SOME MAGAZINES.

MR. GL tDSTONE, undisturbed by the roar of the conflict round him, sends to the Nineteenth Century an answer to Professor Dr. Reville, which he calls the " Dawn of Creation and of Worship." The first half of it is a singularly eloquent apology for the account of the Creation in Genesis, which, Mr. Glad- stone contends, is in accord with the latest teaching of science. The order of creation, for example, which the physicists begin to defend, is in strict accordance with the order which the author of that book indicates, the word " days," of course, being used to denote periods of time. We do not feel the same interest in the argument that the Olympian mythology was not based on the " solar theory," fancying that this idea had been disposed of long ago; and we do not quite understand what place Mr. Glad- stone wishes to assign to Heracles in the Homeric system ; but the peroration is very fine :—

" For those who believe that the old foundations are unshaken still, and that the fabric built upon them will look down for ages on the floating wreck of many a modern and boastful theory, it is difficult to see anything but infatuation in the destructive temperament which leads to the notion that to substitute a blind mechanism for the hand of God in the affairs of life is to enlarge the scope of remedial agency ; that to dismiss the highest of all inspirations is to elevate the strain of human thought and life ; and that each of us is to rejoice that our several units are to be disintegrated at death into 'countless millions of organisms ;' for such, it seems, is the latest ` revelation ' delivered from the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi. Assuredly on the minds of those who believe, or else on the minds of those who after this fashion disbelieve, there lies some deep judicial darkness, a darkness that may be felt. While disbelief in the eyes of faith is a sore calamity, this kind of disbelief, which renounces and repudiates with more than satisfaction what is brightest and best in the inheritance of man, is astounding, and might be deemed in- credible. Nay, some will say, rather than. accept the flimsy and hollow consolations which it makes bold to offer, might we not go back to solar adoration, or, with Goethe, to the hollows of Olympus ?- Wenn die Banks Ewald, Wenn die Asehe girth%

Eden wir den alters Grntern rti."

Mr. R. Barry O'Brien pleads the Irish cause with more temperance and fairness than most of his countrymen exhibit. He admits that Englishmen have in the last fifty years made many concessions to Ireland, one of them, the Disestablishment of the Church, being a " complete " one; but he contends that most of these concessions have been made re- luctantly, and in a half-hearted way. They have shown no spirit such as should call out Irish loyalty to the Union, and have in particular never allowed the government of Ireland to be admin- istered by a native Executive, the three gentlemen who govern the island even now, when conciliation is the order of the day, being not only Englishmen, bat men who, before their arrival in the country, had shown " no marked knowledge of Irish affairs." This last charge is, unhappily, true ; but Mr. O'Brien should have named the Irishmen to whom, in his judgment, Irish affairs could have been entrusted. The difficulty of selecting such men is exactly the difficulty which prevents the concession of self-government. If they are men whom the Irish people do not trust, they are as bad as Englishmen ; while if the Irish do trust them, they are probably men who will use their powers to promote Secession. Mr. W. H. Hurlbert, an American, sends a striking account of the recent French Elections, in a paper called " State Christianity and France." He believes that the peasantry who voted for the Reaction voted knowingly against the Republic ; and he certainly proves that in places—the Landes, for example—this was the case. Nobody could mistake the address of the victorious candidate, M. Lambert de Sainte- Croix, the flag-bearer of the Orleans Monarchy. He gives the following account, too, of the voting for the Cher :— " The Cher returned in 1881 six Deputies, all Republicans, with a vote of 40,383 against 22,727 Monarchist Conservatives and 8,195 Radicals. It returns six Deputies still. M. Brisson, who was a can- didate on October 4th, obtained then only 22,649 votes against 35,481 given to M. de Vogue, Monarchist, and 17,452 given to M. Felix Pyat, Radical, and the six seats were left en ballotage. The Government was seriously alarmed, and great efforts were made to consolidate the Republicans for the 18th. A new list of candidates was prepared, M. Henry Maret consenting to stand with M. Brisson, and both M. Maret and M. Brisson announcing that, while they were candidates for other seats, they would opier for the Cher, if the Cher would kindly elect them, and bang them like two cats by the tail over one line. What was the result ? On the 18th M. Brisson received 43,297 votes, hi. Maret 43,704, and they with their four colleagues were elected. But the Conservative vote rose from 35,481 given for M. de Vogue on the 4th to 37,390 on the 18th ; and this gain of 1,909 votes very nearly represents the difference between the total vote thrown on the 4th of 80,832 and the total vote thrown on the 18th of 82,957. This difference, exactly stated, was 2,125, from which if we take the gain of 1,909 votes for M. de Vogue, we have just 216 Republican votes drawn out by the peril of the Republic ' in this once strongly Republican department to support M. Brisson, the successor of M. Ferry and the first fanotionary of the Republic after the President."

