Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

The first place is given to an article upon that ill starred, but greatly gifted officer who had almost every talent except that of keeping a smooth tongue in his head and of getting on with men above him and below him. Fortunately, the reviewer spares us any lengthy dissertation concerning Hamley's grievances at Tel-elKebir, and we have a very charming, highly complimentary essay upon one of the most versatile soldiers of modern times. Most of the article is devoted to an appreciative criticism of Hamley as a man of letters. The reviewer says:

[ocr errors]

"It is perhaps too soon to attempt an estimate of Hamley's genius, and the task is beset with difficulties. The astonishing versatility of the writer who could produce 'The Operations of War' and 'Shakespeare's Funeral,' the Life of Voltaire' and the Treatise on Outposts,' the review of Lothair' and 'Our Poor Relations,' baffles the critic. We cannot regard him as the most accomplished soldier of his day without remembering his achievements in realms of thought where military science does not enter. We may not claim for him a rare distinction in the department of pure literature without recalling the grave disabilities imposed by his profession. If opportunities had been granted, the qualities displayed in the Crimea, in three foreign missions, and at Tel-el-Kebir, linked to a profound knowledge of the art of war, would doubtless have raised him to a high rank among military commanders. And if literature had been the main object instead of the recreation of his life he would unquestionably have left a deeper mark on the century. Failing the opportunities which have been freely provided for infinitely less capable soldiers, Hamley will be best remembered as the most brilliant military writer that this country has yet produced, and as a teacher who set before the British army a new standard of attainment. The student of the future who, discriminating between the shadow and the substance, attempts to trace the source of the great advance of military science in this country during the latter part of the nineteenth century, will be led back by sure steps to the 'Operations of War.'"

CLAUDIAN.

The article on this poet is chiefly composed of an elaborate description of his poems, which the reviewer estimates somewhat highly. He concludes his article as follows:

"Like Cowley and the metaphysical school, Claudian rather gratifies our intellect than our heart; he pleases our imagination without interesting our sympathies.

Like a winter sun, he illumines but seldom warms. Yet Claudian is a striking figure in Latin literature. Mr. Mackai, in a work-and we use the words deliberatelyof genius, has well described the position of the 'posthumous child of the classical world,' standing at the parting of the ways in the dying light of Paganism. The two contemporaries, Prudentius, the first Christian poet, and Claudian, the last of the classics, are 'like the figures which were fabled to stand, regarding the rising and setting sun by the Atlantic gates where the Mediterranean opened into the unknown Western seas.'"

NEW METHODS OF HISTORICAL INQUIRY.

This article is devoted to a review of Mr. Round's work as a founder of the school of history. The shortcomings of English universities considered as historical schools are contrasted with the superior equipment at the service of Continental historians. In short, in the domain of history, as in that of war and manufactures, we have got to learn a good many lessons from our German neighbors. The reviewer says:

"Before we can safely advance we must be sure of our ground, and in some directions we must even retrace our steps. We must begin by recognizing that history is a science, and not the handmaid of politics, or of literature, or of art. We must enlist in the service of the new history a whole army of auxiliary sciences, which may be conveniently mustered under the banner of Archaeology. We must have more texts and better texts to work from, and we must learn their use. We must resolutely discard the useless editions of our national records prepared by the well-meaning official antiquaries of the first half of the present century. We believe that this is the real lesson which Mr. Round has intended to impress upon us in the unpleasing form of 'terrible examples.' At the same time we must admit that he has not only justified his criticisms, but that he has shown us by the personal example of sixteen years of patient labor how the work ought really to be done."

THE FRENCH IN MADAGASCAR.

This article gives a concise and lucid account of the French campaign that ended in the conquest of an island, which, as an accompanying little map shows, is larger than the whole of France. The conquest cost France heavily in human life :

"The number of Europeans who died from the effects of the campaign during and since the war amounted to 4,189. Of Europeans and non-Europeans 4,600 bodies were left in Madagascar, 554 were buried at sea, while the grand total gives the figures 5,592 as the expenditure of life during the war. Over one-quarter of the 24,000 men who embarked on this expedition were thus lost to France, while the health of at least double that portion has been irretrievably ruined."

