THE MAGAZINES.

THE Fortnightly Review is remarkable this month for two of the most paradoxical articles we have recently seen even in magazines. Mr. Oscar Wilde, in " The Soul of Man under Socialism," has apparently set himself to galvanise his readers, and does it in a series of sentences like these, most of which are carefully italicised :—The " chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is undoubtedly the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid neces- sity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon everybody." " The best among the poor are never grateful." " All modes of government are failures." " All authority is quite degrading." " When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect, by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising." " A community

is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime." " There is not a single poet or prose-writer of this century on whom the British public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality." The " popular novel that the public calla healthy is always a thoroughly unhealthy production, and what the public call an unhealthy novel is always a beautiful and healthy work of art." " What man has sought for is neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life." All these literary bullets are shot out in defence of the thesis that men should be themselves, in contempt, it would seem, not merely of the public, but of all law which restricts their individualism. The article, if serious, would be thoroughly unhealthy, but it leaves on us the im- pression of being written merely to startle and excite talk.— That is the defect also of Mr. Grant Allen's paper on " The Celt in English Art." It is quite a reasonable statement, if the evidence justifies it, that England owes much in art to the Celt ; but what is the use of uttering catchpenny sentences like these P—" The Celtic spirit rules throughout alike among the socialists and among the decorative artists. An acute observer may detect a strong flavour of radicalism in De Morgan lustre-ware, and a delicate dash of democracy in Miss May Morris's exquisite needlework. What more instinct with Celticism than Mr. Whall's designs P What more Cymric in tone than Mr. Powell's glass-work P " is Mr. Grant Allen perhaps laughing at his readers and himself P And all this in an article the object of which is simply to explain why Mr. Burne-Jones is one of the first, or possibly, in Mr. Allen's mind, the first, of living artists.—The tendency of the number, indeed, seems to be towards eccentricity or exaggeration of statement. We should agree, for instance, with much of the article on " Public Life and Private Morals ; " but what does the writer mean by saying that "there have been many adulterers so consecrated by their passion that they would be far safer men (in private houses) than men professedly immaculate"P A man, of coarse, may be so devoted to one woman, though he has no right to her, that he has no eyes or thoughts for other women ; but why describe absorption as consecration P The following is a subtle piece of observation. The essayist, who does not believe the aristocracy to be worse than the middle class, endeavours to account for the popular impression to the contrary. It is a result, of course, in part, of the superior visibleness of the great ; but it is also due to another cause,

that the most visible section of the middle class tends to respectability :— "Bfen who occupy socially no prominent position become pro. ininent only in virtue of certain intellectual qualities which generally go with a quiet and studious temperament, and are developed only amongst men who are little inclined to irregularity. They achieve success, in fact, because they have been born respectable. These mon are practically the spokesmen of the middle classes, and though their ability is recognised as ex- ceptional, their respectability, oddly enough, is accepted as repre- sentative. As a matter of fact, however, it is not so. Everything shows that it is not so."

" M." might have added that on no class do the social penalties for vice fall with such punitive effect as on the middle, and especially the professional. They involve ruin, which they do not either among the aristocracy or the masses. —Mr. Lanin continues his painful picture of Russia, de- claring this time that the people are ground down with taxes, which, though savagely enforced, are always in arrear. We do not find much nourishment in his statements. Bad years and low prices mean, of course, misery to peasants ; but what is the sense of saying that the crops are sold to the foreigner at a positive loss P Would the loss have been less if the land had been left untilled or the crops burned? Or in what way is the Government responsible for the enormous interest which usurers charge to the peasant, and their constant frauds? .Indian usurers also charge excessive interest, and frequently cheat; yet the Government is one of the most benevolent in the world. The truth is, there is little accumulated capital in Russia, and as the peasant wants the capitalises help in bad years, he has to pay heavily for it. Precisely the same facts among the peasant-proprietors of the Western States of the Union are now threatening to upset society.---The Rev. Newman Hall, in a striking letter, gives the reasons why he, a devotee of liberty and a personal friend of Mr. Gladstone, in whose sincerity he still strongly believes, was unable to become a Home-ruler :—

