it was a condition of their getting the busi- | ears, I should have believed in Lint Southness to do; the old woman said as much, and well's apparition to my dying day, and probso did her daughter and son-in-law, who lived in the house, and helped her to manage the boy. I believe they did their duty honestly, and a hard duty it was. Master Southwell, as they called him, had been with them long before I came to the house, and outlasted the old woman who first got the charge of him; but it was the will of Providence to call him away, sir, the winter before I left Hamburg; so there is no harm in telling you the story, just to take off any false impressions that might be on your mind concerning my old house.'

ably revealed the long-kept secret to some trusty friend, who would hand it down to posterity as a well-authenticated instance of ghost-seeing. The Southwells certainly managed their getting the estate in a clever and unique manner: it was probably easier and less expensive on the whole than a commission of lunacy against the luckless heir. Yet who could have imagined the like, and who, in my circumstances, would not have believed his own eyes, and been frightened accordingly. Believe me, that to see a young gentleman whose funeral you have attended, making faces at you about two o'clock in the morning, is a sight not to be forgotten. Long after the fact was explained, the fearful memory of it remained with me, and I have never since been able to sleep in a room with an

The story did take a false impression off my mind in good earnest. Mrs. Ramsay never knew the full extent of it. One would not like to own how much one had been frightened by the sight of what was no ghost after all. Had the explanation never come to my open window."

lars,

And lukewarm in the winter 'tis made.

M.P.'S HAVING THEIR AIR WASHED.—"Ave yer In the summer 'tis iced to cool hot-headed felAir washed, sir?" This at your barber's is a very common question; but it there has reference to the 'air of the 'ead and not the hair of the hatmosphere. Some people might perhaps not think the latter could be washed, but that this is possible we learn from Mr. Cowper, First Commissioner of Works, who, in reply to Mr. Griffith, informed the House the other evening that

Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney is well worthy of the gold which is paid him by the Government, if he succeed in always giving our M.P.'s good wholesome air to breathe. When we think of all the ills that London atmosphere is air to; the "If the windows were opened the air admitted ill smells from the gas-pipes and ill savors from would be neither so cool nor so pure as that which the sewers; we may form some slight idea of the they were at present breathing. The foul food our lungs feed upon, and the House must air was admitted in a most natural and easy way be the only one in town where the air is at all into the chambers below the House. There it pure and really fit to put inside one's self. was washed in a stream of pure water, and means Is air-washing, we wonder, an expensive opertaken to get rid of many impurities which com-ation? If not, it seems a pity that it is not more bined with the air. It travelled at the rate of practised. Half-stifled as we are at our ill-venabout one foot a minute, and no doubt in cold tilated suffocating concert-rooms and theatres, weather it was warm, and in warm weather it what a blessing it would be if atmospheric washwas iced. (Laughter.) The object of Mr. Golds-ing-rooms were added to such places, and if worthy Gurney was at all seasons and times to audiences thus could have pure air to breathe! keep the temperature as near as possible at sixtyfour degrees. On Friday evening the air outside the windows was at seventy-eight degrees, and in the House at sixty-five degrees. If the windows had been opened air would have been admitted thirteen degrees hotter than the air which they were breathing. (Cheers.)"

If the thought had occurred to him, Mr. Cowper might have parodied the poetry of his namesake:

The idea of cleaning air is quite a novel notion to us for about a thing like air we never should have dreamed of asking, Will it wash? We only trust that Mr. Gurney will not prove a second Guy Faux, and try to blow the House up with his air-works underneath it. If Parliament at all feels nervous about this, it had better appoint somebody to look into the cellars; and if ever that air question be brought before the House, it may be fitly observed by any M.P. fond of pun

The air has been washed, just washed in the cel-ning, that certainly the fittest man to see to that

lars,

And thus clean to the House is conveyed ;

'ere matter will be Professor Airey.-Punch.

From The Saturday Review.

GENIUS.