The reviewer is evidently of opinion that although France has purchased the island with the blood of her children, she is not in a position to reap the chief advantage of her conquest. He says:

"While bona-fide French colonists are conspicuous by their absence, an army of outside adventurers is already invading the different ports along the extensive coast line of the great island. Prospecting miners from the Cape, Australia and America, Banians, Parsees from Bombay, Arabs, Comoro Islanders, Zanzibarites-all greedy for gain and wholly regardless of native rightsare crowding in, clamoring for concessions in the auriferous and forest regions."

NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. The reviewer of the Duke of Argyll's recent book, "The Philosophy of Belief," speaks very confidently as to the place which Christianity occupies as reconciling the God of our religious consciousness with the God of the universe. He says:

"Too often Christianity has been treated as a faith apart from nature. Our belief is, that the teaching of Christ expressed the law of human life as it was from eternity. It was no new commandment, no novel faith. What He came to give was not a new invention, but a new discovery. It was a revelation, because men had not perceived it before; but it was a revelation of what was as old as gravity and as the everlasting mountains. The law of Sacrifice which Christ proclaimed was not then first set forth. The law existed from the beginning; the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. In Christianity we are going back to the everlasting sources of being, and we are also going forward to the perfecting of all things. Christ accepted the order of Nature; He would not by escaping it tempt God. He realized the law of progress. He did not expect men to understand all things at once. 'Ye cannot bar them now.' He taught the law of the survival of the fittest. He taught no less the law of self-sacrifice. He that los eth his life shall find it. But, unlike some among ourselves, He found this law of sacrifice in the universe." DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

The genius of Rossetti receives no stinted recognition in this article. Alike as a painter and as a poet, the reviewer is full of admiration. He admits, however, that "to our eye the lips, the throats, the fingers of Rossetti's beauties have something in them which is not quite human, but is like the flesh of sirens, hour is, or Lamiæ, those magical beings who capture the passions of men, but not their hearts."

Notwithstanding this defect, he declares that "in painting flesh and hair and drapery, in combining brilliancy of color like that of Memling with depth and graduation like that of Leonardo, no Engilsh painter ever excelled him."

As a poet he is equally supreme :

"With the exception of Shakespeare's and Wordsworth's, no cycle of English sonnets has aimed so high, and so truly hit the mark as his. But in the region which he chose for his own, a region of romantic sentiment and delicate thought and imagery, no English poet has surpassed him.

"He will not have his place at the side of the greatest. Keats, Browning, Reynolds, Turner; but he will always remain one of the most interesting and perplexing of English poets and painters; 'honored' (as his epitaph reads)' among painters as a painter, and among poets as a poet,' and in his double genius unique in the history of art."

Speaking of his religious faith, the reviewer refers to the fact that Rossetti, like almost all great poets, was a Borderlander:

"To many it appeared that Rossetti had no religion. He professed no form of religion, and conformed to none. But he called himself a Christian, and he had a strong belief in an immortality. His works, he said, showed that he was a Christian; and he believed himself to have had intercourse with the spirits of the dead, both by direct visions and through 'spiritualistic' divinations."

DEMOCRATIC FINANCE.

Mr. Lecky's ponderous volumes are taken as a text by the reviewer to parade the statistics which go to show

that democracy leads headlong to bankruptcy. In England, however, he rejoices to believe that a halt has been called in the headlong march to the abyss:

66

'The general election of 1895 marks a further step in the disillusionment of the nation with regard to popular government. Essentially, the result has been due to the revolt of the ratepayer. The revolt has long been expected, but we believe it has come at last."

He makes an astonishing statement that the amount of money collected by rates and taxes for all purposes in France amounts to a quarter the entire income of the people. England is not as bad as that, but she is getting on, as the following figures show, which he quotes from the returns of the Local Government Board of the local expenditure of England and Wales between the years 1867-68 and 1891-92 :

Increase per cent.

[blocks in formation]

55.2

30%

64

109.8

Receipts of all kinds (excluding new loans)...

[blocks in formation]

Expenditure of all kinds (including loan expenditure)... Loans outstanding at end of year. 60

EDWARD FITZGERALD AS A LETTER WRITER.

