THE MAGAZINES.

THE larger Magazines do not commence the year with very striking papers. Much the most readable one is Sir C. Cavan Duffy's contribution to the Contemporary, an account of his

conversations with Carlyle, and his letters from him. Carlyle liked the able young Irishman, and wrote freely to him, never heeding how violently he might be treading on his correspon- dent's dearest corns. This passage, for example, about the Union, written in 1847, must have been rather like wormwood to a man who had thrown in his lot with the extreme Rc- pealers :—" Mitchel may depend on it, it is not repeal from

England, but repeal from the Devil, that will save Ireland. England, too, I can very honestly tell him, is heartily de-

sirous of ' Repeal,' would welcome repeal with both hands if England did not see that repeal had been forbidden by the laws of Nature, and could in the least believe in repeal !

Ireland, I think, cannot lift anchor and sail away with itself. We are married to Ireland by the ground-plan of this world —a thick-skinned labouring man to a drunken ill-tongued wife ; and dreadful family quarrels have ensued !" For "drunken," which is unfair, read "vain," and what a descrip-

tion that is of the indissoluble partnership ! The letters are full of such passages, and full, too, of a gentle, almost affectionate spirit, curiously at variance with some of their author's splenetic outbursts. Read especially the letter to Duffy after his sentence to imprisonment. It is full of cheerful prophecy—which proved true—that there was a career for the young Repealer yet, particularly if he would maintain for a time " a pious silence," and it ends thus :—

" Dear Duffy, I know not whether you can send me any word of remembrance from the place where you are, but rather under- stand that you cannot; nor is it material, for I can supply the word. But if now, or henceforth at any time while I live, I could be of any honest service to you, by my resources or connections here or otherwise, surely it would be very welcome news to me. Farewell for the present. My wife joins in affectionate salutation to you. That autumn evening on the pier at Kingstown, with your kind figure, and Mitchel's in the crowd, yes, it will be memorable to me, while I continue in this world. Adieu."

Sir Charles bears the strongest testimony that this mood of Carlyle's was his habitual one, though he admits that it was not a constant one, and that he was a man who, while facing all serious evils calmly, fretted wearisomely over the minuter troubles of life. Sir C. Duffy seems to have written down his conversations with Carlyle, for no human memory could long have retained a description such as this with such self- evident accuracy of phrase :—

" One of the products of Coleridge's system, he added, after a pause, was Hartley Coleridge, whom he (Carlyle) had one day seen down in the country, and found the strangest ghost of a human creature, with eyes that gleamed like two rainbows over a ruined world. The poor fellow had fallen into worse habits than his father's, and was maintained by a few benevolent friends in a way that was altogether melancholy and humiliating. Some bookseller had got a book called`Biographic Borealis' out of him by locking him up, and only letting him out when his day's work was done. He died prematurely, as was to be expected of one who had forgotten his relation to everlasting laws, which cannot by any contrivance be ignored without worse befalling. His brother, he believed, had long ceased to do anything for him. The brother was a Protestant priest ; smooth, sleek, sonorous fellow, who contrived to get on better in

the world than his father or brother, for reasons which need not be inquired into. He had the management of some model High Church schools at Chelsea, and quacked away there, pouring out huge floods of the sort of rhetoric that class of persons deal in, which he tried to persuade himself he believed. These were about the entire outcome of the Coleridgian theory of human duties and responsibilities."

Sir Charles Daffy can write exceedingly well, but he could no more have written that than the Missal. The paper, which

we are happy to see will be continued, is a real contribution to literary history, and has that quality of attractiveness, of giving simple pleasure, which is so wanting in most magazine literature. Magazine essays teach and amp:3e, but they seldom leave on the reader the sense of unmistakable enjoyment.

—The remaining articles of moment are M. Lanin's on the Czar as Persecutor, and the late Bishop of Carlisle on "Probability and Faith." We do not usually like M. Lanin's work ; he will shriek, so that one is stunned instead of edified ; but he has restrained himself in this paper, and it reads true. If it is, it is a ghastly record of oppression hardly to be surpassed in religious history, the victims being the Stundists, a sect of some two hundred thousand souls whom we can best describe briefly as Russian Quakers. Who

would believe that in our day a persecution sharp as that of the Waldenses, could fall upon a Christian sect in Europe,—

that, for example, the whole pastorate of a denomination could be sentenced, without trial, to Siberia ?—The Bishop's article is an essay, and a fine one, injured a little, perhaps, by his fondness for mathematical illustrations, upon probability as a guide in life, which he reckons nearly as highly as Cardinal Newman did. It does not, however, admit of condensation, and we must make our extract upon a different subject, the Bishop's testimony, as a listener himself, to Cardinal Newman's preaching in St. Mary's before his conversion to Rome :-

'° I am one of those—not so many of them now—who have heard Newman preach in his own pulpit of St. Mary's, Oxford, and who can bear testimony to the marvellous effect of his preaching and the marvellous manner in which it was produced. Those who never heard him can scarcely believe—so at least I have found— that pulpit eloquence could be supported upon such a foundation : the unvarying note, the absolute immobility of face and limb, the close of a long sentence to be followed by another apparently separated from the preceding one by a sharp fracture; all this does not look much like a true basis for pulpit eloquence,—and in a certain sense it was not eloquence ; nevertheless, in a very real and deep sense it was so ; it was like a message from another world, or like an utterance of a primitive saint or martyr permitted to revisit the world of living men."