Mr. Hurlbert, studying these figures, and studying also the deep poverty of sections of the French people—of whom 4,392,500 pay direct taxes of less than five francs—believes that France will either resort to large measures of expropriation, which mean anarchy, or will seek refuge in a Monarchy,—the men alarmed for property and the men alarmed for religion forming a combi- nation which will be irresistible. The paper is violent in thought, though not in language ; but it is worth attentive study. Mr. Osborne Morgan states the case for Disestablishment in Wales with great calmness and force. It comes, however, to this,— that the Established Church is in a great minority in Wales, which was known before. We note incidentally that large bodies of Welsh Nonconformists subscribe to their Churches at the rate of £1 a head. If the English Episcopalians paid at the same rate, they would raise £15,000,000 a year, or three times the total income now enjoyed by the Church, a possible increase of resources which the Noncon-

formists have hardly considered. Lady Verney restates her ease against peasant properties, which is really twofold, half being a case nearly unanswerable against compulsory division at death, and half a direct case against small properties. The latter amounts only to this,—that the peasant puts more work into the soil than the crop is worth, which is admittedly true in almost all districts of the world. The answer is that this is just what the Englishman, who is the coolest calculator among human beings, and who has no passion of land hunger, will not do. Mr. E. Dicey wishes all moderate Liberals to vote Tory,

and expresses his belief that in any case parties will be so nearly equal that Mr. Parnell will hold the balance of power. We- shall see. As it seems to us, calculators like Mr. Dicey all reckon np the county seats as so many votes, and forget that if the Liberals snatch them from the Tories, they count twice.

The Contemporary Review opens with a paper on the French Elections, by M. Jules Simon, formerly Minister of Public In- struction, and a leading Moderate still, to which we called atten- tion last week. Unlike Mr. Hurlbert, M. Simon thinks the

revolt of the peasantry directed against Opportunism rather than against the Republic, and has little fear of a Revolution unless the Radicals triumph. He is apprehensive, however, of such a triumph, and is especially dismayed by the want of great Republicans, and especially Republicans who are statesmen :- " It may seem strange that I should speak of a dearth of states- men ; and indeed it is not really men that are wanting, but available men. The followers of M. Gambetta and M. Ferry have set them- selves to make a return to office impossible for those who, while upholding the Republican principle, have opposed their doctrines and policy ; and thus they have stamped with unpopularity all that was left of courage and capacity in the great Republican Party. I confess that I see no statesmen in all our Jacobin Mountain ; we have orators, we have tribunes ; but unless some extraordinary metamor- phosis takes place, I do not see one who is capable of governing. They may have a Delecluse among them ; they certainly have not even a Wesel. The Monarchical parties, on the contrary, and especially the Orleanist Party, are not without men. M. Bocher, M. Buffet, M. de Broglie are no mere orators; but it would take a revolution to bring them back ; and at present—just as truly as before the Elections—a revolution can only become possible by the repeated and persistent fault of the Republic."

