THE MAGAZINES.

Tarr magazines for the first month of the New Year do not increase our hopes for the future of magazines. There are plenty of good average papers, but there is nothing of the striking or even of the sensational kind. There is a want, too, of exhaustiveness. The writers leave on our minds an im- pression, sometimes no doubt unfair, that they have been doing professional work, that they do not greatly care about it, and that they think it expedient to economise their forces. The care and the completeness which should distinguish an article in a magazine from one in a daily newspaper are wanting. In the Contemporary Review, for example, among its thirteen essays there is not one to which the critical reader can object, and not one which would induce him to pay his half-crown for the sake of that single article. Even Mr. E. J. Dillon's account of "The Political New Year," by which he means the situation of foreign politics on New Year's Day, is no exception. It is a bright review of the situation of the European countries, but the only idea in it carefully worked out is that of the expansion of Russia in all directions. He attributes this in part to the growth of Russian resources, which is very considerable, and in part to the decline in antagonistic forces. She is succeeding in the Far East and in Turkey, if not also in other directions, because the Powers of Europe are compelled by different con- siderations to court her. France is Russia's ally ; Britain needs her aid in Turkey ; Germany has broken off her Secret Treaty, but wishes for it still ; Italy seeks her good offices; and Turkey is her humble servant. Only Austria re- mains, thanks to the influence of the Magyars, stubbornly anti- Russian. There is an idea among diplomatists, says Mr. Dillon, a Micawberish idea, that something will turn up to limit the expansion of Russia; but he sees no solid foundation for the notion, and rather believes that she will almost immediately reach the water in the Far East, and attain in Europe the goal of which she has dreamed so long, that is, we presume, will occupy Constantinople. We sincerely hope she will if that is the only alternative to the rule of the Turk, but we do not feel by any means certain.

Too much depends upon an unknown quantity,—the capacity of the Czar, or of the adviser whom be may ultimately select to be his adlatns, or second self. At present Russia seems to be governed by a Council of War with the Emperor sitting as chairman ; and that kind of government is rarely either energetic or rapid. — The last article, by the way, a paper by Dr. Wright on the Syrian massacres of 1860, will greatly interest all who care about the Armenian question. They will see proof in it that the policy of the Turkish Government never changes, and that its "policy" is, when in difficulties, to "cut down the Christian sects," using as instruments either another tribe within its dominion—it used the Druses in 1860—or its own soldiery. The only difference between the Armenian massacres and the Syrian massacres is that in the latter the Turks attacked the foreign representatives. In Damascus "the first house attacked was the Russian Consulate, and when the mob could not find the Consul, they carried his ladies and children into the centre of the court, and treated them with shameless indignity, hoping that their frantic screams would bring him forth from his hiding place. They ended by slaying their victims, and decking out their corpses in the Consul's official dresses and the Russian colours. They killed the Dutch Consul, hacked almost to pieces the American Consul, before he found refuge with the great Emir, and cut down the Rev.

W. Graham when escaping from Mustafa Aga to the house of the illustrious Algerine. They also sought diligently, with imprecations, for the French Consul." The result of these atrocities was the partial enfranchisement of the Lebanon by Lord Dufferin, and the Turks have learned wisdom from the incident. They now let the Consulates alone.—The other political article is entitled "Erythrea," and is an argument that Italy should quit the Red Sea altogether, as the colony is utterly useless to her, absorbs a considerable proportion of her mobile Army, and costs sometimes nearly a million and a half a year, a considerable sum in Italy. We need not say we concur.—Professor Sayce is always interesting because

of his vast knowledge, but he should remember that all his readers have not the same knowledge, and that a magazine paper is not intended for experts. Four-fifths of his readers

will this month leave his article on the "Recent Discoveries in Babylonia" with a sense of little but bewilderment. His main thesis is that the tablets or records on pottery recently dis- covered prove that Sargon, the great King of Babylonia, reigned 3800 years before Christ, and reigned over an Empire with certain marks of high civilisation :—

"A broken bas-relief has been found at Diarbekir in Northern Mesopotamia on which is engraved a figure of Naram-Sin, accom- panied by an inscription recording his deeds. It is the finest and most delicately executed specimen of Babylonian art that has come down to us. and reminds us by its realism and finish of the early sculpture of Egypt. The most exquisitely worked of Baby- lonian seal-cylinders is one that was made in the reign of Sargon ; it represents, so far as we know at present, the highest point attained by the gem-cutter in the ancient Oriental world. And along with this perfection of art went a similar perfection in the cuneiform system of writing. Numerous monuments have been brought to light of the two kings whom German criticism so recently pronounced to be unhistorisch and the writing upon them shows that the cuneiform script had already reached its full development. The forms of the characters have lost all resem- blance to the pictorial shapes we can still trace in the earlier inscriptions, and the limits and methods of using the syllabary have been defined once for alL"