Sir Charles Dilke, in the Fortnightly, states his views on " Conservative Foreign Policy," which are those of a statesman, though we cannot agree with them all. He regrets our past condominium with France in Zanzibar, and would negotiate with that Power for united action in Egypt, in both of which

counsels he is, we think, mistaken. English and French ideas are too different, and France is, to speak plainly, too jealous to make any kind of matrimonial union anything but a mistake. Sir C. Dilke is on stronger ground when he objects to the pro-German tendency recently manifested, and declares that it would have been better to ally ourselves with Italy and announce the neutrality of both Powers. France would then have given Italy any amount of guarantees. That would be a working policy; but Sir Charles does not answer the grand objections, that France, if she found it convenient, would break her guarantees to Italy, and that Italy could hardly help us against a junction of France and Russia, if victorious in the great war, to deprive Britain of her possessions. Both Powers hate us, and both in a successful war would have much to gain. His paper is, however, a thoughtful criticism of Lord Salis- bury's foreign policy, much stronger than most of those which have appeared.—Sir H. Pottinger sends another of his charming descriptions of sport in Scandinavia, charming because so simple and direct, and yet thoroughly well written ; but the reader's interest will concentrate itself on a " Dialogue of the Dead," by Mr. H. D. Traill, the interlocutors being Mr. Butt and Mr. Parnell. It is a very able performance, in which the marvels and the failures of Mr. Parnell's career are stated as he might have stated them himself, had he possessed the literary ability. In it Mr. Parnell attributes

his fall partly to Mr. Gladstone's resolution that he should fall, as too inflexible an instrument, and partly to the eager- ness with which the priesthood, who had hated him from the first, seized the opportunity placed in their bands. Mr. Parnell announces that, had death not intervened, he should

still have won the game, aided by his strong rock, "Mr. Glad-

stone's implacable pride," which would only be satisfied by a recall to power to carry out tha plan for which he had been

dethroned ; but Mr. Butt, who takes little part in the con- versation except to stimulate his companion to speak by sardonic little sentences, ends the conversation thus :-

" And yet you hoped, and were you on earth again you would still hope, to make a nation of them ! Be comforted, sir. Death, whom you Chid but now, has spared you a bitter disappointment. The task you set yourself -was impossible. If you do not overrate your own services to the Irish people, nor have incorrectly de- scribed their return, the most formidable enemies of their freedom are to be found, not in their priests and placehunters, but in themselves. For a race so servile and so thankless must have been born for servitude, and your utmost efforts for their libera- tion would never have done more for them than to change their masters.'' It is a pity Mr. Traill, with his mastery over humour, should

have missed an obvious and a fine opportunity by not making Daniel O'Connell the other interlocutor. Mr. Butt never was anybody, but the contrast between the two successful Irish agitators both in means and ends, would have given Mr. Traill a splendid subject. He is capable of conceiving what O'Con- nell's real opinion of Parnell would have been.—Mr. W. Roberta writes a terrible indictment of the United States,

which he maintains to be far from abreast of Europe in civili-

sation, particularly as regards the administration of justice. In the Pacific States especially, he contends that there is no justice at all when a rich man or a mob chooses to deflect it.

The instances he gives are certainly frightful, but we wish some reasonable explanation of the popular apathy about them had been added. Mr. Roberts says all respectable Americans admit the evil, and deplore it, but see no way to cure

it ; but he does not even suggest why. Nobody likes unjust Judges, corrupt Courts, or bribed witnesses, and we want to know why, with all power in the hands of the majority, they bear these abuses. They put them down once in this- very California, and why not again through the ballot-box ? Besides, why is this impunity almost limited to murder P A thief is punished quickly enough, and sharply enough, and no

mob sympathises with him. There is a toleration for blood- shedding, and that only, which to us, after all we have read, remains simply inexplicable.

