THE MAGAZINES.

THE people of the United States since their great war have become less sensitive to criticism, and will probably receive Mr. Matthew Arnold's comments in the Nineteenth Century on their

want of sweetness and light as good-humouredly as his own countrymen have done. Years ago they would have fretted under his sarcasms, and probably have boycotted his poetry ; but that infantile stage has passed. Mr. Arnold admits that there is mach equality in the United States, and that American women have a "natural manner, a free and happy manner," which he holds to be undoubtedly a note of civilisation. On the other hand, he finds that American civilisation is not "interesting ;" that the feeling for beauty scarcely exists, the people, for example, tolerating everywhere a jumble of unnatural and inappropriate names for their towns ; and that the sense of reverence is everywhere wanting. A country, he thinks, has the newspapers it deserves, and the American newspapers are, in his judgment, bad. "The absence of truth and soberness in them, the poverty in serious interest, the personality and sensation- mongering, are beyond belief." The fact is undeniable ; but would Mr. Arnold test the civilisation of France by its most popular journals, or the civilisation of Germany by any journals except one or two ? The "average man," he continues, rules America, and the Americans admit none of their faults. They consider their Press a distinction, they believe their accent to be the right one, they are proud of their "nervous organisation," and they are exceedingly deficient in cool and sane criticism of themselves. Most of those things will shortly be true also of England, though we shall probably retain, to our loss as well as advantage, the curious national habit of self-depreciation.--- Prince Kropotkin argues, with a great show of statistics, that our foreign trade in manufactured goods, and, indeed, that of all nations, will soon be gone, each people manufacturing for itself.

That, however, he proceeds, will be no loss if the relations between capital and labour are so altered that each nation finds the home demand sufficient to supply the vacuum. France, for example, is to buy all Lyons silks. The argument might be sound if addressed to the people of a planet; but as addressed to the people of a country, it is absurd. In England, for example, we need foreign corn, sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, cotton, wine, dyes, drugs, gold, and silver ; and if we sell no manufactures, how are we to get them P Nobody will give them to us, and what are we to send them in return ? We have no product of Nature in universal demand and not procurable elsewhere, and without our imports should hardly be a civilised people,—certainly not a happy one.—Dr.

Jessopp, in "Snowed-up in Arcady," does not charm us quite so much as usual. The admixture of thought in his easy chat is less than heretofore, and he condescends once or twice to stories with very little in them. This, however, has much.

"Tinker George" asked the Rector's leave to show him a letter, which, however, the Rector, being occupied, did not see. He found afterwards that the Tinker had been writing to the Queen :—

"Tinker—George--writing to—the—Queen ! What did the man want ? He wanted to be allowed to keep a dog without paying tax for it. George goes about with a wheel, and he calls for broken pots and pans. Sometimes he finds the boys extremely annoying, they will persist in turning his wheel when his back is turned and he has gone into a house for orders. Now, you see, if he had a dog of spirit and ferocity chained to his wheel, George might leave that wheel in charge of that dog ; but then a_ dog is an expensive luxury when there is the initial outlay of seven shillings and sixpence for the tax. So he wrote to the Queen, and he pat it into the post, and I never saw it. This was just one of those things which cause a man lifelong regret, all the more poignant because so vain."

We wonder if in " Arcady " the poor still think, as they cer- tainly used to do, that all the taxes go to the Queen personally ? Miss Dorothea Beale, who for thirty years has been the Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College, states, in a pleasant paper, the results of her long experience in the new method of educating girls. It is altogether favourable ; but we note with some surprise that she is in favour of " wider " culture for women than men. If she means by that, as we fancy she does, that girls should take up more " subjects " than boys do, we must demur. Is it not by taking up too many that the girls,

who, it must be remembered, are still a picked class, and a great deal more eager than the boys, contrive to overwork them- selves P—Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild warmly defends the work of Englishmen daring the eighteenth century against some criticisms in the Revue des Deux Honda, and certainly succeeds in showing that the English were,