Taking as his text the three volumes of Edward Fitzgerald's letters and literary remains, we have a sketch of one of these notable Englishmen of whom few knew anything until after his death. Speaking of Fitzgerald as a letter writer, the reveiwer says:

"Good as Fitzgerald's letters are, he will not, we think, quite take equal rank with our three or four classical English letter writers. To be a classic of any kind, style is needed-style not only of occasional per fection, such as is to be found in these letters, but assured, sustained, unfailing, such as Gray and Lamb knew how to use in their letters--such, above all, as Cowper, without ceasing for one moment to be natural and simple, had always at command. After all, the chief interest of letters lies in the personality they reveal; and to many tastes that of Fitzgerald, racier and richer than Cowper, easier than Gray, larger than Lamb, will prove a rare, or even a unique attraction. No one, at any rate, can altogether miss his charm-so cheerful as he is and so kindly, so absolutely healthy and human and genuine!"

THE GENESIS OF DANTE'S BEATRICE.

In an article entitled "Dante's Vita Nuova,'" the reviewer argues strenuously for the theory that the original idea of Beatrice was that of the Church of Christ, which was described as the sleeping figure in the original sonnet. The reviewer believes that the "Vita Nuova" is an allegorical story of the conflict of faith and science, and that in this conflict lies its inner and veritable meaning:

"It is no part of our contention to diminish the human reality of Beatrice; but what we do contend for is this: that in the Vita Nuova' she is second and not first; that she has been brought in and added for artistic reasons; that her personality has been woven into the texture of the Vita Nuova' and of the Commedia,' but that she is not their spring and source; that, on the contrary, the spring and source are in that spiritual idea whereof Beatrice is the symbol and figured embodiment. Whether she was or was not a real person; and if so, whether she was a woman whom he loved, or whether she was to him only some bright, peculiar star; or thirdly, whether she did but furnish a name to him-in

all cases alike, it appears that she was added for poetical imagery after the Commedia ' had been outlined in the poet's mind.

"In favor of the interpretation which we here submit to the reader, we may urge that it is better evidenced than any other, that it removes more difficulties than any other, and that it supplies a more consistent plan and a continuous development from Incipit Vita Nova' down to the last canto of the 'Paradiso.'"

The other articles on "The Citizenship of the British Nobility," and "Democratic Finance" are dealt with elsewhere.

Τ

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

HERE are ten articles in the July number of the Edinburgh Review, all of which are readable, but none of which, not even excepting that upon Egypt, call for very extended notice.

CATHOLIC REACTION OF OUR TIMES.

The first article is devoted to a survey of the Catholic movement in the century of our times. It is based upon Mr. Purcell's "Life of Cardinal Manning" and Mr. Ward's book on "William George Ward and the Catholic Revival." The first part is devoted to a sketch of the Catholic movement in France, and then, passing through Germany, comes to England. The reviewer recalls the fact that Puseyism received its name owing to the dislike of Pusey to be associated with the men afterward known as Puseyites. Newman asked him to write a tract, which he refused to do, saying, "No, no; I do not want to be one of you." It was therefore published with Pusey's initials, in order to dissever him from the responsibility of the other tracts. The Record, noticing the initials, violently attacked Pusey, and so connected his name with the whole movement. The reviewer is genial and kindly in his references to Cardinal Manning, but he maintains that the real work of the Oxford movement was done within the Church of England. If the movement of 1833 did nothing else, it rescued the country districts of England from the ghastly dreariness of the world in which Miss Austin lived and which she described. The Catholic reaction has been an utter failure in so far as it was directed toward bringing back under the sway of authority any portion of the territory that had been conquered by human reason:

[ocr errors][merged small]

He

The reviewer hails the revival of the rural Scotch novel as the welcome sign of healthy reaction. selects for notice Mr. Barrie, Mr. Crockett, Ian Maclaren, and Jane Helen Findlater, whose book "The Green Graves of Balgowrie" is said to show evidence of remarkable promise. Mr. Barrie's books are referred to as exquisitely humorous. The advent of Mr. Barrie is compared to one of the revivals which stir souls from time to time alike in the Highlands and the Lowlands. He is at his best when his foot is upon the cobbly pavement of Thrums, and when confining himself within the actualities of his own experience. Of Mr. Crockett the reviewer says he is best in "The Raiders" and his

"Stickit Minister;" but his other books are more or less disappointing, especially "Cleg Kelly." Of Ian Maclaren he says:

"The author has all the intelligent sympathies of Mr. Barrie, and he is more searching in subtle mental analysis, as perhaps he excels Mr. Crockett in striking and sensational, yet lifelike portraiture. The Bonnie Briar Bush' is a sparkling book, though the weeping climate and the sombre scenery throw heavy shadows on the personalities of the struggling community."

SHERIDAN.