The Nineteenth Century opens with a piteous appeal from a, Russian province (Samara) to the English people to send them help, for they (2,500,000 of them) are dying of hunger. The Government has granted £450,000, but their local rulers asked

for a million, and at least £250,000 more is needed to keep them barely living. Their cattle are dead already, and there are four months more of the terrible Russian winter still to be endured. It seems a frightful case ; but there are twenty- one other " governments," or provinces, in like condi-

tion, and amidst it all money voted or collected for the victims is constantly stolen en route.—Dr. E. Hart's essay

on " Hypnotism and Humbug" will be read by all who are interested in Dr. Charcot's experiments. Dr. Hart main- tains that the phenomena are all self-evolved, and result from the patient's action on his own will, an action constantly illustrated by persons who agree with themselves to wake before a fixed hour, and who keep the agreement. The paper is worth reading, though much too contemptuous in tone, and contains what is to us a perfectly new story from Austria :— " Horses are very susceptible to hypnotisation by standing in front of them, so that they have to look at you fixedly. This practice was introduced into use in Austria by a cavalry

officer, Bala.ssa. It is called, after him, the Balassiren of horses, and according to Moll it has been introduced by law into Austria for the shoeing of horses in the Army."

The groom, then, who stands before the carriage-horse to keep it still, does not do so by exciting his fear of injuring a known friend, but by producing partial hynotisation.—The most

valuable essay in the number is probably Lord Thring's, on " The Law, the Land, and the Labourer." He contends that

moat of the labourers' grievances can be met without revo- lutionary changes in agrarian management. For instance,

the Government has only to accept payment of legacy-duty on land in kind, to have any amount of small parcels of land to sell:— "But, it will be asked, how can the Government undertake the sale of small parcels of land throughout the rural parishes of England? The answer is easy. Have recourse to the Land Registry Act, passed by Lord Cairns in 1875. Make the County Court in every county a Land Registry Office. Enter the parcels of land acquired by the Government on the County Court Register, and the system is complete. If John Jones desires an acre of land, all he will have to do is to go to the County Registrar and pay his money. His name will thereupon be entered as owner in the Register, and the business is ended_ Mortgages will be effected by a mere entry of a charge on the Register, and succes- sive devolution of title will be dealt with as readily and inex- pensively as if they were entries of shares in a company or of stock in the books of the Bank of England. Some surprise will no doubt be created by the statement that land can be registered and transferred under the existing law as if it were stock, but such is nevertheless the case. Such a system was established in 1875 by the Act above referred to, and is carried on, or rather is capable of being carried on, at the Land Registry Office in Lon- don. The words `capable of being carried on' are deliberately used, for the office is so little known that the registry of an estate is a black swan' in the conveyancing world, and is viewed with distrust rather than with confidence."

Lord Thring would also extend the jurisdiction of County Courts to claims of right-of-way—a manifest improve- ment—and allow the County Council, when necessary, to defend them :-

"It has generally been supposed that when a highway runs between two hedges, and has strips of grass or gorse or other description of verdure growing on either side of the metalled road, the public have no right to keep such roadside wastes altogether open, but the adjoining owners may annex them to their own land, provided they leave a space of 15 ft. on either side between the centre of the road and the fence they erect. Now this idea is altogether incorrect. Unless the contrary is proved, the public have a right to the use of the whole space between the hedges fringing a highway, whether the width of that space is more or less than 15 ft. from the centre. True it is that the soil of the roadside wastes generally belongs to the adjoining owners, though not unfrequently the lord of the manor has a claim to it ; but this right to the soil is of no value, as the surface is public property. Further, this public right cannot be extinguished by lapse of time any more than the right to the highway itself, and nothing is wanted but a vigorous local authority to restore the roads of England to their pristine beauty and utility."

That is really valuable information from first-class authority. May we add that the temptation to steal the wayside wastes increases every day ? Cottagers hate cottages which do not look on a road, and the wayside wastes are just the place for them, with this additional charm for the speculative builder, that the populace, if it determines to reassert its right to the land by force, will not pull down cottages.—Mr. Bear's paper on the farm-labourer's position is a criticism of recent sugges- tions by a most experienced observer of agriculture ; but we hardly understand why the editor published Mrs. Stephen Batson's opinion on the same subject. It really only amounts to this, that the labourer gets what he is worth,

and spends all surplus above the purchase of bare necessaries on beer. That is true enough very often, but the view does not cover the agricultural community, or any but a small

portion of it, and is, as a contribution to practical changes, useless.

Blackwood has a noticeable new paper on Balmaceda's despotism, by one who witnessed it. It was a pure terrorism, maintained by executions, imprisonments, and torture, not a third of the population even in Santiago being more than sullenly obedient to his rule. It is stated, moreover, that he really did order the execution of a number of lads under sixteen, though they were not hostages. They had practically joined the Congressional Army, and actively aided it by cutting telegraph-wires, collecting information, and the like. Killing them while fighting would, if the fighting were fair, have been an ordinary incident of war; but they were butchered in cold blood after capture and sub- mission, ten of them in particular by the written order of the Dictator. The writer fully believes, or it may be knows, that Balmaceda, who was safe in the house of the Argentine Minister, did shoot himself. He was a man of egregious vanity, he was humiliated by his fall, and having resolved on suicide, he waited patiently till the last day of his legal Pre- sidency had expired, and then carried out his resolve.