during that period, far more successful than the French. They laid the foundations not only of the present Empire, but of our present institutions. He does not, however, prove that the century here was as interesting as the century in France, and we understand M. Filon, when he uses the words "magic century," to imply its charm for the general mind. —Mr. Frank Hill fights hard for Lord Rosebery's plan for reforming the House of Lords by an admixture of representa- tive elements, but avoids the point that a stronger Upper House would collide more frequently with the Lower, the very result, he says, he is desirous to avoid. He seeks co-operating Houses, but does not show us why two repre- sentative Houses should co-operate, instead of opposing one another.—Sir J. Pope Hennessy is in favour of a Treaty with China prohibiting the entrance of Chinese into Aus- tralia, and states that the Chinese statesmen are entirely opposed to emigration. They want their surplus population to fill their vacant spaces ; and, moreover, they dislike exceedingly the idea that Chinamen can wish to emigrate. A distinguished Chinaman, obviously an Ambassador, explained to the essayist "how hateful to a true Chinaman was the idea of Chinese emi- gration to foreign countries—how objectionable it was on politi- cal and religious grounds. He described vast regions of the Chinese Empire where a migration of the agricultural popula- tion was taking place followed by an increase of food sent in to the great cities. We have no desire,' he said, to see the enor- mous resources of our own country undeveloped by our own industrious people. He is a bad Chinaman,' he said emphati- cally, who, except on the Emperor's business, leaves his country, for every Chinaman has duties to his family, to the village community in which he lives, and to the Emperor, which cannot be discharged when he emigrates.' The odd thing is that the Chinese statesmen do not object to their subjects swarming into Siam, Japan, and the Archipelago. We fancy they think they will not be corrupted there, and are afraid of the contagion of European ideas.

We have noticed the best article in the Contemporary Review, Mr. A. Dicey's on "New Jacobinism and Old Morality," else- where, and are not greatly interested in Professor Max Miiller's account of "Frederick III." It tells us little or nothing of the Emperor or his ideas, being in the main an article, apparently self-derived, in favour of a strict alliance between Germany, Austria, England, Italy, Spain, and Sweden to preserve the peace, against France and Russia. That, says the Professor, would be a glorious battle to win, more glorious than even Koniggratz, and the Emperor and Lord Salisbury might win it. We are not quite so sure. Dr. Max Muller admits that the premiums to be paid for such an insurance would be heavy, and it strikes us most of them would be paid by England. In view of the permanent hostility of France, we should have to arm like Germany, and the Doctor kindly lets loose Russia upon us in Asia. "If Russia can be taught that wars of conquest in Europe are hereafter a sheer impossibility, she may continue the conquest of Central Asia, or, better still, begin the real conquest of Russia by means of agriculture, industry, schools, universities, and political organisations." That is not exactly the basis upon which we should be disposed to make great sacrifices for a League of Peace.—Dr. J. Clifford's account of "Baptist Theology" proves that it has been in the main conservative, but is chiefly interesting as showing, half-unconsciously, that the questions which have divided that denomination have been those connected with eschatology. He calculates, however, that 80 or 90 per cent, still think there is no hope for those who re- ject Christ, and that only the small remainder "faintly trust the larger hope," or assume "restoration" as cer- tain, or hold that immortality is probably conditional on the acceptance of Christ.—Mr. Grant Allen contends that North Africa is really not Africa at all, but a bit of Europe divided from it by the Mediterranean. "Morocco, Algeria, Tanis, and, in fact, Tripoli, consist of a single long subsiding sierra of the Spanish system, artificially divided from the remainder of its mass by the accidental intrusion of the sea at Tangier and Carthage." The plants and animals are the plants and animals of Spain, Sicily, Italy, and Sardinia. The birds, the insects, and the reptiles are equally familiar in form and character. Many, even, of the native people are European, the Kabyles, for example, being distinctly white men, with large blue eyes and fair hair, and rejecting polygamy and the seclusion of women. He heartily desires that France should conquer all North

