THE MAGAZINES.

Blackwood has this month, of all the magazines, by far the most readable paper. It is called "In the Days of the Dandies," and contains the reminiscences apparently of a man of fashion or diplomatist who knew London well and its personages before 1850, and talks of them in pleasant, gossipy style, telling stories like this. Lady Blessington, who had been very kind to Prince Napoleon, was neglected by the Prince-President, who on some formal occasion asked her,—" Vous pensez rester h Paris tres longtemps, Milady ?"

To which she replied,—" Et vous, Monseigneur P" He defends public gaming-houses, but admits that he himself knew six or seven members of Watier's Club who committed suicide, broken down by the play and the habit of drinking. This was fifty years ago, when the inner circle of society never exceeded six hundred, who were all known to the great ladies, and passed by them before they could be generally received. He credits Lord Palmerston with infinite tact, and attributes to him, besides, we must remark, a very poor pun, the following perfect epigram :—" He defined a deputation as 'a noun of multitude, signifying a great many, but signifying very little." And he winds up with a description of the strange Orientalist Urqu- hart, who was undoubtedly insane, but who fascinated many men of great ability. Urquhart, who, as few of our readers will now recollect, firmly believed that Lord Palmerston was a hired agent of Russia, was a cultivated sybarite, who judged men mainly by their leaning to the East and knowledge of Eastern ways. He owed his social success to his conversation and his extraordinary knowledge of diplomacy, but latterly, we think, though the anecdotist does not say so, he was given up as a bore. London will gladly welcome the promised con- tinuation of these reminiscences.

Professor Tyndall's " Personal Recollections of Thomas Carlyle," in the Fortnightly, are pleasant reading, most pleasant ; but we do not see that he adds much to our pre- vious information. Carlyle's inner judgment on Frederick the Great is, however, noteworthy. " Frederick," he said, "was the greatest administrator this world has seen ; but I could never love the man." This was said after the Life was written, and is curious because this is not the impression that the book leaves. Was Frederick, by-the-way, such a great adminis- trator ? He had a wonderful way of securing obedience, and he husbanded his resources ; but his financial devices were very crude, and he never discovered first-rate agents. He left the next King surrounded by quite inferior men. Professor Tyndall, like most observant men, holds that Carlyle exaggerated his own faults in his lamentation for his treatment of his wife,

who, he says, had fanciful imaginings, and a tongue that occasionally could hit like a whip:—

"His house was left unto him desolate. Sympathy from all quarters flowed towards him, but it seemed to do him little good. His whole life was wrapped in mourning. I think it probable that in the lamentations which have reached the public through the Reminiscences, he did himself wrong. His was a temper very likely to exaggerate his shortcomings ; very likely to blame himself to excess for his over-absorption in his work, and his too great for- getfulness of his wife. The figure of Johnson standing bareheaded in the market-place of Lichfield, to atone for some failure of duty to his father, fascinated Carlyle ; and now in his hour of woe he imitated Johnson, not by baring his head, but by lacerating his heart."

—We noticed Dr. Magee's outspoken protest against any confusion between Christianity and Socialism, which he calls " The State and the Sermon on the Mount," last week, and need only here quote the following biting epigram, which not only Socialists, but Radicals of all kinds, may well lay to

heart :—" Adopt even, if any one has the courage now to adopt it, the preposterous and immoral maxim of the greatest happiness of the greatest number,'—a maxim which would justify a tribe of Red Indians in torturing, or a tribe of cannibals in killing and eating, their prisoners."—Pro- fessor E. Dowden's account of the eighteenth-century mystic, Charles Hector de Marsay, is interesting, but rather as an account of a man half-insane, than of a true mystic.

He sought peace of soul, as so many have, by starving the body, with the result that he longed painfully for such deli- cate food as groats boiled in milk, and was "severely reproved" in his conscience because he once ate a potato between meals.

