THE MAGAZINES.

SKILLED observers infortu us that t he recent hot weather as exceedingly favourable to the prawns. It certainly has not been favourable to the magazines. Taken as a whole they are singularly dull this month. Perhaps the best thing in the Nineteenth Century is Mr. Aubrey de Vere's " Recol- 'ections of Cardinal Newman." It is written with much sweetness and charm of manner, and though there is no Maborate attempt made to produce a finished picture of the great Roman divine, it creates a most pleasant impression. Here is a very interesting passage in regard to Newman's "Dream of Gerontins " :— " The Dream. of Gerontius, as Newman informed me, owed its ,reservation to an accident. He had written it on a sudden im- pulse, put it aside, and forgotten it. The editor of a magazine wrote to him asking for a contribution. He looked into all his ' pigeon holes,' and found nothing theological ; but in answering ais correspondent he added that he had come upon some verses which, if, as editor, he cared to have, were at his command. The wise editor did care, and they were published at once. I well remember the delight with which many of them were read by the Bishop of Gibraltar, Dr. Charles Harris, who was then on a visit with us, and the ardour with which we all shared his enjoyment."

A striking account is given of Newman's feeling towards both Keble and Pusey :—

" But his temper was also one that abounded in sympathy. He was full of veneration. It was thus that, as he tells us, the lightest word of his bishop in his Anglican days was a conclusive challenge to his obedience. When some one pointed out Mr. Keble to him for the first time, he looked upon him with awe, and • when Mr. Keble took his hand he seemed sinking into the ground.' He tells us also that the Christian Year had largely helped to teach him two great truths to which he had always clung closely, and that he had ever considered and kept the day on which Mr. Keble preached the assize sermon in the University pulpit as the start of the religious movement of 1833. In others also he greatly valued veneration, and thought that even when a snare it was still a thing entitled to sympathy. He told me that Mr. Keble possessed that quality in an extreme and even unfortunate degree ; that it had always been directed especially to his father; and that the thought that in becoming a Roman Catholic he would place a gulf of separa- tion between him and his father must have rendered it difficult for him seriously even to ask himself the question whether such a step had become a duty. With Dr. Pusey--` dear Pusey' he almost always called him—the obstacle to conversion was of another sort. He remarked to me that with many great gifts, intellectual as well as spiritual, Dr. Pusey had this peculiarity, that he never knew when be burned,' the allusion being to a sport among children, when they have bidden something away and encourage the searcher by exclaiming as he gropes his way nearer and nearer to it, • Warm," Hot," You burn.' Dr. Pusey, he said, might see a doctrine with clear insight, yet take no cognisance of another proximate to it—indeed, presupposed by it. 'For years,' he said, 'many thought Pusey on the brink of Rome. He was never near it.' Thus, strange as it seems, the two old friends co-operated even in separation ; they stood at two ends of the same bridge, and the one at the Anglican end of it passed the wayfarer on torards the Roman end, though he always strove to hold him back." Mr. Aubrey de Vero records Newman's look of stern dis- approval at the notion of the classics being excluded from

education. Dr. Ward, on the other hand, could find nothing

" ascetic " in them, and held that there would have been no loss had they all disappeared. If "asceticism" is the test, what would happen to a considerable part of the Bible? We should lose several of the Psalms, all the Song of Solomon,

the Book of Ruth, and, indeed, a large percentage of the Old Testament. We doubt even if the Acts of the Apostles would be preserved. Newman was wiser :—

"Newman could heartily admire also, in spite of its limitations, the heroism of the early world. His admiration for the greatest of early heroes, Alexander the Great, was ardently expressed in a letter to me on my sending him my drama bearing that name. It demanded, 'Who was there but he whose object it was to carry on civilisation and the arts of peace, while he was a conqueror? Compare him to Attila or Tamerlane. Julius Ctesar compared with him was but a party man and a great general."

