was so familiar, that, like the river and the mass of the city beyond it, the great bridge became a permanent part of the familiar scene, as if it had always been there, and would always remain-silent, solitary, and beautiful.

But on the loveliest of May mornings, when the sunlight was singularly clear and brilliant, and the air was cool and soft, there were flags flying from the tops of the towers, and from all the flag-staffs in the two cities, and from all the shipping that lined the river. An armed flotilla lay in the stream, with a long line of streamers stretching high over each vessel from stem to stern, and the little ferry-boats fluttered and rejoiced with flags, and there was the glad feeling of a happy holiday in the air. Perhaps some venerable spectator, conscious of a festival, and of the universal expectation of a great event, might have recalled that day in October fifty-eight years before, when a cannon was heard echoing the sound which, beginning in Buffalo, pealed continuously through the State of New York, and died away upon the echoes of the bay, announcing that the water of Lake Erie had been let into the canal, and that the fleet of barges had left the inland city, and would float upon the new watery highway to the sea.

Since that day the shores of the rivers and the harbour of New York have seen no such day of rejoicing over the completion of a great public work as that of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. The completion of the Croton Aqueduct was also a memorable event, and it was not the least of the interesting circumstances of the event of this year that one might truthfully say the bridge had been constructed as honestly as the Erie Canal or the Croton Aqueduct. The whole cost of the bridge which hangs so lightly over the river, the roadway of which is a little more than a mile long, is about twice that of the canal which stretches through the whole State of New York for two hundred miles, from the Hudson to Lake Erie. The cost of the canal was $7,602,000; that of the Croton Aqueduct was $12,500,000, and that of the bridge when completed, and including everything, will be $15,500,000. That this money, or the $9,000,000 expended upon the actual construction, has been honestly spent was one of the most surprising and satisfactory statements of the opening day.

Perhaps the possible observer of whom we spoke, now a venerable man, stood on the wharf, or sat in a boat upon the river, in 1825, and saw the stately flotilla descending the Hudson, the tall, erect figure of De Witt Clinton, Governor of New York, standing in front, his hands pouring the water of Lake Erie into that of the ocean, like the Doge of Venice, upon the golden Bucentaur, going to wed the Adriatic. But had he been present upon the recent bright May-day he would

have seen all the house-tops and windows and balconies that commanded the bridge crowded with people, and the streets below swarming with eager throngs; and at two o'clock, like a sudden drift of foam, he would have seen a mass of white plumes and helmets advancing upon the airy path, solitary since it was stretched from tower to tower, and soon the whole space would have glittered to his eyes with the waving brilliant mass moving at will, and without a drumbeat; and following close the spectator would have discerned a file of gentlemen in plain dress, the manly figure of the President of the United States preceding, and with him his cabinet, the Governor of the State, the Mayor of the city, and officers of every degree of dignity.

As they reached the tower, through the arch of which they passed from the long approach, and emerged upon the bridge above the river, the thunder of a general cannonade burst upon the air. The warsteamers blazed and roared, and amid the clouds of smoke their yards were manned, and the overarching lines of streamers blew gayly in the brisk wind. The moment which the long years of noiseless and incessant labour of every kind had anticipated had arrived, and across the silent highway flowed a stream of life which will flow for ever. Not a mishap marred the happy day. The addresses of the trustees, the Mayors, and the orators were worthy of the great occasion. The history of the work was admirably told; its moral significance was nobly drawn. The day ended with universal satisfaction, and when night came the Bridge streamed and shone and blazed with rejoicing fire.

And why not? That simple graceful span is one of the triumphs of human skill, one of the wonders of the world. Completed like a slowly gathering natural form, binding the two great cities indissolubly, no man can foresee the changes that it may portend. But to

"The eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality,"

without losing faith or hope in the destiny river hangs like a bow of promise in the air. of man, the delicate arch that spans the

FORTY-THREE or forty-four years ago Miss Harriet Martineau is reported to have said that in Massachusetts, one of the most highly civilised and advanced communities in the world, there were but seven industries open to women who wanted to work. They might keep boarders, or set type, or teach needle-work, or tend looms in cotton mills, or fold and stitch in bookbinderies. This statement was rather too definite, because there were other forms of labour open to them, especially those of the needle. there is no doubt that the opportunities of self-support for women by honest industry

But

in some other way than that of domestic service were very few and very limited. The tendency of society under the exclusive control of men has been to restrict unmarried women to the lowest kinds of drudgery or to the highest forms of luxurious idleness. There has been extreme impatience of all efforts for the "emancipation of women." But the most resolutely contemptuous sneerer at strong-minded women, and the most doughty foe of the cry of woman's rights, as if it were the slogan of the destruction of the essential feminine charm-a kind of war upon nature itself, must admit that, whether the discussion be regarded as a cause or a mere unhandsome phenomenon of progress due to other causes, it is during this discussion that the opportunities of women have greatly enlarged, and the general view of the relation of women to society has greatly changed.

In the State of Massachusetts, which was the scene of Miss Martineau's reputed observation, it is now announced that there are 281 occupations open to women, instead of seven, and that 251,158 women are earning their own living in these occupations, receiving from $150 to $3000 each every year. This computation does not include amateurs, or mothers and daughters in the household, and of course excludes domestic service. Such figures show the most insidious approaches of the sex toward that terrible equality which is the bug-bear of some sensitive souls, who wring their hands with apprehension lest the resistless development of society should deprive it, to change Charles Lamb's word, of women that are women.