Professor Sayce is evidently inclined to accept Professor Hilprecht's dictum that "the founding of the temple of Be! and the first settlements in Nippur occurred somewhere between 6000 and 7000 B.C., possibly even earlier,"—that is more than eight thousand years ago.—Mr. Holman Hunt's paper on "Religion and Art" will greatly interest most artists and some men of ecclesiastical tastes, but we turn to Miss Wedgwood on "Ethics and Literature" because we understand it more fully. She accepts George Meredith with his carefully constructed epigrams as the first writer of the day, but demurs to the kind of art of which he is in many judgments the chief exponent. It is, she intimates, too impartial :—

" If we will never lend our sympathies to actors whose deeds in actual life we should have done our utmost to prevent, we with- draw from all literary judgment. But we withdraw from it equally if we lend our sympathies to everybody. That is another way of saying that we give them to nobody. When literature exchanges the selective touch of morals for the collective grasp of science she abandons her true vocation. If she fail to supply a school of sympathy, and do not teach us to look at some characters

more penetratingly than others, she leaves unfulfilled the office assigned to her in the noble words of Bacon,-4 to give the mind of Man some shadow of satisfaction, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul?"

Is modern art quite so impartial as it strives to seem, or has it a concealed, perhaps an unconscious, sympathy with evil ? The following contains a fine thought a little pedanti- cally expressed :—

"If events, which in life give unmixed pain, are so refracted through the prism of poetry as to give something for which we have no less inadequate name than pleasure, it is surely because in that refraction we discern some meaning that is hidden from us in their unretracted form. Power and evil are allies in life, and they are exhibited as allies in art. But seeing them as they are shown in the creations of genius we discern as in a vision, the unnaturalness of their union, and foretell their separation for ever."

The fierce article in which Sir E. J. Reed, in the Fortnightly Review, defends Dr. Cornelius Herz will not, we fear, clear English minds of suspicion as to that gentleman's conduct, for they will not readily believe that a Government like that

of France has been guilty for years of terrible oppression to an individual in order to screen the powerful party in the Chamber which was implicated in the Panama scandals, or that a Government like our own played on such a matter into the hands of a foreign State. That Dr. Herz was used as a scapegoat we do not doubt, but the proof that he was an innocent scapegoat is still imperfect. Sir E. Reed will, how- ever, increase the English idea of his friend's importance in the scientific world as the man who more than any other in Europe assisted in the rapid diffusion of the telephone, and indeed of all the practical applications of electricity. And he will most certainly deepen the English conviction that Courts in France, when strongly urged, play into the hands of the Government of the day, and cannot be relied on when great political interests are at stake to adhere to the rules which at other times they profess, even when abstract justice requires a relaxation of them, to hold absolutely sacred. That, and that only, is the justification to be pleaded by Dr. Herz when asked why he quitted France instead of fighting his enemies in the country where alone evidence of any value was to be obtained.—Mr. Rhodes's friends, among whom " Imperialist " clearly wishes to class himself, should re- member that he will shortly have the opportunity of clearing himself before a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, and that long demonstrations of his innocence and greatness of character only raise a suspicion that they greatly desire to create an impression in advance which will insensibly bias the Committee. So far as we see, "Imperialist," in his paper on "The Position of Mr. Rhodes," produces no new facts, and only one new argument,—namely, that the Raid into the Transvaal was a nearly exact copy of Garibaldi's raid into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. There are surely two rather serious points of difference,—one that General Garibaldi was an independent Revolutionist followed by a band of devotees, while Dr. Jameson was Administrator of Rhodesia followed by officers holding her Majesty's commission, and the other that while the Government of the Two Sicilies was one of the worst on record, the Government of the Transvaal was permitting its enemies to prosper beyond all precedent.

Concede all the virtues of humanity to Colonel Rhodes, and surely he and say, for instance, Poerio had grievances of a somewhat different character. Suppose France had suddenly invaded England to redress the grievances of the Catholics before emancipation.—The most readable article in a rather dull number of the Fortnightly Review is Mr. Trail's scathing exposure of the "New Realism," which, by means of an unreal heaping together of all the lurid features of a small

overcrowded district, would persuade us all that there is neither virtue nor civilisation nor happiness in the working parishes of London. He condemns the process, not only for the results it produces, but as insincere instead of truthful, and demoralising to the artistic sense, which, perpetually shocked by new horrors, soon becomes incapable of appre- ciating any picture in less lurid tints. That criticism was greatly required, and no one could pass it better or more legitimately than Mr. Trail, who has passed so much

of his literary life in studying "Social England."—

The most instructive essay, however, is Sir H. M. Havelock-Allan's plea for universal military training as a. substitute for the conscription. He would have every lad in the Kingdom trained to arms for two hours in every

