THE MAGAZINES.

Mn. ARNOLD republishes in the Nineteenth Century his lecture on "Numbers," delivered in New York, which we have spoken of elsewhere. If it has an inner drift against democracy it will not affect it much. The ordinary democrat will still hold that the majority, wise or unwise, has the right to rule ; the cultivated democrat will maintain, what history almost proves, that huge masses have in great crises an instinct higher than that of the individual ; and the religious democrat will ask whether it is possible that God has permanently separated moral wisdom from physical power. The cause of "the remnant" is not, however, too often pleaded in our day, and none plead it better or with more intellectual courage than Mr. Arnold. The Duke of Argyll strikes heavy blows at Mr. George, one of his arguments being, we think, originaL On what principle, if no Corporation may own land, does Mr. George vest such absolute ownership in the Corpora- tion called the State ?—why, in fact, does he plead for collectivism, when his principle leads directly, as far as re- gards land, to anarchy ? As there can be no landlord with a moral right, why should society be landlord, and why should not each man take his piece if he can ? It is impossible, how- ever, to avoid the feeling that in all such discussions Dukes and philosophers are equally wasting breath. To those who are competent to understand the Duke's paper, Mr. George's argu- ment seems only folly. The same thought spoils all enjoyment of "Democracy and Socialism," by Mr. G. Brodrick, who him- self, indeed, perceives that in England, Socialism, even if partly accepted by the masses, will be but a sentimental ideal. Not believing that it will be accepted even in part, we confess to some weariness of a discussion amidst which the steps that democracy may take to render itself more comfortable escape notice. Mr. J. Seymour Keay continues his argument that the Government of India by Great Britain results in the spoliation of the Indians, but is compelled through- out to make the colossal assumption that if we retired, the commerce of India would remain what it is. It would end in six months,—a wilderness of native sovereigns by their taxes, and the consequent disorder, cutting it up by the roots. There is plenty to be said. against the English in India, but that they produce order is certain, and the pecuniary value of that order may be measured best by the century's absorption of the precious metals. Mr. Swinburne sends a furious criticism of Byron, who in his judgment "had fancy, wit, fire natural and artificial, with very remarkable energy and versatility ; but in all the compo- sition of his highly composite nature there was neither a note of real music nor a gleam of real imagination." He could not ex- hibit characters, but only "disjointed and squeaking puppets"; he had no dramatic faculty ; and for his melody, his "Muse is a drawling, draggle-tailed drab." Mr. Swinburne holds Crabbe at his best to be a tenfold more potent master than Byron, and calls the latter's poem " Darkness " "a dry catalogue of unim- pressive horrors." He places him on the same level as Southey, and declares that of poetic imagination there is "just as much in Childe Harold' as in Thahiba,' and just as little in 'Roderick' as in 'The Corsair." In other words, Mr. Swinburne denies imagination both to " Childe Harold" and to " Thalaba." To such criticism, what answer is possible, except one which Mr. Swinburne would consider abusive folly ? The newest papers are on "King John of Abyssinia," by Captain E. A. -de Conon, who esteems that potentate a man of ability and character, with whom England could make a useful alliance for the sup- pression of the slave trade, an opinion exactly opposite to General Gordon's ; and a joint paper on "Proportional Repre- sentation." Mr. Arnold Forster tried his scheme of voting, by which each voter has one vote, but many candidates, and surplus votes are given to the second candidate, in an elementary school at Westminster. The children completely understood the scheme, the counting was easily effected, and the total re- sult was that two Liberal candidates and one Conservative were elected. Certainly, this is evidence that electors could be made to understand the scheme, but it is no evidence that they would think it fair. It is the sympathy of the people with the plan, not their intelligence, which is expected to fail.