He was, in fact, hungry for years, and so gave to food an im- portance in his life as great as any epicure gives. He married the Lady Clara de Callenberg, thirteen years older than him- self, apparently as a penance, and they settled themselves in a clay but on the side of the Gersbach Valley, and afterwards in the but of the widow Gruber. There they lived in com- munion with God, eating the simplest food, and doing the most menial tasks at the bidding of the widow, who, however, grew so tyrannical that they sent her away. " She did as much as possible," writes De Marsay, " according to her own will and disregarded our will ; this tempted me to an averse- ness to her and occasioned a good deal of suffering." It is curious that De Marsay's conscience, which was always in a

state of exacerbation, especially for not living simply enough, did not reprove him for telling a direct lie in order to

pass a sentry. He emerged in part from his state of exalta- tion, finding solace at one time in watch-making, at another in writing ; but he lived to old age, for the most part in silent communion with his own soul, and became at last convinced that though his mystical state was real, during which he found the true " centre " of spiritual life, it was ordained for him to " lose all thoughts of a mystical state, and rest humbly and simply on the grace in Christ Jesus." He died in 1753, having in the main wasted a life which might have been full of work done for mankind.—The important paper of the number is " Portugal's Aggressions and England's Duty," which contains a full account of the few facts, now 250 years old, upon which Portugal builds her claim to Mashonaland. She discovered it during her spasm of exploration, 1600-1630, but aban- doned it, a statement proved by an official description of the Portuguese colonies published at Lisbon in 1878, in which Mashonaland is not even claimed :—

" What stronger proof of the complete absence of any effective occupation on the part of Portugal, who has been on the Zambesi for about four hundred years, can be adduced than the fact that she is absolutely ignorant of the country ; no scrap of information about this great region beyond the coast districts exists in her archives or official publications; and that to obtain the informa- tion she is compelled to resort to the reports of enterprising English travellers and officers, before whose advent maps of the country south of the Zambesi were virgin white. The only con- clusion that can be come to, in the face of actual facts, apart from appeals to sentiment and the memory of past glories, is that the whole of the country east of Bechuanaland, included under the charter of the British South Africa Company, is Lobengula's country either directly or indirectly. It is his by conquest and by fifty years' possession,—a title valid not alone in Central Africa. It is his to concede if he chooses to do so, and he has practically placed Matabeleland and Mashonaland under the control of those British subjects who recently obtained a Royal Charter from the Queen. The published agreement between Lobengula and Assistant-Commissioner J. S. Moffat, of date February 11th, 1888, nearly two years ago, is irrefutable evidence that Lobengula had virtually placed his country under British protection, thus following the example of his father fifty-three years ago. Loben- gula's latest act has been to throw open the country to Europeans, under the auspices of the Company."

The number of the Nineteenth Century is a little dry. Professor Huxley argues eloquently for " The Natural In-

equality of Men," but we do not see that, with all his knowledge he adds anything to the force of the patent facts. His main reliance, after all, is on the self-evident argument that if no man has any right to the soil, neither has any nation ; and that, consequently, congested nations, such as the peoples of India, have a right to claim all British possessions, much of England included, if they are not so thickly popu- lated. Mr. Huxley believes with most students that land was originally held in common, but considers that private owner- ship grew out of the wants of the commonalty, who bartered unoccupied land for protection in war, or, when the purchaser was the Church, for spiritual aid. The bargain in either case was fair enough; and in seeking to upset it the Socialists are betraying that spirit of revenge which justifies the vendetta, and is so fatal to society.—Professor Bomberger tells us positively nothing about " The German Daily Press," except that its bitter tone is due mainly to official inspiration, the officials using strong language because they feel themselves irresponsible behind the editorial screen. That is probably true, but it does not explain the non-appearance of absolutely independent and widely circulated German papers ; or is this sentence, brief as it is, the explanation P—" One must not forget that Germany is now standing under the influence of a moral authority which impresses whole classes of the people to such an extent as to lead them to renounce all criticism."

—Mr. Gladstone, in a rather dull paper, considering what he must know of the subject, contends that the seven Sessions of the second Melbourne Ministry were a great school of Par- liamentary government :—

"I do not recollect, and I even doubt whether our history can produce, a period in which the struggle between a Ministry and an Opposition was so intense, so prolonged, and so unremitting.

Whether rightly or wrongly I think that, in the point most essential of all points to the public welfare, it was perhaps the best time I have ever known. The struggle was sharp, not because the leaders were men of extreme opinions, or of violent appetite for office, but because they combined these two charac- teristics : that they were strong men and that they were earnest men. They believed in what they taught ; and they fought hard to give it the upper hand. They were men emitting much light for the guidance of the nation : and neither on the one side nor the other were they disposed to hide it under a bushel. As to their strength, it can hardly be disputed that there never had been an Opposition front-bench' so formidable in oratorical, administrative, and statesmanlike power during the present century."