"I could not reconcile the demands of the Irish Home-rulers, which pointed towards a separate nationality, with Mr. Gladstonee

pledge to preserve the supremacy of Parliament and the unity of the Empire. I could not regard Home-rule as the demand of united Ireland when one-third of the population with more than one-half of the industry, wealth, and intelligence, were strongly opposed to it ; and when very many of those wlio favoured it did so ignorantly, under the influence of tho priests or party leaders, and under coercion of the League. I was not satisfied that this large minority would be adequately protected in their persons, property, and religion, by a Dublin Government in which the promoters of the Land. League would occupy chief positions, and command an overwhelming majority. As a Liberal I had always been an advocate of liberty, and therefore I was compelled to -denounce the coercive tyranny of a secret conclave which punished with social excommunication, confiscation, personal injury, and often with death, those whose only crime was the fulfilment of their obligations, and the exercise of those rights which the law was bound to protect. I was astonished that an alliance should. be formed with one who had been a chief leader of a movement identified with crime ; and felt sure that the names of men whose .characters were sa diametrically opposed as Gladstone and Parnell could not long be associated."

We notice the first paper in the Nineteenth Century, Mr. Leslie Stephen on " Cardinal Newman's Scepticism," else- where ; and we discussed the great paper of the number, Mr. Gladstone on the Gadarene swine, last week.—Mr. R. B.

Brett, in his article on "The Tyranny of the Nonconformist 'Conscience," which he thinks an undue and unwise restriction -of the right of the people to choose their leaders, whom they have usually chosen well, makes some noteworthy remarks on the decline in England of the feeling of hatred' for political -offences :-

" Society, in the sense of people who went to Court, drew a clear and well-defined lino between public actions and private vices, .always providing that those vices were not unfashionable. The public followed suit. Private vices were ignored, but political immorality was not readily forgiven. George the Third drank water, but his people were as coldly indifferent to the fact (which in these days would possibly have counted as a sot-off to his hatred of reform) as they were to the drunkenness of the King's Ministers. Had Mr. Pitt consumed even more port than he did, his policy would not have been any less popular ; while, had Mr. Fox had all the moral qualities which distinguished Sir Robert Peel, his reputation could never have survived the turpitude of the Coali- tion. The monarchy scarcely bent under the weight of George the Fourth's private vices and his treatment of Mrs. Fitzherbert ; but had his successor not yielded to the pressure of. Lord Grey in 1832, William the Fourth might have ended his days at St. Germain."

The truth is, the danger arising from political offences is less visible to a people not anxious about its political security than

it was to a people who were anxious. The Ulstermen do not forgive Mr. Parnell, nor Mr. Gladstone either .—Mr. H. H.

Champion's account of "The Crushing Defeat of Trade- Unionism in Australia" should be read-with attention by all Trade-Union Secretaries. The second cause of that defeat was the annoyance inflicted on the community, especially by the effort to stop the use of gas ; but the first cause was the unreasonableness of the men's demand for the expulsion of -all free men, which forced the employers of labour to form a determined Union, with immense financial means. The work- men's Uhions have never had to fight a Union of capitalists.

Mr. E. N. Buxton sends a lively and interesting account of a trip to the Monkey Mountain in Asia Minor, on the Aidin Railway, in search of the wild goat. He gives a most amusing sketch of his cavass, a retired brigand who retained his energy. He had once killed twenty-five of the Sultan's soldiers who were avenging an attack on the Imperial Post; but he regarded this and worse acts as merely incidents in life, and

his reformed condition was a faithful guard and guide :—

"‘ I was a brigand eight years. I never killed any one for money ; but if any one would not stop, or if he was going to give information to the authorities, of course we had to kill him. Once a man asked us all to his house to supper. Then he sent to the Governor to say that Bouba's party were there; but we heard a noise and got away. A fortnight afterwards we came back and slit his nose and ears.' (This he said in a tone of righteous indignation, and he would evidently like to do it again.) We used to stop merchants and camel-drivers, and the villagers gave us what wo wanted because they were afraid. If a person had not anything we let him go.' " —Mrs. Kingscote draws a melancholy and, we fear, -true picture of the decline of Indian art. The rich native