The number of the Contemporary is excellent. Mr. Herbert Spencer's paper on "The Coming Slavery" is exaggerative, as usual ; but it is unusually clear and powerful, a most valuable protest against the tendency of the day to do everything for everybody, and to assume that suffering, instead of being curative, as it often is, is always purely evil, and to be removed ab extra- Why, suggests Mr. Spencer, should we cure hunger, if it is a result of laziness Let the lazy be hungry. We dq not believe, as he does, that the interference of the community will be ex- tended till individualism disappears, and men are really slaves, though the well-to-do may be more taxed than they will approve ; but we do believe that it is well some one should raise a warning cry, and Mr. Herbert Spencer in this instance has written with unusual lucidity and moderation. We have not the enjoyment of his work which his sworn followers feel, but we can heartily recommend our readers to study, as a corrective of more popular and, in the main, more accurate thoughts, this eloquent pro- test. The Marquis of Lorne has a plan for Ireland, and it is this,—to grant cantonal Home-Rule, making each of the four Provinces a State. We do not believe it would work. To begin with, it would not content the Irish, whose ideal is a visible national existence, with a flag and a foreign policy, and three of the Provinces at least would at once federate themselves. Moreover, it might be even more difficult to work with four States than with one ; while the three would be without the check which, were Ireland a nation, the people of Ulster, with their courage and wealth, would impose upon the Celtic population. In other words, the Empire would in three of the States have no party except the soldiers. And, finally, the arrangement would not secure the one grand compensation which separation would afford, and which so tempts all decent Englishmen. We should not, any more than under Home- Rule, be rid of the Irish Members. Professor Sayce, as the result of personal observation in -Upper Egypt, draws a painful picture of the results of English occupation. He says we have amended nothing. The people are more taxed, have as little justice as ever, and are slowly becoming so fanatical, that a massacre of the Christian Copts, who hitherto have always escaped, is expected as soon as we retire. The mass of the people believe that the Khedive conquered Arabi, and that the British were defeated in the Soudan. The Mahdi will un- doubtedly, if Egypt is abandoned, invade, though he will probably be as slow in his actual motions as Mahommedan conquerors usually have been. The Professor underrates, we think, (the Oriental readiness to vent annoyance by an apparent belief in calumnies which, nevertheless, are not believed ; but his testi- mony is derived from personal observation, and therefore de- Serves attention. "The Expansion of England," by Mr. Goldwin Smith, is, in the main, an answer to the recent book by Pro- fessor Seeley, and is penetrated by his wish that the Dominion should unite itself with the American -Union; but, like all his writing, it is suggestive. He seems to us to exaggerate the evil consequences of the absence of separate nationality; but his statements as to the growth of the French element in the Canadas are new and interesting. He says the French in many quarters are pushing the English out. It is probable that they make money more readily, and save it more carefully ; but can it be true that the French Canadians, whatever thsir progress, can resist the influx of English-speaking immigrants ? If they can, any voluntary union between the Dominion and the Union is farther off than we had supposed. Mr. Trail der rides Mr. Matthew Arnold's new gospel, as one fit only for the cultured, and which will never influence the body of striving and suffering men ; and there is a thoughtful but heavy sketch of "Life and Thought in Germany," written by a sound Liberal, who, nevertheless, is, we suspect, anxious to maintain the Culturkampf, and the general policy of Prince Bismarck. Perhaps the most original thing in the number is the "Ballad of the Midnight Sun," by Mra. Hamilton King. After twice reading it, with a hearty desire to find out its meaning, we have utterly failed. That may be our own stupidity, but assuredly it is not our ill-will, for in spite of that failure, we recognise in Mrs. King genuine and high poetic power. It is a poet only who writes verses like these :—

'The little earls around her bead Were all her crown of gold, Her delicate arms drooped downward In Blender mould, As white-veined leaves of lilies Curve and fold.

....

She moved to measure of music, As a swan sails the stream ;

Where her looks fell was summer, When she smiled was a dream ; All faces bowing towards her Sunflowers seem."

But what the poet is striving in this instance to tell the world remains a nestery.