The word "genius" represents the Latin form of the theory common to so many na

THOUGH the word "genius" is 80 com- tions, that every man, or indeed every real exmonly employed by us, it is very hard to give | istence, has an attendant and regulative spirit. a definition, or even to form a clear concep- This spirit is looked upon as partly inherent tion, of its meaning. That it is something in the being, partly separate from and exterspecial, peculiar, and erratic is the common nal to it. It is what the Germans would call opinion. We contrast it with talent, as with the idea of the thing, objectified and regarded a mental quality capable of development; as a distinct spiritual existence. When this whereas genius is considered a gift of heaven, theory is applied specially to men, the genius, spontaneous and perfect in itself. Again, we or Greek daiuwv,or Jewish and Christian angel, regard it as essentially original-as a power becomes an intermediate agent between God that creates, or at any rate throws new light and man, an executive of fate, a protector and on everything it touches; while talent is overseer. This aspect of the notion is strong simply vigor of the intellect, intelligence, in the Platonic and early Christian schemes strong sense, receptive and practical ability. of life. But in the Roman genius more atFrom this it follows that we concede the title tention is paid to its subjective side. The of genius to men of inferior capacity for the genius is not so much an attendant spirit as ordinary purposes of life, if we find that they the essence of each man's individual nature. have a special faculty for some particular sub- It represents his abstract idiosyncracy. Thus, ject though we deny it to the iron wills and the Horatian exhortation, Indulge Genio, indefatigable brains that rule, compile, col- means "follow your own bent ;" and the use lect, and set in order the materials that they of the word corresponded to a somewhat anfind around them. Taking this view of ge- tiquated use of our word humor." Every nius, it is not strange that men should have Man in his Humor is the title of a well-known regarded it as something supernatural and play of Ben Jonson, where individual pecudivine, just as among the Eastern nations liarities find their proper sphere. Moreover, madness is reckoned mystically sacred, or as the Roman genius was always reckoned a the more rare and rapid processes of nature kindly and familiar being. He was that have been from time immemorial referred to which all men cherish as dearest and most occult and miraculous agency. Thus, too, homely-their own self. Hence comes the we can understand why genius should have meanings of" genial" and "congenial." The been viewed with suspicion, as what the genial person is the social, kindly undisturbed Scotch would call "uncanny," as something being, at ease with his own self and with the alien from the strong good common sense of world. Congenial subjects are those which ordinary men, and nearly allied to the vapor- we find suitable to our peculiar temper. Conings of madness. Indeed, there has been no genial minds are those which run in the same lack of theorizers who call genius a form of groove as ours. We see, then, that the first madness, a morbid condition of the blood or meaning of the word genius is that which lies nerves, thus reducing what all men reverence at the root of the man, which is his essence, as the highest intellectual gift to a disease in which distinguishes him from all the world. our poor material organs. Others, without And in many uses of the word this meaning asserting so monstrous a paradox, would have never leaves it. When we speak of the genius genius to be a mystical power of the soul, car- of a country or of a language, we mean that rying it beyond the realm of common under- which constitutes it what it is-its rational standing, and gifting it with insight into idea, the law of its development and being. things unseen or prophecy of things to come. So, too, we say the genius of a man deterWe have cited these opinions simply to show mines his choice and action; not meaning to that the earliest indistinct idea of genius rep-attribute to him special and brilliant gifts, resents it as something unusual, erratic, and but only wishing to indicate that in each man beyond the common laws of human intellect. there is a self-a something distinctive and In order to arrive at its more hidden meaning, his own. various theories and definitions must be quoted, and first of all the word must be explained.

So far the explanation of the word genius is easy. But in the complex state of language which the world has reached, few

