THE MAGAZINES.

" Mother, there is an eloquence more convincing than words.'

" ' But men have been known ere now to feign a passion; and recollect, my darling, that this one, though he may be fully sensible of your beauty, and the advantage of our connexion, lies under grave imputations, and we are warranted iu at least testing his sincerity.' " ' I have observed him through the trying ordeal of a sea voyage. I have seen him risk his life to save the life of another. When others were launching boats and seeking appliances, he, without hesitation, dashed overboard after his drowning comrade, while all was dismay and stupefaction. If you had watched him, mother, gloriously struggling with the waves and supporting the lifeless body, while tardy prudence pulled dryshod to their aid ; had you seen his drenched form hoisted on to the deck, the chest scarcely heaving, the counte- nance deathlike, but the languid eyes turned still upon him whom he had rescued, and making the inquiry which the tongue could not, whether he still breathed, you would have known, as I do, that he is neither base nor selfish.' "

The political article is on the American crisis, and of course the disruption of the Union, the absence of great men, the defeat of Bull's Run, and all other American failures and annoyances —mosquitoes excepted—are traced to the spirit of democracy, as if Athens had never existed, or the French Convention had never conquered. The writer hopes for the dissolution of the Union, in order that the people may remodel their institutions, a result which will be secured whether the Union be preserved or no. The article, however, adds one more proof that the bias of the Tories is against the Union, and the step is short between hoping for a defeat and aiding to secure one.

The lovers of clear solid thought will be gratified by the paper in Fraser, in which Mr. John Stuart Mill defends the morality and rea- sonableness of the utilitarian philosophy. The common objection that the pursuit of happiness as an object tends to extinguish self- denial, and to debase men to the level of swine, is utterly denied. The utilitarian philosopher draws a distinction between pleasures : "If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.

" Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties." Of course, if that is conceded, there is an end of the intellectual argument; but do they ? Which did Solomon really like best, wisdom or women f' We know which he followed after, and accept- ing Mr. Mill's argument, we are driven to one of two conclusions : either Solomon, being capable of intellectual as well as physical plea- sure, deliberately preferred the lower kind, or, not preferring it, never followed his own will at all. Or, if Mr. Mill objects to a Biblical personage as an illustration, what does he say to Lord Somers, a man with the brain of a sage, the knowledge of a statesman, and the propensities of a satyr" The truth is, we fear, that the man who really seeks happiness as an end will always endeavour to combine physical and intellectual pleasure, and the result, when once restrain. Blackwood this month commences a new story of the old pleasant kind for which novel readers hunger, and which they so seldom ob- tain—a story in which one can sympathize with the characters in- stead of analyzing them, and follow the incidents instead of criti- cizing their sequence. We have rarely seen a talc which promised more interest of the healthy kind than " The Doctor's Family," or a character so original and so piquant as the little lady described in the following paragraph : "He did not know whether to admire the little heroine as half-divine, or to turn from her as half-crazy. Probably, had the strange little spirit possessed a different frame, the latter was the sentiment which would have influenced the unimaginative mind of Edward Rider. But there was no resisting that little brown Titania, with her little head overladen with its beautiful hair, her red, delicate month closing firm and sweet above that little decided chin, her eyes which seemed to concentrate the light. She seemed only a featherweight when the bewildered doctor helped her to alight—an undoubted sprite and creature of romance. But to hear her arranging about all the domestic necessities within, and disclosing her future plans for the children, and all the order of that life of which she took the charge so unhesitatingly, bewildered the mistress of the house as much as it did the wondering doctor. The two together stood gazing at her as she moved about the room, pouring forth floods of eager talk. Her words were almost as rapid as her step,—her foot, light as it was, almost as decided and firm as her resolutions. She was a wonder to behold as she pushed about the furni- ture, and considered how it could be brightened up and made more comfortable."

The tale quite redeems the number, which is heavy; the second story, " Captain Clutterbuck's Champagne," being a rather strikino. failure. It is a West Indian story, with just sufficient smell of the locale to make one sigh for the days when " Tom Cringle" traversed the same ground in the same magazine. He would not have made negroes talk the insufferable rubbish here put into their mouths, or imagined a young lady who confesses an attachment in words like these :

ing influences are removed, will be the Athenian who discoursed of the 70 Kam in the street, murdered his subjects abroad, and wal. lowed like a pig at home. We have not the faintest belief in the ascetic principle, in self-denial as self-denial, without motive or re. suiting good, but it is not by a search after happiness that man can keep the intellectual side of his nature uppermost. All the philo- sophy on earth will not keep the stomach from craving, or man from feeling that his happiness, till it is full, consists in food. The strongest sense of their highest happiness will not keep some men front drink, and an intellect like Coleridge's could not give him power to abstain from opium. To get as near as one can to some distinct theory of Right, and then follow that, is, if not a nobler, at least with the mass of men, a more operative principle than the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Mill, like all his school, carries his recoil from the dogma that all men are inherently vile too far, till lie believes them all inherently philosophers. A trace of this idea is visible even in this noble passage, in which Mr. Mill denies the impossibility of happi- ness, which, despite its length, we cannot resist the pleasure of extracting : " Genuine private affections, and a sincere interest in the public good, are possible, though in unequal degrees, to every rightly brought up human being. In a world in which there is so mach to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called envi- able; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, be will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering—such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape ; which, as things now are cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals.

i

Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of the chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institu- tions. All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree, many of' them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort; and though their removal is grievously slow—though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made—yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part, however small and un- conspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoyment from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the form of selfish indulgence consent to be without."