This dearth of statesmen may be accidental ; but it should not be forgotten that Switzerland, in her long history, has produced scarcely any potent individualities, and but one, Rousseau, who has made himself felt in Europe. Calvin, though a citizen of Geneva, must be assigned to France. Sir John Lubbock's contribution on " Ants, Bees, and Wasps," is as usual most interesting ; but we wish he would state his own opinions, even if he states them merely as temporary hypotheses, a little more definitely. Does he think for the present that his insects' ways are the result of ages of experience, or does be admit the theory of predetermined ways ? When be suggests an explanation, it is usually the former one; but his illustrations of " stupidity" in insects tend to the latter :—

"One species of Sphex preys on a large grasshopper (Ephippigara). Having disabled her victim by one antenna, M. Fabre found that if the antennas be cat off close to the head, the Sphex, after trying in vain to get a grip, gives the matter up as a bad job, and leaves her victim in despair, without ever thinking of dragging it by one of its legs. Again, when a Sphex had provisioned her cell, laid her egg, and was about to close it up, N. Fabre drove her away, and took out the ephippigera and the egg. He then allowed the Sphex to return ; she went down into the empty cell, and though she must have known that the grasshopper and the egg were no longer there, yet she proceeded calmly to atop up the orifice just as if nothing had happened."

Surely that looks as if the force governing the wasp's acts were not accumulated experience, but a coercive instinct in a great degree independent of circumstance. Dr. Fairbairn has drawn forth another Catholic reply, this time from Dr. Barry, who, in an essay of great temperance, endeavours to show that the Catholic Church is consistent with reason, and belief in it in- evitable, if we acknowledge authority at all. We have no in- tention of going over the well-worn ground ; but would point to Dr. Barry's paper as one more evidence that English Catholic theologians are learning to argue in the English way, and with English moderation. It contrasts curiously with the outburst of Mr. Crowhurst, who in "The Established Church in the Village " attacks the Anglican Church in a spirit of bitter hostility. He believes she fails in the village especially, and goes the length of saying that her congregations are made up of hereditary Churchmen who think it respectable to go to Church, tradesmen who think it pays, and poor people, tempted by its want of discipline :- " Of the last class it will be sufficient to say that all those who on the weekdays are seen in the public-house, and not unfrequently

reeling home, are found on Sunday—if they are found in any place of worship at all--sitting at the feet of the orthodox teacher. This is not surprising. They hear, if not smoother things there, things at any rate more smoothly spoken ; and the religious atmosphere is not sufficiently charged with spiritual electricity to agitate the conscience painfully."

He, though a Churchman, sees piety only among Noncon- formists, and utterly denies the civilising influence of the Clergy in the villages, their recent progress, he says, being due to the police, the Press, and the steam-engine :—

" She was sent to the poor, and she has gone to the rich ; she has become the Church of the gentry, of the righteous ; and sinners gaze at her afar off. In. many a village the parsonage is the only house in which even comfort is seen, and there it may be in excess approaching to luxury. The contrast between the West-end and the East-end of London is not more striking than that which is often presented by the rectory to the rest of the village. And the peasant who notes it says that the dweller there is the best paid man and the idlest in the pariah."

Mr. Crowhurst cannot, we think, fairly claim credit even for wishing to be impartial. Mr. J. D. Dougall's plea for an " alliance " of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, though based on a truth, is not very persuasive ; but this paragraph will strike many of our readers as new :—

" The French-Canadian race now numbers perhaps two millions, half of whom live in Quebec [the Province]. They hold frequent continental race reunions, in which Quebec is spoken of as Canada in patrie. This race forms 80 per cent. of the population of this Pro- vince, and, by reason of its phenomenal fecundity, is fast gaining ground, not only in it, but in all the surrounding States and Provinces. The French Canadians are divided in politics, and differ also in the extent of their attachment to the Church, from the veriest extrava- gances of Ultramontanism to a mildly anti-clerical attitude. But in this matter of race loyalty, there is a passionate unity. It is called patriotism, but it is not patriotism towards the Dominion. The French race elsewhere is unsuccessful at colonisation, its weakness in this respect being partly due to its lack of immense, which renders emigra- tion and enterprise unnecessary and the peopling of new countries difficult. To this characteristic the French Canadians are a startling exception, being probably the most prolific race in the world. Where adventure fails, thrift stands by them, and as the English race moves westward the French expands and fills every vacancy and interstice. In fact, it is driving the more expensive race before it. This people, in its romantic hours at least, idolises its language, and holds sacred every severing characteristic, and now distinctly aspires to form a new France occupying the whole north-east corner of the continent. This hope is warranted by the rapid extension of its occnpanoy, but not by the prosperity of purely French localities. From these emigration is rapid."