The marked articles of the Nationa/ Review are "Dissolution

or Anarchy P" "Christopher North," by Lord Cranbrook, and "The Friendship of France," by Harold A. Perry. The first is a wretchedly written but perfectly distinct exhortation to the Conservative party to force a dissolution before the new Fran- chise Bill can pass, that Bill being a mere device to conceal the hopeless incompetence of the Ministry, and the natural anarchy of a Parliament composed of elements bound together only by party hatred and devotion to a leader now himself bewildered by the conflict between the theories of Opposition and the facts of Office. The article is pompons to a high degree, and entirely without argument, but it shows the policy of the Conservative leaders unmistakeably. Lord Cranbrook's paper is a memoran- dum of conversations with Christopher North, written forty years ago, and differing strangely from its author's speeches. It is very clear, quite sweet-tempered, and entirely free from fustian. Christopher North is evidently accurately reflected, and an impression is given of a certain serene kindliness in his talk which must have existed, but which is wanting in the " Noctes." This, on the coolness which grew up between Wordsworth and Coleridge, is, we think, new

Still," said north, "he was too dignified and self-dependent a character for Coleridge, who always required sympathy, and probably has expressed his feelings in the description of a friend with which he concludes John Anderson.' Wordsworth could not sufficiently bend to this weakness, which he thought unmanly, and hence the estrange- ment, though Wordsworth still loved Coleridge, as did Coleridge him. it was this weakness, and not pride or vanity, which led him to delight in talking ; and when he had an attentive hearer he would enlarge on every subject with enthusiasm, but if there were the idightest apathy or carelessness displayed, it was curious to see how his voice died away at once. And yet I am convinced that this was not love of display, but of having other minds in communion, as it were, with his own; and when he felt that they were so, he would impart to every object of conversation a hue and tinge of beauty which could not be surpassed."

Professor Wilson was not so much an admirer as a worshipper of Wordsworth, whose recitation "seemed like inspiration. I could imagine he spoke by revelation." He completely confirms the stories of De Qnincey's consumption of opium and of the little effect it had on his health, and. adds a characteristic story which is entirely new :—

." 'I remember well,' he continued, laughing heartily, calling upon him one day, and finding him—he is, by the way, a very small man, not taller than Hartley Coleridge—wrapped in a sort of grey watch- man's coat, evidently made for a man four times his size, and bought, probably, at a pawnbroker's shop. He began conversing earnestly, and declaiming on the transcendental philosophy, when in the vehem- ence of his discourse the coat opened, and I saw that he had nothing else on of any description whatever. He observed it, and said, "You may see I am not dressed." I did see it, I said. He replied that he thought it not of any consequence, in which I acquiesced ; he folded it round him, and went on as before."

The account of' Hartley Coleridge is the most melancholy we have seen, but Lord Cra,nbrook does not record, perhaps did not hear of, that visible impression of genius which so differentiated him from every other genius, and made such a deep impression even upon the uncultivated in the Lake District. Mr. Harold Perry's

paper is remarkable, as showing how easily the old hatred of France might, under assiduous nursing, revive. Mr. Perry holds hatred of France, its policy, its ways, and its morals, to be a moral duty. Englishmen, he says, "must learn, as Nelson did, to make a second religion of hatred of France," and he evid- ently desires war, if only to "teach her a lesson in international manners." He accuses Mr. Gladstone of constantly truckling to France, and hopes that a Tory Administration would assume a better, that is a more hostile, attitude,—which it very likely would, a strong antagonism to the Republic gradually manifest- ing itself in that party.

The Fortnightly is not very entertaining, though Canon Farrar gives a just sketch of Mr. Manrice's character ; and Mr. Maziere Brady marshals once more the unanswerable arguments

for establishing direct diplomatic relations with the Pope.

Nobody has ever answered them, but they have never pre- vailed, and to all appearance they never will prevail,

the constituencies either overriding the convictions of the statesmen, or contriving to create the impression that they will override them. Mr. W. J. Corbet makes out one part of his case that insanity is increasing, though he accepts old

figures with too complete a confidence ; but we cannot follow his explanation of the reasons. Does he mean to say that

drunkenness is increasing, or does he fancy that the proportion of lunatics among the races which have for ages been teetotal is greatly less than in England? We thought it was admitted that drinking was declining. That the pace of modern life in- creases insanity we do not doubt, but does he propose to abolish electricity, or restrict the railways to a train a day ? We can see no use, and a great waste of good paper and ink, in plati- tudes of this kind :—

" When the great truth is recognised that the Almighty has im- planted in every human heart and mind an instinctive knowledge of good and evil, has endowed mankind with reason and free-will, and will hold each one responsible for the use or abuse of those gifts ; when the play of evil passions is restrained and the propagation of foul and mischievous theories is sternly repressed ; when good- fellowship is acknowledged to consist, not in wantoning and drunken- ness, but in living a pure and temperate life before one's fellow-men, —then, and not until then, we may hope that the tide of insanity will begin to ebb, or at least will have ceased to flow."