week, from the age of nine to twenty-one. Any lad who refused would be charged the full expenses of his education, now given free, and would moreover be liable at twenty-one to be compulsorily drafted into the ranks of the Militia, a process already legal. "The result would be that, within twelve years from the present time we should have, in the civil population, something like two millions of trained men of twenty-one years of age, from whom undoubtedly there would be no difficulty in obtaining voluntarily as many as we wanted for a popular campaign, by a war bounty of £20, e25, or £30 for an engagement for service of one year, eighteen months, or two years in the field, when they were required and at a few days' notice. A month in the ranks of a regular battalion would complete their training. What the country would have clearly gained is all important, viz., time. There would be no necessity to begin to train these men at the time of their engagement, because they would have already passed through the necessary volunteer training for efficients ' between their ninth and twenty-first years." There is no objection to such a plan, or to one we should prefer—viz., compulsory training in the Militia at twenty-one for every man not already an efficient Volunteer, except the difficulty of inducing the voters to sanction it. They would do so in a moment if they perceived the necessity, but at present they think that the Navy will always secure them time enough to raise any force they may require.

The Nineteenth Century contains no less than fifteen papers, of which those that will be most read are probably Mr. Courtney's on "The Recent Presidential Election," Dr. Guinness Rogers's on "The Liberal Leadership," the Hon. Emily Lawless's "Note on the Ethics of Literary Forgery," and Mr. G. Barnett Smith's on "Napoleon on Himself." Mr. Courtney, as a convinced bimetallist, desires to whittle away the meaning of the recent American vote for a single standard, and to rehabilitate the Bryanite party, who he declares are "occupying much the same position as Sir Robert Peel filled amongst ourselves half a century ago." He thinks, in fact, that the Democrats are for Free-trade, the Income-tax, and just internal government, and holds the attack on them as enemies alike of capital and of society to be based on an illusion. They, in short, are no more Anarchists than the Republicans are vampires. He even goes out of his way to defend Governor Altgeld, maintaining that he pardoned the Anarchists of Illinois only because the evidence against them was imperfect. We have no doubt tliat excited expressions were used in the course of the struggle ; but does Mr. Courtney deny that all men of property within the Union were alarmed, that prices sunk heavily, that all who desire a reconstruction of society were on Mr. Bryan's side ? The paper is well worth reading, and on many excited imagina- tions will act as a healthy douche of cold water ; but if general opinion in England had been on Mr. Bryan's side, we can imagine the scathing exposure Mr. Courtney would have made of Mr. Bryan's doctrines. He does so love the position of stand- ing contra mundum.—Dr. Guinness Rogers's paper is, in fact, an argument that a party does badly without a leader, and that the Liberal party should therefore re-elect Lord Rosebery. He was right, Dr. Rogers evidently thinks, about Home-rule, and right about Armenia, and as to his keeping racers, a Premier is not a Bishop. Dr. Rogers, it must be observed, does not give up Home-rule. He only maintains that Lord Rosebery was a great statesman because his underlying thought might be expressed in these words. He could not give up the hope "of passing a measure which will meet all legitimate demands of the Irish people for local government, and yet appease the most jealous susceptibilities of those who are resolved to preserve the Imperial supremacy." Dr. Rogers will not, we fancy, redevelop the enthusiasm of the Liberal party.—Mies Lawless appeals to all ex- perts to answer a question, half of literature, half of morals, whether literary forgery really is or is not an offence against ethics ? We should say that the answer depends entirely upon the object of the literary forgery. If its intent is to illustrate and explain the time, the person, or the race, then we see no farther objection to it than that which can be pleaded against any form of fiction. It is only when the forgery is intended to falsify history or character or economic facts that it can in any way contravene ethical laws. For instance, a novelist might forge a letter of Oliver Cromwell, and so explain his character without offence ; but if, in a grave history, he forged a letter showing Cromwell to have been in intention a murderer, he is guilty of

a high literary crime. The forgery of a clause in an Act might in a novelist be most innocent, but suppose counsel forged it when pleading against a claimant. Weis Lawless seems to have forged some document which has been mistaken for real, and has been scolded for misleading people ; but she need not be sensitive. Her works are not intended to be histories, and would not usually be mistaken for them.—Mr. G. Barnett Smith has obtained possession of some unpublished memoranda relating to Napoleon, being notes made by Admiral Sir G. Cockburn, who had charge of the Emperor at St. Helena before the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe. They are not usually of much interest, but the following is. It is Napoleon's own account of his share in the execution or murder of the Due d'Enghien :—