This article is a review of Mr. Fraser Rae's biography. The reviewer sums up his own estimate of Sheridan as follows:

"Sheridan's was a brilliant career, but it is a mistake to rank him among the greatest of English statesmen. Among the very first of our dramatists, our orators, and our wits he will always stand. And when we are considering his character, it should not be forgotten that his plays, so remarkable for brilliant cleverness and wit, are marked by a healthy, manly morality, very unlike the coarseness of preceding and the moral prurience of later days. The chivalry of his disposition is proved by his earnest support, in the days of their greatest poverty, of his wife's unwillingness to perform professionaly, though her doing so would have enabled them to live in comfort. His political career showed that he possessed great and generous qualities. Sheridan was a great deal more than a reckless adventurer on the political stage, and we rejoice that at last to the nobler side of a great man ample justice has been done."

VICTOR EMMANUEL'S GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.

The Countess Françoise Krasinska seems to have been a very lively young lady, beautiful and romantic. Her beauty and her romantic disposition landed her into a secret marriage with the Duke of Courland, who expected to succeed to the throne of Napoleon. Only when his chances of the crown were gone did he avow his marriage :

"This book, therefore, has a double value. It is, first, a 'human document,' delineating with extraordinary frankness the vanity, the ambition, the passion, but also the unselfishness and tenderness that go to make up the remarkable character of the young writer. Secondly, it is a picture, Holbeinesque in its fidelity, of the feudal state in which a great Polish nobleman lived in the last century, when elsewhere such conditions of life had long since become impossible."

THE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE SINCE 1870. This is a painstaking article written by a man who believes that the parliamentary systems have been a complete failure beyond all hope of remedy, and that the state has only to be saved from anarchy by a strong machinery of centralized government, which survives revolutions and dynasties. The nation is peaceable, industrious and indifferent to politics; but it has an army which is one of the most gigantic forces the world has ever seen. Education is spreading both among men and women. In 1878 70 per cent. of the women when married could not sign their names on the register; fourteen years later only 12 per cent. were in that condition. After all that has been done in secularizing education the number of children in Catholic schools, public and private, has only fallen off by 200,000. It was 1,800.000 in 1878, and 1,600,000 in 1893. The writer also points out that many of the so-called "laic" schools are quite as much under religious influences as the Catholic schools,

especially among the girls' schools, for some of the lay schoolmistresses are extremely devout, and anxious to stand well with the priests.

OTHER ARTICLES.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The article on "The Universities of the Middle Ages is chiefly devoted to a highly appreciative review of Mr. Rashdall's History, which contains an amount of information afforded by no other writer on the subject. The article on "The Paget Papers" is necessarily historical; but at its close the writer takes occasion to glance briefly at the present grouping of the Powers in the East. The article on "History and the National Portrait Gallery is brightly written, fuil of odd observations, such as the fact that the only crop-haired roundheads in the collection are Archbishop Ussher and Archbishop Laud. All the puritan leaders of note wore their hair long. Another interesting observation is as to the way in which Judge Jeffreys' portrait contradicts the character which he bears in history.

THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

HE National Review is a good number, interesting

THE

and varied. There is fiction in the shape of a charming ghost story; a good professional article on "Contributors," by the Editor; a paper on "The Unpopularity of the House of Commons," by Mr. T. Mackay; and a somewhat commonplace article on Mr. Chamberlain by Mr. Skottowe.

MR. GEORGE MEREDITH'S TRIBUTE TO MRS. MEYNELL. Mr. George Meredith so seldom appears as a contributor to periodical literature that special mention should be made of his very appreciative review of Mrs. Meynill's essays, which have been reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette. After criticising and praising each of her essays in turn, he admits the difficulty of selecting epithets to describe her gifts:

"A woman who thinks and who can write, who does not disdain the school of journalism, and who brings novelty and poetic beauty, the devout but open mind, to her practice of it, bears promise that she will some day rank as one of the great Englishwomen of letters, at present counting humbly by computation beside their glorious French sisters in the art. The power she has, and the charm it is clothed in shall then, be classed as distinction-the quality Matthew Arnold anxiously scanned the flats of the earth to discover. It will serve as well as the more splendidly flashing and commoner term to specify her claim upon public attention. She has this distinction: the seizure of her theme, a fine dialectic, a pliable step, the feminine of strong good sense-equal, only sweeter-and reflectiveness, humaneness, fervency of spirit."