In addition to their thrift, the French Canadians have another and a special source of income. They are the only white men and women in America who make good servants, and they are gradually monopolising the better-paid subordinate places. Mr. Healy, in his paper on Ireland, denies that Ulster prospers beyond the other provinces, and asserts that Protestantism is decaying under the emigration caused by the Land-laws. He affirms that in the decade ended 1881 Ulster lost more popula- tion, both positively and comparatively, than any other province, the total figures being :—

5.26

4.68

3 59

He alleges that the " loyalty " of Ulster is only dread of Catholicism, and that the province will speedily be captured by the Parnellites. We shall see. The article on " The Position of Greece in the Present Crisis" reads to us a little dreamy. Its key- note is the idea that Prince Bismarck wishes to include German- Austria and Holland in one undivided Empire ; and is, therefore, pushing Austria southward. Prince Bismarck would probably reply that he had Catholics enough to manage already, and that a conciliated. Austria would serve his purpose much better than a despoiled Austria, who, having become a Slav Power, might find her ally in the other Slavic Empire. The Greek statesman makes too much, too, of intrigues. The broad stream of history will flow on but little impeded by clever conspiracies, and the race most competent to govern will come in the end to the top. Note, however, as a most interesting factor in the Balkan situation, the intense antipathy which the writer ex- presses for the Bulgars. He actually prefers the Turks as governors because they are a decaying race.

We sic not understand Mr. Laing's proposal, in the Fort- nightly Review, for tranquillising Ireland. He says the root of all Irish discontent is the agrarian question, which, with certain large reserves, may be true. He also says that the way to solve this question is to buy out the landlords at twenty years' pur-

Population.

Ulster 93,686 Mnnater 69,575 Leinster 59,998 Connaught 29,279 Total Decrease in Decrease per cent.

5.38

chase of the Poor-law valuation, securing the interest by certain reductions in the amounts now paid by the Treasury to Ireland :

"The practical result of the Land Act has been to reduce the old rents of small holdings in Ireland about 20 per cent., and leave them still about 20 per cent. above Griffith's valuation. That is, an old rental of, say, £1,400,000 a year, has been reduced to a judicial rent of £1,200,000, the Poor law valuation being £1,000,000. To buy out the landlords at twenty years' purchase of the judicial rent would require £24,000,000, the interest of which if raised by the State would amount to, say, £750,000 a year. Make all the small tenants proprietors of their holdings, subject to paying the Poor-law valua- tion as a perpetual rent-charge, or redeeming it at, say,twenty years' purchase, with easy conditions for payment. This would give a rent- charge of £1,000,000 a year to secure the interest charge of £750,000. Make over this rent-charge to the Local Boards or Central Board or Parliament at Dublin, against a deduction of £750,000 a year from the amounts annually voted to Ireland for education and other local grants. This would both secure the imperial Treasury from loss, and from being in the invidious position of a landlord, having to enforce rents by eviction, and also give Ireland something substantial to do in the way of self.government."