" In his conversations with Sir George Cockburn, Napoleon asserted that it was to be at hand for the purpose of aidinc, in the Pichegru conspiracy, and to take advantage of any confusion it might produce, that the Due d'Enghien took up his residence in the neighbourhood of Strasburg, in which town he (Bonaparte) maintained that he had certain information of the Duke baying been in disguise several times. Cockburn asked the Emperor whether there was any truth in the report that he had sent an order for the Duke's reprieve, but that it bad unfortunately arrived too late. Bonaparte replied that it was certainly not true, for the Duke was condemned for having conspired against France, and he (the Emperor) was determined from the first to let the law take its course respecting him, in order if possible to check these frequent conspiracies. In answer to a remonstrance from Sir George against his having taken the Duke from the neutral territories of the Duke of Baden, Napoleon said that this did not, in his opinion, at all alter the case between France and the Due d'Enghien; that the Duke of Baden might certainly have some reason to complain of the violation of his territory, but that was an affair for him to settle with the Duke of Baden, and not with the Duo d'Enghien. He maintained that when they had got the latter within the territory of France—no matter how—they had full right to try and punish him for any act committed by him in France against the existing government."

Plainly Napoleon thought the Duke formidable, kidnapped him on foreign territory, and through a Court-Martial shot him as a possibly dangerous opponent. If that is not unscru- pulousness of the savage kind, what is P—The Rev. F. A. Gregory's account of the French in Madagascar, though badly written, will repay perusal. Substantially, it amounts to this, that the Howls have no character, that their resistance will therefore collapse, and that the French rule will be much better than the Hova one, they prohibiting slavery, bribery, and injustice in Courts. But they are very arbitrary, even in civil life, making the improvements in the capital, for instance, by expropriating private houses at a fourth of their auction value. The improvements, at the same time, are well planned and effective.

The January number of the National Review is not very attractive. Mr. Hallett Philips states the American case for interference in Cuba very 'well; but it practically comes to this, that the Union has a right to intervene whenever a colony in America is badly governed,—a large and rather dangerous doctrine. Mr. Philips does not attempt to prove the right, but assumes it as almost self-evident, and, indeed, identical with the right of Europe to intervene for the Armenians. He forgets that the Cubans are armed, that women have not been outraged by the soldiery, and that the Treaty of Berlin gave the signatory Powers a technical right of intervention in Turkey. Although, moreover, it is quite possible that the Spaniards have been cruel in suppressing the insurrection, proof that they have been more cruel than most countries are when assailed by armed rebels is still not forth- coming. Executions of captured rebels, though greatly to be deprecated as rendering insurgents desperate, do not prove it.—There is an interesting account of the half-forgotten naval battle of Slum in which Edward Ill., on one bright midsummer morning in 1340 defeated a French fleet of four hundred vessels. Their Admirals clubbed them in the harbour of Sluys so disastrously that half of them never reached their enemy, who, with from two to three hundred vessels, captured or sunk nearly the whole fleet, and slew an army on board reckoned by some at fifteen thousand men, and by others at thirty thousand. The English themselves lost by the highest account only four thousand men, and by the lowest only four hundred. Something never yet fully explained, but possibly s. dread entertained by the French knights and Admirals of properly arming their own followers, must have taken the fighting force out of the French, or the extraordinary disparity in the numbers of the slain at Slays as well as at Crecy and Poictiers could never have existed. The victories are intelligible, but not the massacres by which they were accompanied.

We have noticed elsewhere the remarkable story or allegory in Blackwood in which Mrs. Oliphant endeavours to explain her theory of Purgatory, and need here only state that the number contains the first account we have ever seen of the Trans-Siberian Railway by a competent observer. The main impressions it leaves upon the mind are, that the Russian Government is in earnest, that the work is being solidly done, and that the command of convict labour, made effective by lenient treatment and reductions of sentence, enables the engineers to push forward with unexpected speed. The secondary purpose of attracting emigrants is also being fulfilled. The whole district around Tobolsk has been settled, and "the Taiga or virgin forest there is being surveyed and examined with a view to bringing under cultivation land occupied by it. The Secretary's son described to me the interest he had in seeing the different settlements in various stages of growth—some with only four-and-twenty hours of history, others three or four days old, and others again whose existence dated from several weeks back. Those emigrants who wish to go to the Amur of course perform the journey by sea (forty-five days) from Odessa; but there were families settled in Tobolsk government last summer who had come back overland from that distant country, being discontented with the grant they had received there. In one case a family, after spending all they had (3,000 roubles), on the journey to the Amur district and back, had settled down in Tobolsk penniless." The peasantry, in fact, have got the idea about Siberia which the Italian peasantry have about Argentina, and when the railway is completed the only difficulty will be to check and regulate the inflow of population. The Government at present grants to every applicant thirty acres of land, and the Russian, who is an adaptable fellow, soon puts up a village and raises a crop from the fertile black earth. Their great enemy appears to be disease, and they lose in reaching their locations a frightful percentage of their numbers, some- times even a third. The losses will, however, soon be made up; and Mr. Simpson, who writes the article, does not doubt that the railway will at last debouch in the Gulf of Pecheli.