Africa, including Morocco, and maintains that the French, though they cannot fill a country with people, are in another sense good colonisers. They build solidly, they govern strongly, and they organise well. "No town in any English colony that I know of is half so much like England as Algiers, with its stately boulevards and splendid warehouses, is like Mar- seilles or Toulon." With Morocco conquered, North Africa would again be European, and the Dark Continent would begin with the Sahara. We agree in the main ; but the opposition of Spain is a serious obstacle in the way.—Canon MacColl states the case against Islam, in" Islam and Civilisation," very well and eloquently, but with a little too much acerbity, as if he felt the odium theologicum. He ought to allow a little more for the effect of Islam in increasing the manliness of some races, for its social value as seen in Arabia itself, and for its occasional though rare production of a fine type of resigned yet energetic character. We note that the Canon doubts the conversions by the sword, believing, with Finlay, that most of the conquered races preferred extermination to Islam ; but he underrates the propagandist influence of Mahommedanism. It has made fifty millions of converts in India, an uncounted number in Africa, and five millions in China, where, we may remark, the sword was wielded on the other side.—Mr. Arthur Arnold offers his reform of the Land Laws as a panacea instead of Socialism, and we only wish the Socialists would take it, which they will not do ; and Mr. Harry Quilter justifies at some length his conviction that Wilkie Collins is a great story-teller. He is in part right, but he does not account for the almost universal objection of good critics to believe it, or dwell half enough on Mr. Collins's inferiority as litterateur to his own self as playwright. Armadale, which Mr. Quilter so admires, is in parts almost unreadably unreal, though we agree that the mechanism of the story is extraor- dinarily clever. The Moonstone is the most literary of Mr. Collins's novels, though it is spoiled by its humour degenerating into farce. The whole account of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite and the Evangelical Spinster, is broad farce of a poor kind.—The editor has been fortunate in discovering a writer competent to describe the progress of "life and thought" in Turkey. He does not say much of thought, because Turkey does not indulge in that luxury, but he gives definite opinions on many things, and among others, the probability of war :-

"As a faithful chronicler of current thought in Turkey, I am bound to say that war is inevitable No Power can desire this war in itself, but both Russia and France desire what can only be obtained by war. Russia is determined to secure Bulgaria and Constantinople. Every Russian ycu meet assures you of this. She has never made a single step towards the realisation of this purpose except in war, and she cannot move in this direction now without war. She is prepared for war, the troops are in place. She has such an ally as never before, ready to give her what even Napoleon refused. She has a plausible pretence for war, and the nation is in favour of war. Why, then, should she refrain from war ? If defeated, she will lose no territory and no friends in this part of the world. She has no friends here to lose. If victorious, she will win the greatest prize in the world, and be the greatest Power in the world."

The Fortnightly tries a new experiment, the publication of a first-rate article in French, this time by Paul Bourget, who, in a conversation, expresses a fear that science and democracy will extinguish poetry, but is encouraged by a hope that there will remain mysteries of the heart beyond the ken of science. The experiment will not, we fear, succeed. The men who care to read such productions will take in the Revue des Deux .Afoncles, which can be obtained very cheaply if you will wait a month, and the women who cannot subscribe for it, cannot subscribe for the Fortnightly either.—Mr. S winburne breaks out, in "The Tyne- side Widow," in quite a new direction, and is, in our judgment, unexpectedly successful. Nothing can be simpler than the widow's croon, and there is a note of pathos in it which goes straight to the heart. We can quote only the last three verses, and that with the reserve that the impression they make is far inferior to the impression of the whole :—

"My life is sealed with a seal of love,

And locked with love for a key ; And I lie wrang and I wake lang, But ye tak' nae thought for me, my love, But ye tak' nae thought for me.