Sir Wemyss Reid's "Northern Pilgrimage" is a very pleasant account of Newcastle revisited. It contains one very fine story. Sir Wemyss Reid as a young man witnessed the bringing up of the bodies after the terrible explosion at Seaton Delavel Hall. He saw a party of the rescuers brought to the surface in a condition of unconsciousness owing to the deadly gases in the mine. "Restoratives were at hand, but before they could be applied to the victims, the master-sinker, Coulson by name, whose own son was among the men lying on the pit-heap unconscious, stooped and kissed his boy, and then calmly took his place in the dangling noose, and bade them lower him into the shaft. There was not one of us," adds Sir Wemyss Reid, "who would have given sixpence for his life at that moment. That has always seemed to me to have been the bravest deed I ever witnessed." That was indeed a splendid and heroic act. The man was acting purely from the sense of duty, and yet he had every inducement and every excuse for putting it by. No one but himself could have blamed him had he attended to his injured, perhaps dying, son, rather than faced death in its direst form. The incident gives us much more real ground for optimism than the clever but inconclusive little paper that follows it—" An Attempt at Optimism." We are apparently to be optimistic because

the men of science in reality know so little. We would rather be optimists because we find man, with Sir Thomas Browne, "a noble animal."—Mr. Swinburne's poem on his mother's birthday is full of charming feeling, and far more melodious than most of his recent verse. Here is a speci-

men

"All this old-world pleasance

Hails a hallowing presence.

And thrills with sense of more than summer near, And lifts toward heaven more high The song-surpassing cry Of rapture that July Lives, for her love who makes it loveliest here ' For joy that she who here first drew The breath of life she gave me breathes it here anew."'

The Fortnightly Review has two very interesting articles on

Italy,—one by Ouida, which deals with the internal situation, and the other by Mr. Theodore Bent, which is occupied with the African problem. According to Oaida, the ills of Italy are due to King Humbert's determination to rule as well as reign :—

"No sovereign nominally constitutional has ever interfered more continuously than the present King of Italy. In trifles and in great things this interference is perpetual. When General Pellour answered Rudim's summons to come to Rome the other day, he was met at the station by a message from the King to go first to the Quirinal. In his maintenance of the Triplice the King is in dogged opposition to the whole tendencies of the country, as he is in his refusal to make peace with Menelik, refusal which keeps nearly two thousand soldiers suffering in captivity and hunger. Peace might have been made after Abu- Alagi, after Makalle, after Abou-Carima. One man alone has prevented it : Umberto. With a sovereign of this obstinacy it is extremely difficult for a minister of the loyalty of Rudini to take his own course ; he is at every step hampered, harassed, clogged, forced to withdraw to-day what he said yesterday, and conscious that to-morrow there may lie before him the painful dilemma of offending his Sovereign or failing his country. Umberto has unfortunately never been served by a statesman who made him understand that a constitutional king should have no wishes, no opinions, no actions of his own. Because his father in exceptional times used his individual influence unsparingly, he is un- fortunately persuaded that to so use it at all times is a privilege of the throne. But Victor Emmanuel galloping over the Lombard plains under a storm of bullets, shouting Avanti ragazzi !' was in a very different position to demand obedience to that which is occupied by Umberto, sitting at a writing table in a room of the Quirinale, and with a stroke of his pen ordering battalions to go

and die in Africa. It is through him that Ricotti's scheme of army reform has foundered ; it is through him that the African budget is not to be reduced; it is through him that the leaden weight of the Triplice still drags on Italian national life ; it is through him that the elections are not to take place ; and it is through him, as I have said above, that six months have elapsed since the defeat of Abou-Carima without any peace being made which would restore such as still live of the Italian captives to their country ; and the number of the survivors shrinks, alas ! with every day, through typhoid, sunstroke, hunger, suicide. But for him Budini would have made that peace, and withdrawn from Massowah and Kassala, six months ago ; and the prisoners would have been by this in their homes. The interregnum which has followed on defeat has been, and is, neither peace nor war, and it is much to be feared that the King hopes, by the aid of England, to reopen hostilities in the autumn. There is little doubt that there is some secret pact between him and the Emperor of Germany, from which Austria is excluded ; and it may well be that German aid is promised in it to hold down the Italian populace should they rise during a second African campaign." We do not believe that last allegation. What was possible for the Emperor of Russia in 1848 in Hungary would not be possible for the German Emperor now. European public opinion may not count for much, but it would be outraged beyond endurance by the sight of Pomeranian grenadiers hold- ing down Milan and Venice and forcing the Italian people to re- main in the Triple Alliance and pay the necessary price.