THE SECRET OF CATHOLICISM.

The Rev. Canon Barry writes what reads like an eloquent sermon, taking Zola's book as his text. Protestantism, he maintains, is played out:

"Not preaching but sacrifice; not the meeting but the altar; not that which I can do for myself, but the power which flows out from an ordinance upon me; such is the charm, the grace of this undoubtedly historical faith. And preaching has grown wearisome, ineffective, or at least dangerous to belief, where the liturgy did not inspire and bear it up on heavenly wings. The secret of Catholicism is the supernatural in the world and rising beyond it, immanent that it may civilize, transcendant that it may redeem. Every Church calling itself Christian which has done, or is doing, a

work among men capable of resisting the fire, will be seen on close view, to have kept from the wreck of Christendom some one or other principle, whereby a living authority applies to circumstances what else had been a phantom of the truth. But historians, candidly marking the various phenomena, will, if I may trust my own reading, allow that Rome has excelled in meeting the demands of so many-sided a mission."

THE SILVER QUESTION.

The National Review is the only important periodical in England which has leanings toward bimetallism. It publishes the address which Professor Francis A. Walker delivered to the British Bimetallic League in the City of London, which we review elsewhere.

MR.

THE NEW REVIEW.

R. ARTHUR MORRISON gives us one of his painful studies of mean streets, entitled "A Child of the Jago." Mr. James Annand discourses on "The Intolerable Waste of Parliament," without, however, proposing any short cut to the remedying of the same. Mr. Parker revises the reporting of the interview between Li Hung Chang and Count Ito, which was printed in the Far East at the close of the war. We notice elsewhere the articles upon the Cuban question and Judge Jeffreys. Mr. Ian Malcolm, M.P., contributes some notes of his made in Moscow at the time of the coronation. David Hanny writes an interesting article on "Brantöme." He is best known by his book, "Les Dames Galantes," which has been through thirty editions:

"If any man wishes to sit down and have his talk out with an observant old gentleman who knew Catherine de Medici, and had cause to complain of the ingratitude of Henri III.; who marched sword in hand to see Bussy d'Amboise safe out of reach of his would-be assassins; who sailed with the Grand Prieur to Scotland, escorting Mary Queen of Scots, and to Malta to drive away the Turk (but the unbeliever, unfortunately, was gone before these sixteenth century crusades arrived); who was near at hand when the great Duke of Guise fell by the pistol of Poltrot de Méré; who, in fine, heard, saw and recorded innumerable manifestations of human nature at a time when it displayed its very foundations in defiant freedom, let him open Brantöme passim and fall to. He will not be disappointed.”

Dr. George M. Carfrae, writing on "The Drift of Modern Medicine," claims:

"1, That in our day medicine has made great advances; 2, that this advance is due to the discovery of specific remedies in particular diseases; and 3, that the number of these will be increased in proportion as we carry out to its ultimatum the rule 'Similia similibus curantur.'"

M

THE INVESTORS' REVIEW.

R. A. J. WILSON is in great form in the August number. We notice elsewhere his remarks on what he calls the Chicago revolutionary convention. But to see Mr. Wilson at his best-that is, to watch him expounding the law which in his eyes governs the whole world-namely, that everything, cheap money, or dear money, leads but to the goal of bankruptcy and general smash-we must read his article on "The Relation of Cheap Money to High Prices." After expounding exactly how it works, he finishes with the usual prophecy of coming crash :

This

"We have now reached, by the ways described, a very extreme condition of inflation, and yet nobody can predict when the balloons will begin to burst. On the surface all great centres of banking credit are tolerably strong, and our own seems to be exceptionally so. country never saw such a stock of gold as the bank possesses, and it is a stock being continually added to. Is it likely to be enough in all circumstances? We shall see. That some such end must come to the inflation, now so enormous on all European stock exchanges, is as certain as the succession of months and years, and the longer the reverse is postponed the more widespread will be the disaster. It might quite conceivably be a calamity great enough to swamp the credit of many of our strongest looking banks, and to set the world back for half a generation. Therefore the all important question which has now to be considered is the probable duration of the present state of markets."

The consideration of the question of the date he adjourns until next month.

SNOBS AND FOOLS.