We were weal fain of love, my dear, 0 fain and fain were we ; It was weel with a' the weary world, But 0, sae weal wi' me, my love, Bat 0, sae weal wi' me.

We were nane ower molly to sleep, my dear, I wot we were bat three; And never a bed in the weary world For my bairn and my dear and me, my love, For my bairn and my dear and me."

—Mr. E. Gosse sends a very charming article on the letters of Mariana Alcoforada, a Portuguese nun, who in 1667 was seduced by the Marquis de Chamilly, afterwards a Marshal of France. By his heartlessness or fatuity, five of her letters fell into the hands of a publisher, and instantly taught all Europe how to write letters naturally. No less than sixteen editions were speedily issued. They were so popular that they were widely forged, as well as replies from the seducer, and some of the forgeries were as greedily read as the originals. Of her literary skill, which yet is not skill, this extract will enable our readers to judge :—

" I want to have the portraits of your brother and of your sister-in- law. Whatever is anything to you is very dear to me, and I am wholly devoted to what concerns you. I have no will of my own left. There are moments in which it seems to me that I should be humble

enough to serve her whom you love An officer has been waiting for this letter for a long time ; I had made up my mind to write it in snob a way that you may not be disgusted when you re- ceive it, but I see I have made it too extravagant. I must close it. Alas ! it is out of my power to do so. I seem to be talking to you when I write to you, and you become a little more present with me

then The officer who is to take this letter reminds me for the fourth time that he wishes to start. What a harry he is in ! He, no doubt, is forsaking some unhappy lady in this country. Farewell! It is harder for me to finish my letter than it was for you to abandon me, perhaps for ever."

—Mr. T. G. Bowles's essay will, we hope, console some of the squires. It is a savage attack upon the County Government Bill as "the destruction of self-government," remarkable not for its argument, which is, in brief, that the new Councils will waste money, but for its point of view. Mr. Bowles apparently holds that representation is a mistake altogether, and that if people want to govern themselves, they should meet together and do it. The municipal system, he says, is not self-government, but a delegation of government to others. It is a little too late in the day to discuss that idea, which would have charmed a Roman ; but there is a certain fascination in archaic thought even in politics, especially when stated in such English as Mr. Bowles is a master of. His worship of "the Parish" has the same effect on us that finding some cultivated man who really does believe that God made the English and rested, or that the Bible is inspired "down to the commas," or that 5 per cent, is the divinely appointed interest of money, the natural limit between fair usance and usury, would have.— Mr. Cranfurd sends a most enticing description of part of Northern Portugal, between the Douro and the Spanish moun.. talus, a description which makes the reader long to share its life. The people are of purer race than in the rest of Portugal, and show the healthy character of petty yeomen, paying, indeed, a minute quit-rents but never evicted, unimproving bat contented, living a life which scarcely varies as the centuries advance :— "Travelling through this Minho Province, this garden of Portugal, made so by man's incessant loving labour, no one can fail to notice how the land is most unscientifically ill-tilled, and every mistake and shortcoming apparent that a modern enlightened farmer would smile at—the 'unimproved' plough, made of a crooked tree-branch, the 'unimproved' cows, that give but a fifth of the milk of a Gloucester or an Alderney, the grass blades slowly and painfully reaped by a toy reaping-hook and carried long distances on the heads of men and women. It is all too utterly stupid and old-world ; and yet every one is thriving and content. The little houses are snug and warm, the cattle sleek under their masters' kindly eyes, the tiny granaries full to overflowing, the men on Sundays and feast-days well dressed, well fed, and light-hearted, the women comely and gay in their coloured bodices and bright silk kerchiefs, and their necks covered with a sensible weight of old-fashioned gold jewellery. The valleys are ringing with the joyous antiphons of youths and girls, that speak as plainly of their content with life and of their hopefulness, as the spring song of the birds tells of theirs."