Mr. Gladstone, in fact, thinks that party conflict is the true training-school for the statesmen of a free State,—a remark- able obiter dictum to be uttered in a day when the world begins to think that party conflicts are sterile. He thinks well of Lord Melbourne, who managed all his conflicts with William IV. with admirable tact, yet always told the truth, who had great prudence, and " a large reserve of power, of sense, and even of courage :"—

" His letters to Lord Brougham, conveying to him the decree of political extinction, are nothing less than tremendous ; yet they are also as a whole singularly adroit ; and, strange to say, notwith- standing their crushing and smashing force, they can scarcely be termed offensive. Few indeed among our statesmen could have written these remarkable letters, which perform the work of the hangman in the spirit of the warrior and the gentleman."

He had, too, an eye for a real political necessity, a trait of which Mr. Gladstone gives the following illustration :- " In the Session of 1846, when Sir Robert Peel had proposed the repeal of the Corn Law, a meeting of Whig Peers was held at Lansdowne House, Lord Russell (then Lord John) being present. One spoke after another in favour of throwing out the Bill when it reached the House of Lords. But Lord Melbourne, who had been himself a stiff champion of the Corn Law, delivered himself inter alia as follows : My Lords, it was a damned thing that Peel should have proposed the repeal of the duty on foreign corn. But he has done it, and the consequence is that you will all have to vote for it.' So closed the debate : and so, at the proper time, went the voting."

Mr. Gladstone thinks Lord Melbourne's Liberalism was acci- dental, and declares his party's finance down to 1839 to have been " intolerably bad."—Mr. T. W. Russell sends a paper on " The Actual and the Political Ireland," which is heavily weighted with statistics, but which demonstrates that the condition of Ireland had before the present agitation been steadily improving, so that in forty years one-sixth had been added to her whole cultivated area :-

" Here is how the figures stand :-

1841.

Arable land ... ... 13,464,300 acres.

Woods and plantations ... ... 374,482 „ Barren mountain, bog, and marsh waste... 6,489,971 „ In the year 1841, then, there were close upon 6,500,000 acres of mountain, bog, and waste land. Let us now take the figures for 1881. They stand thus :— 1881.

Arable land ... 15,270,799 acres.

Woods and plantations ... 328,703 „ Barren mountain, bog, and marsh waste... 4,729,251

As a simple matter of fact, which no patriotic blarney in Ireland, and no political rhetoric in England, can disguise or get rid of close upon 2,000,000 acres of this land have been reclaimed and rendered more or less productive in forty years."

That is final, if it is good that poor land should be

cultivated, but it would be possible to raise a serious argu- ment upon that point. The agitation, however, has done fearful mischief. " Let us be under no illusions. It is only the outside of the cup and platter that has been made clean. A quarter of a century will not undo the demoralising work of the last ten years; that work has simply been the unmaking of men."—We have discussed Lady Cowper's views on "The Decline of Reserve among Women" else- where, and can only call attention to Earl Grey's strong paper on the weakness of the Government in dealing with the Welsh resistance to the collection of tithes, a resistance identi- cal in spirit, and almost in method, with the Irish resistance to the collection of rent.

The most readable paper in the Contemporary Review is perhaps M. Emile de Laveleye's sketch of the literary Utopias which have from time to time been given to the world. The best known of these in our day is Mr. Bellamy's " Looking Backward," of which 240,000 copies are said to have been sold in the United States, and 40,000 in England. In this singular dream, the world has become happy by being drilled to work as an army is, every man working for twenty-five years in one of ten immense brigades. The result in commodities is dis- tributed among all according to their needs ; and owing to the increase of production due to combination and the willingness of everybody, every one is comfortably off. Each, moreover, can take his pay in the articles he likes best. The surplus is employed in public works and rearing and educating the children, who are, of course, provided for by the State.

There is no money, but as every man gives a cheque upon his share for anything he wants, bullion is not required. There is no compulsion, except to work, and the hours of labour are shortened in proportion to the dis- agreeableness of the task. After forty-five, all work is voluntary, and the volunteers, who elect all officers, practi- cally govern the industrial State. We do not see the attrac- tiveness of the dream, which drowns the individual in the .community ; but it is evidently very attractive to a great many persons, who we wish would improve their experience by trying it. The dream which is nearest to common- sense is, in M. Laveleye's judgment, the Utopia of M. Charles Secretan, a moderated sort of communism. The State owns the soil and the houses, and lets them out; all industries are-owned by co-operative partnerships, and every- body must work for half his time. M. Secretan's object is not to produce equality but comfort for every one who works. The rapid multiplication of these books, with many other symptoms, convinces M. de Laveleye, though he is an economist, that the social question is real, and that, to use an expression of M. Dupont White—Madame Carnot's father, and the translator of Stuart Mill into French—charity must soon be embodied in laws. We do not agree ; but this paper will direct attention to many agreeable though wild specula- tions.—Mr. E. A. Freeman, in " The Latest Theories on the Origin of th? English," once more insists that they came from North Germany—a fact which most men think beyond dispute —and " A Bengal Magistrate " contrasts our government of India with our system in Ireland, his contention being that in India we are much more considerate, and govern precisely as the Irish wish to be governed. He gives many instances of our lenity and readiness to yield to native ideas in India. His paper should be read by all who think we administer India brutally ; but to us it seems to prove that India does not want Home-rule. If Ireland would like to be governed as India is, let her have her own way by all means, only she must accept with the gentleness of the govern- ment its irresistibleness and irresponsibility.—Mr. Stopford