A couple of pages are devoted to setting forth the probability of the British South Africa Company being able to carry on. The following passage gives us a fair touch of Mr. Wilson's quality :

"The next thing we shall hear is a concerted howl on the part of the board, the 'chartered' shareholders and their friends in Parliament and out of it, for the assumption by the home government of the entire responsibility and charges incident to carrying on this stock gamblers' 'empire.' Judging by past experience, this demand is sure, after a more or less pronounced show of resistance, to be acceded to by the present desperately Imperial Ministry. We shall have this splendid addition to the Empire' thrown upon our hands after Mr. Cecil Rhodes and his friends have made magnificent fortunes out of the promotions,' 'flotations,' general orange sucking annexations, and shameless self-glorification connected with it; and if the country can be annexed by us, administered and developed for a million a year dead loss during the next ten or fifteen years, perhaps longer, we may think ourselves lucky. Of course the interest upon the debenture issue now made, and on any subsequent issues, will then become the charge of the British exchequer, and a never ending burden upon us who pay the taxes. Well, it serves us right for being such snobs and fools. There is no measuring the depths to which our complaisant temper toward titled wealth-blighters." Discussing the debate on the Indian troops at Suakim, Mr. Wilson says:

"Should we fall into the habit of employing mercenary troops from India in the various African wars, which we seem destined to wage for another generation -assuming that India keeps financially on her legs for so long-a day might come when an unscrupulous government would not hesitate to employ them against ourselves."

There is one extraordinary thing about the August number, and that is the article on railways in China by Mr. M. R. Davies. It is the one solitary gleam of light in the whole number, for Mr. Davies believes that there is a great future before China:

"The one thing now wanting for the salvation of China is the construction of a good railway system and an appreciation of the undeveloped wealth of the country."

This solitary expression of hope or faith shines out in strange contrast to the gloom of all the rest of the Review.

CORNHILL.

HE August number of Cornhill is full of excellent

aires" is quoted elsewhere. So are some of the quaint stories in "Children's Theology."

AN IMPECUNIOUS STATESMAN.

The late Sir Henry Parkes is the subject of a kindly character sketch by Mr. A. Patchett Martin, who is, however, careful not to leave the warts out of the picture. The deceased statesman, it appears, was a great borrower :

"Parkes, too, apart from his salary (when in office) had, in the language of the police court, 'no visible means of support.' He accordingly adopted the Falstaffian method of perpetual borrowing. He

even reduced his borrowings to a scientific system, and when in want of money applied to the first friend he met in the street for £30. This was his pet figure." The writer thus sums up the man :

"He was, first and foremost, a public man—in some respects a truly great one. That a man with such drawbacks and deficiencies-lowly birth, poverty, lack of early education, lifelong improvidence, to which may be added untoward, if not unhappy, domestic relationshipsshould have played such a part for fifty years in public affairs can only be accounted for by the combination of great intellectual capacity with an inborn gift and genius for statesmanship."

A TRIBE WITHOUT A GRAVE.

Memoirs of a Soudanese soldier, Ali Effendi Gifoon, dictated in Arabic to Captain Percy Machell, and by him presented in English dress, give strange glimpses into cannibal life in the Soudan:

"The Fertit tribe used in their own country to eat each other freely, and when a man was so ill as to render the chance of his recovery improbable, he was bought in advance by the highest bidder. The Fertit had no graves, and there is no word for 'graveyard' in their language."

A gruesome story is told of a Fertit recruit who, after being long without human food, broke out, seized a child from its mother's arms, wrung its neck, and " commenced his repast." As punishment he was sent back to his own country. A somewhat "Arabian Night' like story is added of a kite seizing on a sheep's liver in the basket of a chief's servant, and dropping in its place another kind of liver, which, cooked and eaten and found by the chief to be most delightful, was discovered to be a child's liver. Thenceforward the chief had a child killed every day, and dined off its liver. Ultimately the aggrieved parents objected, and the chief was killed.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

OTHER ARTICLES.

Horace G. Hutchinson puts in a plea for "fagging" akin to that advanced for early monarchs, that if they did oppress their own subjects, they let no one else oppress them, the concentration of oppressive power in the hands of one man being much more bearable than miscellaneous aggression and spoliation. The fagmaster protects the fag from promiscuous bullying. Professor J. K. Laughton furnishes an anniversary study of the Battle of the Nile, which befell August 1, 1798, and another historico-military study is of Gustavus Adolphus, by Mr. Spencer Wilkinson. The "Pages from a Private Diary" form a breezy chatty chronique.

« PreviousContinue »