It was Mill, was it not, who remarked that something remained to be said for the stationary life P—We cannot agree with or admire Mr. Oscar Browning's criticism of George Eliot, which culminates in an assertion that Daniel Deronda is "the sum and glory of her art " ; but this is an important contribution to the

history of her difficult mind :—

"Mrs. Poyser is as much a type of a certain kind of humorous per- sonality as Sam Weller. Yet long and intimately as I knew George Eliot, I never remember to have heard her say a humorous thing, nor have I ever heard a humorous saying of hers repeated by those who knew her better than I did. There is scarcely any humour in her letters. When she writes to her stepson with every effort to sym- pathise with his studies and amusements there is no humour, and yet a word of Aunt Glegg's would have made any boy ripple with laughter. I used to attribute this persistent earnestness to an exaggerated self-command to a moral nature which kept a tight rein on all temptation to sarcasm, conscious of the scathing force with

which it might be exercised. But had humour been natural to her, there would have been evidence of it in familiar letters, and frag- ments of table-talk would have been garnered by faithful disciples. No; her mind was ever deeply serious, overweighted with a sense of the importance of every action and of every word, indeed of every influence which she might exercise upon her fellow-creatures. She gave every corner of her best, and spoke sometimes of her novel- writing as if it were a frivolous pursuit compared with the histories and philosophies of her less gifted friends."

We doubt if such an intellectual phenomenon as that is pre- sented in literature, and can recall no other case in the least like it in kind, though something of the sort, much less in degree, is said to have been observed in great comedians and great clowns.

Mr. G. N. Curzon's plan for reforming the House of Lords, in

the National Review, has been already much discussed ; but we note in this article that the writer's strongest feeling is evidently in favour of life-peerages to be granted to distinguished men.

He quotes in its favour the universal practice of the Continent, but omits to say that on the Continent Upper Houses usually fail. There is only one strong one, the German Federal Council, and that, like the American Senate, represents States more or less possessed of independent rights. There is, however, if the House of Lords will reduce its own numbers, no objection what- ever to Life-Peers, except that they are apt to be aged, and that, having nothing to lose, they will fight the Commons with greater resolution and lighter hearts.—Mr. A. C. Champneys' account of "The Devil in the Middle Ages," though it accounts fairly well for the gradual degradation of the popular idea of the Devil, does not to our minds explain at all his conver- sion into a semi-comic character. That is neither the Biblical idea, nor the idea of the North, nor the idea natural to folk who were all the while hugely afraid of him. Was it not a form of defiance, one of the ways in which a fierce people expressed their hatred, a method, so to speak, of libelling a great enemywhom they could not reach P—Mr. A. Benson's depre- ciating criticism on Lavater's theory is just enough, and no doubt many of us inherit our faces ; but then, he should remember that we inherit dispositions too. It is easy to push

Lavater's idea too far ; but did Mr. Benson ever see a face without forming an opinion as to what it signified P And whence comes that instinctive judgment, if not from accumulated, though it may be unconscious, experience P—We have been struck in Mr. Proctor's paper on "The Certainties of Chance," with the force with which he puts the argument that the gambler who goes on gambling must inevitably lose. Granting that the chances are equal, and that if he went on long enough he must come out

even, he plays under a disability,—namely, his necessity of stopping when his means are done. As his opponent, the universal gambling world, never can be exhausted, that one- handicap, which must press on a Rothschild as truly as on the smallest player at Monaco, must inevitably ruin him. Equal horses, in fact, are running a long race, and one of them carries two pounds extra. If that truth could be driven into gamblers' heads, habitual gambling would stop ; but it never will be driven, for this reason. The true gambler always thinks that the calculation in his head, or the luck special to himself, destroys the equality of the chances, and handicaps his adversary—Fate. No true gambler ever is or can be other than a victim of self- conceit. Mr. Proctor mentions a curious fact illustrative of " runs " of luck in experiments, which can end only in approxi- mate equality. Baron and some friends tossed some coins ten thousand times, to test the accuracy of some views they enter- tained, and once had a steady run of fifteen " heads " in succession.