And when he has conquered, Mr. Mill, with what weapon is he to fight the demon of the cultivated and the wise, the horrible foe for which our stupid forefathers had not even a name, but for which wise epicureans have borrowed the word ennui? "Barren Honour," the best of the two stories in Fraser, for " Good for Nothing" is getting very tiresome, advances but slowly. It is curious how many of our novelists have just now agreed to depict the most unpleasant of human beings, the hard, cold, polished evil woman. Lady Mildred of this story is just the Mrs. Berry of "The Silver Cord," the Mrs. Armitage of Mr. Sala's story, and one half suspects the lady of Orley Farm. Is it the growing hate to the strong-minded female, that silent antipathy between the sexes which always follows the assertion of their equality, which makes men paint women as so hard, and women describe men as so innately coarse. We note in Fraser, besides a somewhat feeble article on the Sunday question, which arrives at no result except the compromise most common in England, and a very poor paper indeed from H. K. B., who has fairly impoverished a rich soil by adhering to a single kind of crop, an excellent article on " Working in Gold.7 Nothing usually is more intolerable than an "instructive" magazine paper on science, or mechanics, or manufacture, consisting, as it too commonly does, of a description of the appearance of the subject as it strikes an inquisi- tive but ignorant writer; but " Working in Gold" really conveys instruction, not spoiled by the successful effort to make it pleasant jewellery. The following describes the different qualities of gold in use as ewellery. 24-carat gold is pure, there being but 24 carats in the ounce : "But the boil-out does not answer for ornamental colour much below twenty- two carat, where the balk as well as weight of gold is very highly in excess of the copper. Eighteen carat comes from the boil-out of a pale, dull, greenish yellow. Sixteen carat loses all look of gold, as well it may, for the eight carats of copper in bulk exceed the sixteen carats of gold. Sixteen carat is nevertheless the jeweller's favourite metal. It seldom appears, however, in its natural state, for the public has lately taken a fancy to the true colour of gold. Recourse is had not to a better quality of gold, to meet this taste, but to the ' colouring- pot. "

D is, of course, on alloys, sometimes extending to 23 parts in the ounce, that fraudulent goldsmiths rely, and their trade would be less brisk if purchasers of it would only remember that a quarter of an ounce of gold costs nearly a sovereign, and that the labour will double its value, and weigh the rubbish before they buy it. Even this, however, is not in all cases a protection. Bracelets, for ex- ample, supposed to be solid, are made of the thinnest sixteen carat gold, and then filled up with a sort of gold padding:

" The workman therefore takes the inside circumference with a strip of payers cuts a band of sixteen-carat gold probably four or five times as thick as the faee2 turns it up to the shape, solders its ends, slips it inside the tinsel shell, and

solders the edges together. The bracelet is then cleaned up with the file-scraper, holystone, &c., polished and coloured. The substance of the flat lining gives it a respectable weight in the hand ; and my customer is well satisfied to give me about four times the value of the gold used, say 241. I pay about 31.10s for the workmanship, which, added to the 21 ounces of sixteen carat, at 3s. 61d. per carat £6 3 101 8 10 0 Subtracted from leaves me only . . . ...... .£14 6 11 profit for all the trouble and anxiety I have had in this very particular job."

The jewellers will thank Fraser for that paragraph for many a day. The remedy for all this is to deal directly with the man who makes thejewel, who has no plate glass to pay for, and who, compelled to

be decently i

ecently honest to the tradesman, is very apt to be honest to the lady. There is not a better or a less known class of artisan than the gold-worker, though he usually—not always—needs a design to be given him to work from. The difference in price between his work and the same work ordered from the shop is something extraordinary, often a hundred per cent., more especially if the work required is gem-setting, the charge for which, in London, usually crosses the limit where profit becomes extortion.