Brooke sends a highly eulogistic rather than critical estimate of Browning, whom he places with Tennyson first among the men of this century, and describes as having—

"No fear, no vanity, no lack of interest, no complaint of the world, no anger at criticism, no villain fancies,' no laziness, no feebleness in effort, no desire for money, no faltering of aspiration, no pandering of his gift and genius to please the world, no sur- render of art for the sake of fame or filthy lucre, no falseness to his ideal, no base pessimism, no slavery to science yet no boastful ignorance of its good, no despair of men—no retreat from men into a world of sickly or vain beauty, no abandonment of the great ideas or disbelief in their mastery, no enfeeblement of reason, such as at this time walks hand-in-hand with the worship of the discursive intellect—no lack of joy and healthy vigour, and keen inquiry and passionate interest in humanity—scarcely any special bias running through the whole of his work, an incessant change of subject and manner combined with a strong but not overweening individuality -which, like blood through the body, ran through every vein of his labour : creative and therefore joyful, receptive and therefore thoughtful, at one with humanity and therefore loving, aspiring to God and believing in God and therefore steeped to the lips in radiant hope; at one with the past, passionate with the present, and possessing by faith an endless and glorious future—it was a life lived on the top of the wave and moving with its motion from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age " —Mr. T. R. Werner draws a striking picture of the dangers -created inside Atlantic steamers by the mad rate at which they are now driven ; but he holds out no hope that the struggle for speed has reached its termination. The quickest ship draws the passengers ; and although it is hardly possible even now to pack a sufficient paying cargo, the effort to attain higher speed still continues, and will continue, the advance of science never ceasing. What seems to be wanted now is a new metal for machinery, one quite as tenacious, but heating less rapidly with excessive friction.—Mr. Mulhall gives us .a valuable though dry account of Brazil, from which we gather that the revenue exceeds fourteen millions ; that the taxation is dreadful, probably one-third of the whole earnings of the people; and that the truth as to the popula- tion is nearly as follows :— ... Europeans ... 244,000 Brazilian Whites ... 3,787,000 Free Negroes ... ... ... 2,291,000 Negro slaves ... 1,511,000 Indians ... 3,275,000 The Whites, therefore, who are, moreover, deeply crossed, are fewer than the population of Belgium, are exceeded in num- ber by the Negroes, and are but little more than the Indians. The census given is no doubt for 1874, but the proportions remain substantially unchanged. Mr. Mulhall thinks there will be no social question, the Brazilians being a submissive and orderly people, but believes the chance of a general split- up to be about equal to the chance of unity continuing. If disintegration comes, it will come, in his judgment, first of all through a junction of Rio Grande do Sul with Uruguay,—a junction rendered necessary by geography, the Brazilian pro- vince having no good harbour. He forgets, we think, that in many provinces there are practically no Whites, and that in almost all, the Blacks, who are brave and powerful men, could, if they rose, overcome all resistance.

The feature of the New Review is a discussion by Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mr. W. Besant, and Mr. Hardy on the need of relax- ing the restrictions which in England compel novelists to keep away from certain forbidden ground. Mrs. Lynn Linton thinks that deference to the Young Person makes fiction feeble, and would have novels written for the experienced and locked up, and Mr. T. Hardy is inclined to agree with her ; but Mr. Besant says boldly that English literature is clean because the English people are clean, at least in idea, and that those who desire to write of adultery in the French spirit are forbidden by " Art herself, who will not allow the creation of impossible figures moving in an unnatural atmosphere." The discussion has been many times renewed, never to any purpose, the truth of the matter being that the public in every country gets the books it wishes for, and that, in England as every- where else, a great artist can say pretty much what he chooses, Only in England he must use his art to make his meaning as little offensive as may be.