Mr. Edward Dicey contributes a very curious article on "Dr. Jameson's Raid and the Trial at Bar." He appears to think the Foreign Enlistment Act to have only been intended for the punishment of people who interfere between two States or bel- ligerents actually at war, and that therefore the conviction of the Raiders under it "savours unpleasantly of ex post facto legislation." Surely he is completely in error here. We have always understood that the clause under which Dr. Jameson was tried was expressly added to the Act to cover the case of raids. Mr. Dicey is also much disturbed because he thinks that the conviction will prevent Englishmen in future helping people rightly struggling to be free. We do not think he need be alarmed. If a band of Englishmen were to join the Cretan insurgents, and were to be prosecuted for their breach of the statute, we believe that a British jury might be trusted to pre- vent a too pedantic application of the law. If Dr. Jameson and his friends and abettors had really acted from the motives which he attributes to them, we have little doubt that they would have received a very different verdict. Mr. Dicey tells us :—" Their conduct in coming to the aid of British in- surgents against the South African Republic may have been mistaken, misguided, and detrimental to the true interests of England, but no reasonable man can doubt, after the evidence adduced on the trial, that this conduct was dictated, amongst other motives, by an honest desire to uphold the supremacy of the British flag in South Africa." If there had been a real revolution in Johannesburg, and real insurgents, i.e., a bond-fide popular rising against the Boers, and if Dr. Jameson had really ridden in to protect the women and chil- dren, and to prevent his fellow-countrymen being oppressed, then, no doubt, he would have found the jury very lenient. It was because the country ultimately realised that the motives underlying the Raid were of a very different nature than those we have indicated, that the change came over public opinion which, Mr. Dicey says, influenced the jury.—The study of Sir John Millais as a painter and illustrator, by Mr. and Mrs. Pennell, is an interesting paper. They justly praise highly Millais's beautiful illustrations of the Parables. These are, unquestionably, not only among the best pieces of work he ever did, but among the best illustrations ever designed. It is curious to notice glimpses of the Surrey Downs in many of the landscape backgrounds.—Mr. Lucas's delightful paper on "Poetry for Children," we hope to be able to notice on some future occasion.

The "Episodes of the Month" in the National Review contain some curious facts as to the currency opinions of the present Cabinet. Here is the passage in question :—

"Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, which only contains one thorough- going monontetallut, is indeed the most benevolent towards Bimetallism that has ever held power in this country, and its members may be, we believe, classified as follows :— CONVIVCED Lord Lausd.wne. HOSTILE. BINETALLISTS. Lord George Hamilton. Sir M. Hicks Beach.

Mr. Balfour. Mr. Goscheu.

Mr. Cipplin. Lord rross. UNCLASSIFIED.

Sir M. White Ridley. Mr. Akers Douglas, Lord CAdogAn Mid James of Hereford. Lord Ash bourne.

OPEN M INDIO. Ladd Hast

iurv.

BEN ETOLENT TOWARDS MT. Cho tuiver,ain. TD - Duke of Devonshire. fit META LLISM. Mr. Walter Lon. Mr. Itachte.

Lord Sali.bury. Lord Balfour of Burleigit.

Styth being the disposition of our political leaders, it is absurd to represent this country as the uncompromising foe of American wishes. The truth is that the interests of both nations are identical, but both have the misfortune to be to some extent held in bondage by Rothschilds, Vanderbilts, and other products of our common civilisation, not easy to persuade and most difficult to dethrone."

Miss Belham-Edwards's account of that curious French institution, the Family Council, if a little dry and perfunctory in manner, is full of interesting matter. "It is an assemblage of next-of-kin, or in default of these, of friends, presided over

by a justice of the peace, called together on behalf of orphans, of mentally incapacitated or incorrigible minors. It is com- posed of six members exclusive of the juge de pa ix, namely, three next of kin on the paternal and three on the maternal side; in default of these their place may be filled by friends." If we understand Miss Betham-Edwards rightly, the Council has no very large powers, but as a sort of "guardian of

guardians" it practically exerts a great amount of influence. Its interposition in the case of lunatics must be very useful, and must tend to prevent abuses of the law. We cannot help thinking that it might be wise to insist on the consent of such a Council here before a person could be deprived of his liberty and sent to an asylum.—" The Coming Crisis in Consols" is a plea for not paying off the National Debt because it is such a safe and useful form of investment. So it may be, but that is not a sufficient argument for main- taining the burden. The writer, too, when he deplores the shrinkage of this first-class security, does not give sufficient attention to the growth of our Local Debt. What we have paid back as a nation we have borrowed as districts.