That is very nice and simple ; but where does Mr. Laing get his figures ? Does he mean to fix a limit below which tenancy should not exist ? and if so, what is the limit in his mind when he talks of the total rental being L1,200,000 a year P Does he really believe that a plan of that kind, covering only a tenth of Irish rental, would satisfy Ireland; or is he simply making a mistake P The rental of Ireland is nearer i.:12,000,000 than £1,200,000, and the sum required would be enormous—at least £200,000,000— for which, even at 3 per mat., it would be impossible to find a valid guarantee other than a heavy quit-rent on the land itself. It is impossible even to discuss such a scheme with any result until the figures are made clear. Mrs. Lynn Linton's retrospect of her life when her father owned Gads Hill, near Rochester, afterwards Charles Dickens's .place, is exceedingly amusing, but contains nothing quite new. She avoids a precise date ; and though she tells us that she knew Weller, senior, whose name in the flesh was " Old Chumley," tells us nothing about him except that he was mottle-faced and kindly, which one did not need to know. If he had not been, he would not have been Weller. This is new to us :—" Talking of Stiggins, I remember a dreadful man of this order who once preached at Shorne, to which lovely place we always went to church, rather than to our own rightful parish church at Higham. He was inveighing against the iniquity of Shrove Tuesday observances, and as a clincher to his arguments, assured us that ' pancake' came from two Greek words, pan kakon, all evil. This was my first lesson in Greek, and I have not forgotten it." The subsequent reminiscences are gossipy and pleasant, but contain nothing striking, except an account of a dinner with the late King of Oude in London, and two sketches, of which we extract the second:— "Again, I was in the same box at the opera when Vittorio Emanuele was in Paris, and he and the Emperor came thereto show themselves. The King of Italy came boldly to the front of the box, where he stood squarely, facing the house and looking about him. The Emperor slid in with a creeping, cat-like step, and skink behind the curtain, sitting down as if to bide himself. The bluff soldierly bearing of the Piedn:ontesc, his frank bold eyes, and brave, if less than comely face, contrasted powerfully with the strange self-effacement, pallid coun- tenance, and fishy eyes of the Emperor. Once more, there was that strange difference between reality and seeming, which made Bona- partism show itself for what it was—a mere historical parenthesis bracketed iu lines of blood ; a temple of Juggernaut founded on craft, cruelty, and dishonour ; a ghastly idol doomed by its inherent worth- lessness to rot into the mud of which it had been made from the beginning."

Mr. Myers continues his stories of investigations into rare psychological phenomena, dealing this time with hypnotism, one of the mesmeric states. Mr. Myers maintains that a mes- merised subject can be made to obey orders for a long time after the trance has passed off. For example, one of a professor's patients was made to commit matricide in intention, and accuse herself of assassination. The stories go entirely beyond our powers of belief; but we only draw attention to Mr. Myers's idea that a boy compelled in this way to become diligent is " moralised." He might as well say that a thief bound in handcuffs, and there- fore not stealing, is moralised. There must be free will to con- stitute moral conduct, and the very theory of hypnotism is that the will is overcome by an external agency. Mrs. Jeune gives a striking and most judicious account of some efforts to rescue fallen women, but adds some cautions, especially needed at this moment, against enthusiasm, especially advising that women not yet completely degraded should never be brought in contact with those who are. She has a strong belief, moreover, in the superiority of the smaller to the larger home. Mrs. Jenne is evidently slow to believe in religious professions, and says dis- tinctly that the reformer should not begin with religions teaching. Mr. Edis's paper on " Health and Taste in English Homes " is well written, clear, and sensible, but contains little that is novel; and Mr. Patterson's account of " Dualism in Austria-Hungary " is a little too historical. This paragraph, however, which sums up his experience, will be valuable to our readers :-

" Although Austro-Hungarian dualism will soon be twenty years old, it is, perhaps, still too early to discuss the question of its per- manence. All that we can say is, that, though it is not really popular on either aide of the Leitha, no responsible statesman in either country contemplates its abolition, or any serious modification of its arrangements. Both Austrians and Hungarians feel discontented and anxious amid the many dangers and difficulties that menace their existence as States and impede their progress. But most of these dangers and difficulties neither owe their origin to dualism nor could be removed by its abolition. Another point to be observed is that the system could hardly be carried on without the preponderating influence of the Crown in either half of the Monarchy. The common Sovereign is always in the background as the arbiter in the last resort between the two States, and even in the ordinary course of things his influence is continually felt. The Hapsburgs made A.ustria- Hungary, and were they to disappear, it is difficult to see what other tie would suffice to keep their dominions together."

In a " Dualised " Britain-Ireland there would be no such sovereign influence.

Macmillan, which comes this month under new management, has, besides the Laureate's poem on which we have written elsewhere, a most interesting paper called " Some American Notes." The writer has evidently given his real impressions, and not the impressions expected of him ; and, accurate or otherwise, they are fresh. We wish he would add to them some account of the effect made on him by American landscape. That is the one point all visitors forget, as any reader will perceive who tries to call up in his mind an impression, how- ever dim, of a New York or Massachusetts landscape.