that shadiest of plane-tree walks, the crystal canal so agreeably winding between its flowery banks, and the lake lying below and so charmingly yielding itself to the view ? What have you to tell me of the firm soft riding-course, the sunny bath- chamber, the dining-rooms for large and small parties, and all the beautiful apartments dedicated to repose at noon and at night. . . . Why not leave, my friend, as it is time to do, all insignificant, degrading business cares and devote yourself, in your snug and secluded retreat, entirely to studious pleasures ? . . Compose, produce—something that shall always belong to you. All other possessions will pass from one master to another : this alone, once yours, will remain yours for ever."
There is something almost vulgar in the frank delight which he takes in the refinements of life. We feel that a typical English gentleman would not have written like that to a friend, though a great many gentlemen might think like it. Here is another passage from Pliny which would hardly be written to-day, but which might have been taken out of a letter of sixty years ago. " When I go from the house to my summerhouse in the garden, I fancy myself a hundred miles away, and I especially enjoy it at the festive season of the Saturnalia, for then, by the customary licence of the time, every other part of the house resounds with my servants' mirth: thus I neither interrupt their amusements nor they my studies." Sir Edward Russell quotes from a very amusing letter about dining, which marks an immense change from Pliny's day to ours. Guests, it appears, though dining together at the same table as their hosts, were not all offered the same fare. According to each man's importance he was fed. Pliny objects to this system, and declares that he himself has never given in to it. "If I invite it is to entertain, not to distinguish between my guests." Even " freedmen," he asserts, are offered at his table everything which he eats, adding with unconscious humour, that when by chance he invites freedmen he eats and drinks frugally himself, and so avoids extravagance.
Our author, in writing of Montaigne, makes some pleasant and entertaining comments upon the ordinary conception of a gentleman as it exists to-day. Montaigne, be says, "never
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seems very angry, or very glad, or very sorry, or very earnest, or intensely moved in any way, although his sensations are never dull." With regard to Montaigne these words are, of course, undeniable, but we are surprised to be told that "for good or for evil, this is the recognized tone of a gentleman." Is it really so? We will quote Sir Edward Russell at length :—
"Nil admirari—not to wonder, or be excited—not to allow any- thing much to disturb a mind which ought to be prepared for anything, and to look down on most things without showing any sign of vulgar superiority. Even in the present day, when many men of good birth and in the highest society show zeal in good works, and lay aside the apathy of their caste upon very little temptation, there is still a feeling that too much zeal is out of the character of the gentleman, par excellence, and that in statesman- ship, in religion, in philanthropy, and in everything, it is better form to take things more dolly, and to have no enthusiasm except in a sardonic enjoyment of the characteristics of humanity."
If this is so it looks as if our present ideal of gentlemanliness will not last long. Right or wrong, however, Sir Edward Russell knows how to provoke thought, and that is the one thing needful to make a book of this kind entertaining.
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