Mr. Kebbel's article on "The Tory Party under Wyndham and Bolingbroke "is interesting, especially his hint that Bolingbroke's free-thinking was the great obstacle to Tory confidence ; but he is obliged at last to admit that the Tories might have restored the Stuarts, and to urge that the Stuarts could have done no harm, and thatthey might have reconciled Ireland and avoided the Debt. They might by possibility have reconciled the Irish Catholics, though the Irish showed little Jacobite feeling ; but they would have irritated the Protestants into perpetual rebellion, in which the English majority would have helped them. As to the Debt, we believe the Stuarts not only would have avoided it, but they could not have raised it if they wished, for the country would never have believed in their willingness to pay. The repudiation ordered by Charles IT. would, had the dynasty continued on the throne,

never have been forgotten, and the Stuarts would not have

parted with their power to control the Treasury. Mr. W. Dillon sends a strong protest against the Dynamite policy, based not only on its immorality, which he holds to be proved, even if we concede to Irishmen their own case, but on its inexpediency. It will, he contends, only convert the English democracy into bitter enemies, alienate the sympathies of the world, and probably divide the Irish at home from the Irish in the United States. We regret to say we see of this last result, which would inspire a new hope for Ireland, no signs what- ever. The Irish at home do not join, but they do not re- pudiate the party of dynamite, which they could suppress in a week. It would be simply impossible for the party to exist, if the Irish Extremists heartily denounced it as fatal to their cause.

Mr. Gorst sends a view of politics in Hydrabad which amounts to this,—that Lord Ripon's policy is all wrong, that the Peshkar should have won and not the Salar Jung party, which is not convincing to those who know the facts ; and there is an entertaining series of studies by different hands upon Mr. Hay- ward. We wonder if the editor thinks that the general effect of the whole is favourable to Mr. Hayward. We do not, though no doubt his independence is placed in a stronger light. We question, however, if Mr. Hayward's independence was ever seriously doubted. The sense of obligation would not have suited his temperament at all, if only because his inner pride was much greater than his acquaintance suspected.

Macmillan has nothing remarkable, though "A Renegade" is brightly written enough, except a paper by Mr. Frederic

Harrison on London, which we recommend to all men who like eloquent English, apart from the subject of the eloquence.

It is a little too "purple," perhaps, but it is a splendid bit of writing, and if Londoners could love their city would MOTO them deeply. As it is, they do not ; and we wish Mr. Harrison

had added to his fine description of the glories of London an explanation of its inhabitants' indifference to them, and of that sense of weight which, as he himself admits, so many Londoners

feel. It is the healthiest city in the world, and one of the most beautiful, and a perfect museum of objects of interest ; yet it is the one which excites least of the passion of affec- tion, and which most provokes its denizens to stay away from it. Does its singular absence of wholeness fret the imagi-

nation, or what is it that disinclines so many men to regard London as an entity, and makes us not resentful of phrases like the "province covered with houses" ? Mr. Morley should put a little more "white light" into his "Review of the Month." It is this time almost partisan, a speech from below the gangway on Egyptian affairs.

Blackwood, be it noted, condemns the Franchise Bill utterly, as "opening the floodgates of democracy" and effecting " a com- plete transfer of political power." That is the real Tory feeling, concealed in the House of Commons, but expressed in Blackwood with commendable frankness.

The Cornhill has nothing of moment except the first story,

Margaret," which quite surpasses in ghastly horror anything in recent fiction. If that is Mr. Grant Allen's, as we fancy, Mr. Allen may yet challenge the fame of Edgar Poe.