In the paper in the Contemporary Review, "Was Pitt a Prophet P" Professor Dicey deals with a very curious piece of history. It is alleged by a certain Spanish historian, the Count of Toreno, that when Pitt heard of the capitulation at Ulm he declared that there was still hope if he could succeed in raising a national war," and this war must begin in Spain."

Professor Dicey declares that if Pitt really said this in 1805, he made the most astounding prophecy in history. He goes on, however, to analyse the evidence, and to show that Pitt could not have used the words he is said to have used. We do not feel convinced however. Professor Dicey no doubt shows that the setting of the prophecy is incorrect,—i.e., that it could not have been given at a dinner-party during which the despatches in regard to Ulm had arrived. But this does not prove the story ill-founded. The Count of Toreno may

have got the time and place wrong but the prophecy right. No doubt the discrepancy would be enough to vitiate the evidence if it were wanted to prove a man guilty of murder, but for all that the main drift of the evidence might be trustworthy. Mr. Gladstone writes a curious letter on the subject which is added to the article. He does not see

anything "wonderful in what is called the prediction;" but he thinks it would be as well to try and find out, if possible,

what Lord Aberdeen thought on the subject. That is de- lightful. When in doubt Mr. Gladstone always plays Lord Aberdeen or Sir Robert Peel.—The paper on "African Folk-Lore" is well worth reading. It gives proof that the " Uncle Remus " stories were brought by the American negroes from Africa, for the writer found much the same stories in Nyassals.nd. Here is a story of the East African Brer Rabbit. It is true that the fun of 'Uncle Remus" is not there, but the skeleton of the myths is the same :—

" Now there was a rabbit, and there was a dzimwe, and they were herding the goats. The rabbit hid his mother in the bush; the dzinrwe had no mother. And the rabbit used to disappear (in order) to eat at his mother's ; the dzintwe just went hungry. The rabbit (went and) ate every day. One day, the rabbit said good- bye to his mate, the dzintwe, and the dzimwe said, Go.' The rabbit was going, and the dzintwe passed on, and remained hidden from the rabbit in the path (Le., followed him in tho long grass beside the path). When the rabbit called to his mother, the dzimwe knew that the rabbit had a mother. Next day the dsimwe said good-bye to the rabbit, and passed on, and walked, and he called the mother of the rabbit, and (when she came) he killed her, and then he went back. The rabbit, on the day after, went to his mother's, but (when he got there) be found her—not there ! And he cried, and he returned hungry ; but he did not tell his mate, the dzimwe ; he just grieved by himself (a ha ngo dandaula)."

The dzimwe is a sort of composite bogey-beast—what Mr. Pecksniff called "one of those fabulous animals, Pagan, I

regret to think."

Llaclac,,od's paper on "The Sudan Advance" is excep-

tionally well informed, and does justice to the wonderful efficiency of the organisation of the Egyptian Army :—

"Equally justified so far by suocess has been the confidence in the Egyptian army as an organisation, which was implied in the resolution of the British Government to authorise the advance into the Sudan. The decision to move southwards was as great a surprise to the Egyptian War Office as it was to the general public. Without the slightest previous notice the Commissariat was called upon to provide for the wants of 14,000 fighting men at the frontier. This meant transport of stores 193 miles by rail from Cairo to Balliani, 315 miles by river from Balliana to Assouan, 5 miles by rail or road from Assouan to Philse, and 210 miles by river or road from Philae to Wady Haifa—in all, over 723 miles, with four loadings and four discharges, for the most part in places destitute of all the civilised modes of handling goods. Two thousand camels had to be purchased and sent to the front. Ten thousand of the troops had to be moved. A telegraph and a railway had to be laid down to Akasheh, about 80 miles beyond Wady Haifa. All these diversified operations had to be under- taken at once and simultaneously. So thoroughly was the Com- missariat prepared for a time of pressure that the work proceeded without a hitch, and with so little 'fuss' that, except at the points of loading and discharge, no one could have thought that anything exceptional was being done. In less than three months' time the railway to Akasheh was in working order, and 4,000 of the fighting column were concentrated there, while the remainder were moving up in detachments. All this had been accomplished in a tempera- ture often 128° in the shade, and through a district destitute of resources and bristling with difficulties. It was a feat in mobilisa- tion which few civilised armies could rival, and of which any one of them might be proud."