words abide by so concrete a meaning. And sure of antagonistic forces, then it has a the real difficulties of the word genius lie right to be considered genius-instinct, inexabout its abstract use. Genius is recognized plicable, and irresistible. Another common as a special quality. It is no longer the in- definition of genius makes it synonymous dividual nature of men or things alone, but with creation. Hazlitt says, "it is the first a phase of intellectual excellence different impulse of genius to create what never exfrom all others, and recognizable only as such isted before." Thus the man of true genius wherever it occurs. Though the difference is ever before his age, frequently unrecogbetween the concrete and abstract uses of nized by his contemporaries, but often leadthe term is so wide, it may not be impossible ing them and adding to their power or knowlto trace their connection. The humor of a edge. In this sense, great inventions and man, if marked and powerful, soon makes discoveries, the explanation of the motions itself perceived. And as the greater always of the planets, the application of steam to absorbs or outshines the less, so, though every locomotion, the recognition of new laws of Caius and Balbus in Rome had theoretically growth in the world about us, are all proper each his genius, yet it was the genius of spheres of genius. For nothing can be actCæsar that stood out pre-eminent. The genii ually made afresh by man. All he can do of common men were too matter of fact and in the province of science is to see more than trivial to be talked about. And so, in time, had been seen before, in the realm of art to the genius of remarkable natures drew to recompose and illuminate with new light. itself all interest and attention, and the ab- The subject of aesthetical creation involves stract use of the word was confined to pre- great difficulty. Yet even here we recognize eminent exhibitions of extraordinary power. two kinds of imagination. The inferior is Having attempted to trace the history of content with recombining and arranging, the word, and to mark its two distinct shades without producing a new world of thought of meaning, we may now notice some of the or feeling. The higher imagination which theories which have been formed respecting we call genius uses, indeed, the materials of the nature of genius in the abstract sense, nature, but it does not merely recombine considered as a peculiar and rare phase of them-it gives to them a fresh and peculiar human intellect. The first and most popu- splendor reflected from the mind within. lar definition of genius describes it as a spe- Thus, in one sense, it is creative; and its cial power for some special subject. This is action is dynamical, whereas that of the clearly connected with the etymology of the lower imagination is simply mechanical. word, but it is too vague to be of any use. The inferior imagination is often mistaken Yet the germ of deeper theories lies within for the higher kind. Thus a painter creates it; for it recognizes in genius a power, not hideous monsters, and poetasters are familiar acquired, nor capable of indifferent direction with spectres which they weave together out towards various subjects, but one which of the repertory of their sick dreams. But grows up spontaneously within a man, and the true power draws life and interest from from the beginning indicates its definite and common things, makes men that move and inalienable nature. Thus a genius for paint-speak like real mortals, and understands the ing, music, or mathematics, irresistibly drives springs of ordinary character. Among many its possessor to the study of the arts or interesting definitions of the artistic genius, sciences. On this point it may be remarked none perhaps is more philosophical than that that one of the peculiar difficulties attending contained in the following line of Milton:the treatment of genius exhibits itself. All Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce. men recognize the difference between true heaven-born power and what is called a "touch of genius," or cleverness, that never passes beyond facility into creative power. Patience and repression are the common touchstones in such cases, for it is believed that genius, no less than virtue, sub pondere crescit. If the natural propensity conquer all obstacles and shoot up beneath the pres

Even words are dead things until the reason comes, and by arranging them in order breathes into them the breath of life. Much more are the forms and colors and materials of the outer world inanimate and soulless atoms, before they have been subject to the plastic hand of genius. The faculty of recognizing, drawing forth, and refining the

intentions contained implicitly in Nature | inadequate, because they do not dwell upon belongs to the true artist. And in this sense power of expression as an essential part of he stands as an interpreter between that rea- genius. For genius is an energy, to use the son which informs the universe and renders language of the schools, and not a simple it intelligible, and the lower race of men latent faculty. Yet both are just in so far as who see with purblind eyes. Connected they recognize the clear faculty of insight as with this power is that by which men are indispensable to genius. The third definition able to express in living words the feelings or worthy of quotation is that of Flourens, the thoughts that remain crude and undigested French physician. Contending against the to the majority of minds. Thus genius be- common paradox that genius is madness, he comes the interpreter of God and of the describes it as the highest development of world to man, and of man unto himself. reason in a man, the fullest power of compreIt is a priesthood and a prophecy, and we hension, and the most keen and healthy wonder not that in old days the man of gen- working of his faculties. Thus the man of ius was called the seer, the priest, the vates, genius need not be possessed of sickly nerves the hero. Hegel's theory of the embodiment and diseased blood, though these often imof a nation's spirit in its great men is here pede his clearer vision. On the contrary, he attached to this definition of genius. For must, quà man of genius, be in healthy corthe creative penetration of the one formula respondence with the world around him, feel becomes, in the other, the full development its workings, see into its secrets, understand of reason in particular and rare instances. its laws. How far these thoughts extend we shall have to show hereafter. But now we must return to one more point involved in the definition of artistic power, which throws much light upon the nature of genius in general. There is a line in one of Michel Angelo's sonnets which contains an excellent description of genius for the plastic arts:

We have now some data whereon to build a comprehensive theory of the nature of genius. It is no longer, as we have seen, a wandering will-o'-the-wisp, coming no whence and aiming no whither; but it is in its essence the strongest and highest gift of reason. And it shows itself, not in eccentric impulses toward the unknown, nor in mystical illuminations from above, but in a clearer and more steady comprehension of things as they are. This comprehension, however, it must always be remembered, is immediate and automatic in the case of true genius. This reservation is necessary, for if we include in the term all patient and conscious efforts after truth, we lose at once its special meaning. Everything in nature is miracle, and the works of genius, though they appear miracles, are no more than profound intuitions into nature. We call them supernatural and inexplicable, because we do not understand the process by which they have been arrived at. Nor, in fact, does the man of genius himself always understand it. He sees and feels, and speaks