Macmillan publishes this month an essay on the American Union and the rights of the North by an American, which will disappoint the reader. It is the old conclusive but wearisome argument that secession is unconstitutional, an argument every American repeats and expands and repoints as if it were the end of the matter, instead of having nothing on earth to do with it. The dismissal of James II. was unconstitutional, and what then? Secession is revolution, but the argument that revolution is in se an evil thing comes oddly from republicans. Nine millions of men with a distinct territory, climate, and social organization, have a right to govern themselves if they and the world in general are benefited, or think they are benefited, by that self-government. What they have not a right to do is to secede in order to extend slavery, and it is because Americans like this writer will persist in confounding secession itself with the object of seces- sion that they are so fast losing European sympathy. " Ravenshoe" improves as it advances, Mr. H. Kingsley having escaped for the number the bad influence of his melodramatic machinery, and remind- ing us once more of the kindly half-trained power so apparent in every line of Geoffry Hamlyn. " Toni Brown" pleads again for the working men and their unions, and contrasts the condition of the working classes in the "union-ridden North" with that of the same men in London without unions : "It is hardly worth while to dwell on the complete victory of either side. I myself believe that of two evils the lesser would he that the men should tho- roughly beat the masters, than that the masters should succeed in breaking down the men's unions, and so having them at their mercy. I should prefer the former alternative, bad as it would be, because, in looking at the places and trades where the two systems, carried out almost to their conclusions, can be best compared— at Sheffield with its file-makers and other hardvirare workers, and at East London with its slop-tailors and needlewomen—I find that the facts are altogether in favour of the union-ridden Yorkshire town. It is very disagreeable to most persons, no doubt, to come in contact with the sort of obtrusive and rude inde- pendence which is common at Sheffield ; the tyranny which is exercised over the minority there is atrocious—not a word can be said in favour of it ; the habits and morals of the place are anything but what they should be. But what is all this by the side of the sullen, down-beaten, squalid misery of parts of Whitechapel, the hopeless slavery of sweaters' workshops, the morality of East-End lodging- houses ? We must judge the systems by their fruits. The one produces a population who want mending, no doubt, like the rest of us, and have certain specific and virulent faults, but of whom one cannot help having hope—many of whose qualities one cannot but respect. The other kills by inches the few noble souls whom no outward circumstances, not even sweaters' work, can tarnish ; and, for the rest, it grinds them into dangerous slaves, for whom one can see no hope in this world."

Mr. Hughes's remedy is to give the unions a legal existence for cer- tain legally defined purposes, the policy, in short, which statesmen i understand in politics though not in social questions, viz. to legalize and render responsible every power, not inherently immoral, which experience proves them unable to extirpate. It is, we believe, sound in principle, and, in practice, the recognition of the unions is, we are ,convinced, the first step towards the re-establishment of accord be- tween the people and their paymasters. The October number of the Cornhill is not a good one. Philip interests those who admire Mr. Thackeray's social surgery as much as ever; but the remaining papers are beneath the average. " Brown, Jones, and Robinson" must be, at last, admitted to be a failure. "Bab Lambert" is feeble rubbish, all the more annoying because it is written in clear English ; and Mrs. Beecher Stowe loses her power in "Agnes of Sorrento," the innately American nature which peeps out in all her characters jarring at every turn with their locale and costume. "Agnes of Sorrento" is a masked ball, with the music over. The failure of the stories is not redeemed by the quality of the padding, though we can extract from the " First Ger- man Shooting Match " a good sketch of the only national German prince :

" Personally, Ernst II. is a man who both attracts and inspires confidence. He has but a slight family resemblance to Prince Albert, than whom he appears younger, although two years older. His features are not so regularly chiselled as those of his brother, but more mobile and animated. He is about five feet ten inches in height, slender but perfectly symmetrical, and quick and elastic in his movements. His face is a fine oval, the forehead expansive at the temples, and the eyes a clear, splendid hazel. His nose is rather long, but not prominent; the lips firm and sharply cut; while a short pointed beard increases their character of decision. It is a mediaeval rather than a modern head—such as might have be- longed to that Ernst who was carried off by the robber knight Kunz von Kau- fungen, and who was his own ancestor in a direct line. ,He is passionately fund of hunting, riding, driving, and all other out-door diversions, of which taste his tanned face and hands give evidence. £9 13 101 24 0 0 9 13 104 "His qualities of mind are too varied to admit of much profundity. He is at once author, composer, actor, and soldier, and withal a conversationist of unusual powers. With an admirable memory and a vital interest in every field of know- ledge, there are few subjects upon which he cannot converse brilliantly. Quick, animated, sparkling, he provokes the electricity of those with whom he comes in contact. His greatest aversion, we should judge, would be a dull person. Yet with all these brilliant qualities, he is steady, prudent, and clear-headed—ambitious, no doubt., but intelligently so."

The Temple Bar still depends exclusively upon Mr. Sala's "Seven Sons of Mammon," which advances rapidly to a close. He contrives in this number to make the hackneyed incidents of the Derby Day seem fresh, and carries his unpleasant but really able portrait of Mrs. Armytage one stage farther. The woman interests us in spite of ourselves. Utterly without principle or honour, steeping herself in crime to gratify the lowest of ambitions, and full of malignity, one has yet a disinclination to see one so acute, so brave, and so cheerful, properly hanged. There must be in the mass of men a curious feeling of pleasure at the spectacle of competence, real, unmistakable efficiency, in itself and for itself, or such a character would, as it ought, he simply disgusting. Mr. Sala has not, we are bound to say, softened one jot of the evil in Mrs. Armytage, yet of five thousand readers there arc not five unconscious of a secret displeasure at her apparently approaching fate. The rest of the magazine is mere padding, though the article on precious stones is a curious rubbish- heap of unconnected facts, collected by some one who has a clear idea of auecdotage, and no knowledge at all of precious stones.