dyes are replaced by abominations like magenta ; the weavers' trade has fallen off 90 per cent.; the lace-manu- facture of Madura has vanished, driven out by cheap machine-made lace ; the bedcovers made all over the South are replaced by hideous cretonnes ; the native carpets are vanishing before Brussels carpets, or, are being made in jails, with English patterns and English dyes ; the wonderful wood-carvings are no longer executed ; and the great silver-workers are importing English designs. The brass trade survives, being protected by religionsleeling, but even in this the rage for cheapness is prevailing, and the patterns are becoming " simple," which in India means inartistic. The art of working in iron, once carried to high perfection, has entirely died away, and pottery is getting spoiled by the rivalry of cheap brass, which does not break. It is all true, and most lamentable; but we wish Mrs. Kingscote had explained the causes of the decay in Indian taste, as well as art manufacture, a little more fully. Is it not the result of the craving for foreign things which results from the pre- valence of a foreign—that is, an English—education P How . can Art remain indigenous when thought has become so deeply Europeanised P—Mr. Hewlett should hardly have in- cluded jokes like Swift's "Predictions for the Year 1708," among " forged literature." Nor do we quite see how Psal- manazar's account of Formosa fairly belongs to his subject. That was imaginative literature, or literature intended to

deceive, but there was no forgery. The article is a slight one, but it recalls many curious instances of literary imposture. We do not quite see the object of the editor of the Contem-

porary Review in publishing Count Tolstoi's essay on wine- drinking and tobacco-smoking, unless, indeed, it be to discredit the Count and the total abstainers. The paper is sheer rubbish, its purpose being to prove, first, that no one ever drinks or smokes except to stifle the pangs of a guilty conscience ; and secondly, to show that the world does most of its busi- ness drunk. How else are we to account for the sacrifices made to prepare for or prosecute war P That' is drivel

hardly compatible with perfect sanity.—Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice contributes a bright monograph on Lord John Russell, in which he brings out, among other facts, Lord John's early preference (1851) for tenant-right as the true remedy for agrarian outrage in Ireland. He held

singularly strong opinions about the Irish landlords, main- taining that the struggle between them and their tenants practically during eighty years had amounted to civil war, and that both sides were most barbarous. We note the writer's belief, founded doubtless on his experience of the Foreign Office, that the rule introduced by the Prince Consort of submitting all foreign despatches to the Queen, together with the great increase of Foreign Office business generally, render it in future impossible to choose a Foreign Secretary in the Commons. The number of despatches annually received or sent out of the Foreign Office has grown from 28,000 in Lord 3. Russell's day, to 80,000 in our own. This, also, is a sound judgment, which it is worth while to remember :—

" The whole history of the Aberdeen Cabinet casts a melan- choly doubt on the practical value of Cabinets of all the talents.' Hardly any Government can be free from dangerous bickorings ; but it would appear as if the species of Ministry most exposed to bickerings of a really injurious character is. one in which a great number of able men, possessing both experience and a strong will, sit together under the presidency of one whom, like Lord Aberdeen, they regard as at the most only their equal. It furthermore hap- pened that the politics of the day had arrived at the point best calculated, to bring this inherent fault of the Aberdeen Govern- ment into glaring relief."

—We may take another opportunity of noticing Dr. Abbott's grave and able paper on " The Realities of Christianity," only saying here that he appears to us inclined to underrate the importance of Christ's physical resurrection as part of the evidence in support of his claim to be a divine teacher, though this may be a consequence not of his own thought so much as of his immediate controversy with Professor Beet, who has, he thinks, exaggerated that importance.—There is another religious article in this number, in which Principal Fairbairn maintains the thesis that in the New Testament, "the idea of the Church is that essentially of the new humanity created and penetrated by Christ, as little dependent for its being on specific forms of polity as was the old humanity." The argu- ment is well stated ; but Dr. Fairbairn falls a little, like so many who write in magazines and are necessarily too brief, into absolute assertion : " The New Testament ministry is not a priesthood; in no single feature, aspect, or office has it a sacerdotal character." That may be perfectly true, but three-fourths of the great Christian theologians of Europe have held a different belief. How, then, was the transition made from the Church of the Apostles to the Church of Ignatius's letters P