"La man che ubbedisce all' intelletto." This corresponds with Sir Joshua Reynolds's definition, who made artistic power to be the faculty of conceiving a great whole and of executing it. The two terms are equally essential. Splendid visions may exist in the brain, deep feelings may shake the central heart; but genius, as we understand it, must not only see and feel, it must be able to interpret and express, to carry thought and feeling into the realm of concrete being, and make them living, real existences for other eyes and minds to contemplate and learn from. This is the meaning of its creative power. In this analysis of genius we have some-out what he feels. And when in ruder ages what run beyond three other definitions, which in their several degrees throw light upon its nature. Ruskin calls it the power of penetration into the root and deep places of the subject." Mill defines it the "gift of seeing truths at a greater depth than the world can penetrate, or of feeling deeply and justly things which the world has not yet learned to feel." Both of these we consider

men around him called him God-inspired and Prophet, he did not deny the title, but believed in spiritual revelations, putting the faculty of clear insight which he had within his soul outside himself, and transferring his reverence for self into a veneration for a higher power. Thus the most general definition of genius will describe it as the power of a highly developed reason to see into things,.

a faculty of intuition beyond the ordinary dwells in grass and trees and fields. These range of human sight; or, to use a converse illustrations might be multiplied ad infinitum. image, the power of reflecting the truth and In a word, true genius sees what none has real idea of things upon a less distorted sur- seen before, and by the strength of reason apface than the mind of common men presents. prehends it with so firm a grasp that it can But since the functions of our reason are readily express it through one of the many very various, and the whole of it is seldom media of communication between man and equally developed in one individual, we find man. For if the idea is fully seen, it cannot that genius assumes many different forms. fail to be expressed. Only incomplete visions That power of intuition which we have gen- and vague sensations are incapable of uttererally described is specially confined, in cer- ance. Of course, if we adopt this view of tain instances, to some particular branch of genius, we deny that it can be created in man, intellectual activity. The mathematical gen- but we assert that it can be trained and augius sees deeper than most men into the rela- mented to an almost indefinite extent. And tions of things when viewed under the ab- this is specially the case with the mechanical straction of numbers or of lines. The meta- facility of expression which we reckoned necphysical genius has full power over ideas, and essary to complete genius. That must first exviews the world from this one aspect. The ist in a rudimentary state. A man can never analogical genius, which plays so high a part be an artist, unless he is drawn like Giotto in poetry, has the faculty of comparison de- to the chalk, or like Handel to the spinnet, veloped to an extraordinary degree, so that in the faee of all difficulties; nor a poet, unit perceives the deep-seated points of resem- less he has command of language. But study blance which unite ideas and things. The quickens hand and eye, and increases the vosynthetical genius detects hidden bonds of cabulary. The double nature of genius, its union; the analytical observes the joints at conceptive and its representative faculty, is which division may be safely made. The gen- always to be recognized, but we see it most ius for religion penetrates at once into the clearly in the art of painting. There, a diswants of man, and understands his relation to tinct physical organization is absolutely requiGod; but its province is so vast and all im- site for the full production of the inner portant that men have generally given it a thought. As in all other matters so here, higher name. Nor is there any sphere of ob- art is an index to the laws which govern man ; servation too minute for genius. Leigh Hunt, and no one who cannot express, or learn to for instance, deserves that title as a poet be- express, a thought or feeling deeper than that cause he felt more deeply, and spoke out more of other men has a right to consider himself clearly than most men, the tenderness that a genius.

MR. MAVERHOFFER, in Vienna, the inventor of various electro-magnetic apparatuses, has lately laid before the committee of the Austrian parliament a new" voting-machine." Every member has two buttons before his seat-one black (No,) the other white (Yes)-which, by being slightly touched, produce a corresponding ball on two tables (white and black) at each side of the Speaker, visible both to him and to the whole House. One glance is thus sufficient to show at once to the Speaker, as well as to every member in every part of the House, whether the Ayes or Noes have it. We hear that the committee have reported favorably upon the invention, and that there is every likelihood of its soon superseding the old-fashioned and most inconvenient system of counting.-Reader.

MESSRS. WEIDMANN of Leipzig will publish during the autumn the first half of the second volume of Mætzner's English Grammar, containing Syntax; the first half of the second volume of Leo Meyer's" Vergleichende Grammatik der Griechischen und Lateinischen Sprache;" and the second part of the second volume of Classen's edition of Thucydides.

THE fourteenth and fifteenth volumes of Brockhaus's "Colleccion de Autores Espanoles" contain the works of Juan Eugenio Harzenbusch, edited by the author himself.