The same hands are wrung violently at the mighty advances of co-education, the reason of which the Easy Chair set forth years ago upon the opening of the Sage College for Women at Cornell University, and as if by malign concert with the industrial report from Massachusetts comes the educational report from Sage College, which, with cold disregard of the apprehension that feminine women are about to disappear before the scirroca of progress, quietly asserts that the especially unfortunate and antiwomanly results which were foretold as sure to spring from the opening of that pleasant school are, in the words so often vehemently applied to the demand for women's rights, "stuff and nonsense."

It is a ludicrous turning of the tables that the objections to the freedom and equality of women's choice of their own occupations and career should be riddled by the facts. It is certainly very annoying to dignified and sententious conservatism which prefers to settle troublesome questions by waving them away, or by a conclusive ejaculation of "Pooh, pooh!" to perceive that the waving is ineffectual, and that the "Pooh, pooh!" is echoed by hard experience in a peal of laughter. It is a kind of Irish echo which

seriously disturbs dignity. Here, now, without the least regard for prejudice or dogmatism, Sage College in Cornell University announces, in the most matter-of-fact way, that the experience of all the colleges and academies at which young men and young women have been associated in study including the ten years experience of Cornell, and the twelve years experience of Michigan University, shows that the order has been better, the scholarship higher, and that the whole tone of the institutions has been improved, since the admission of women.

The college is not content, however, with a general statement. It disposes also, and unconditionally, of the especial objections which are theoretically and fluently urged. Instead of producing women who are not women, instead of brushing the down from the peach and the bloom from the grape, instead of transforming the graceful, clinging, and sensitive vine, of which we have heard so much, into a gnarled and withered masculine stump, the Sage circular asserts plainly that under its system young men grow more manly and young women more womanly. Moreover, it declares that young women bear the strain of study quite as well as young men; that there is no more sickness among them in proportion than among young men, and that the average of scholarship is higher. Cornell expressly disclaims any intention of proselyting. It does not urge that all colleges should admit women, or that all should admit men. It merely declares for itself that it feels it to be a duty and a privilege to open its doors to all who are fitted to enter, whether young men or young women, and proclaims that experience has confirmed the wisdom of this

course.

Under such circumstances it is unnecessary to inquire whether the great progress of the "woman movement," to use an extraordinary phrase of its friends, is due to the agitation of "woman's rights," or proceeds in spite of it. Such a movement, in any case, is a sign of profound and general interest. If it has sometimes a grotesque and eccentric aspect, it is only like all such discussions. The "cause of woman" is not always advocated wisely, but its signal progress since the day of Miss Harriet Martineau shows that even unwise advocacy of a good cause, dear to the public common sense and conscience, should not be suffered to deceive individual judgment or prejudice the cause. Those who have watched the dissolving and vanishing of much of the violent assertion that women are naturally so determined to be men that every kind of barrier and obstruction must be heaped up against them are often reminded of Agassiz's shrewd description of the stages of opposition to any new and important scientific truth. It is first declared to be ridiculous, then it is sure to destroy religion, and at length,

when it is established, everybody always knew it. The progress of scientific truths and sound social movements is like the French newspaper record of the return of

Editor's

Napoleon from Elba: The monster has landed. The perjurer is advancing. Napoleon is at Passy. The Emperor is in Paris.

10 the admirable Short History of French Literature, by Mr. which we had the pleasure of reviewing in these pages last year, a companion volume has now been added, containing brief extracts from the works of all the representative poets, philosophers, dramatists, novelists, historians, and essayists who have flourished in France from mediæval times up to the present. Only this was needed to complete the admirable series of educational books which Mr. Saintsbury began two years ago with his Primer of French Literature. The new volume, which is entitled Specimens of French Literature, from Villon to Hugo, may be used independently of its predecessors in the series, and probably contains as well chosen a collection of extracts as could be found; though in dealing with the literature of more than four centuries, there is room for great diversity of opinion as to the prominence to be given certain writers. It is disappointing to find Honoré de Balzac, the French Thackeray, given no more space than some of the obsolete mediæval poets; and yet when we come to search the works of Balzac for an extract more characteristic of him and not too long to be given a place in a volume of this size we find the task by no means easy. The same may be said in the case of several other famous writers; for, as Mr. Saintsbury remarks in his preface, some kinds of literature, such as prose, fiction, and drama, lend themselves with difficulty to the purpose. In a word, the more carefully we examine Mr. Saintsbury's book the more we are impressed with the happy choice he has made in his extracts, and the very scholarly arrangement and neat workmanship it shows throughout.

The Book-Lover's Enchiridion is a most valuable and attractive little volume, made up of extracts and quotations from the best writers of all periods from Solomon down to Ruskin; the whole being arranged in chronological order, and all the extracts having a bearing upon books and the habit and love of reading. "Infinite riches in a little room" is the legend appropriately

1 Specimens of French Literature; From Villon to Hugo. Selected and edited by GEORGE SAINTSBURY. Clarendon Press Series. 8vo., pp. 559. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.

2 The Book Lover's Enchiridion: Thoughts on the Solace and Companionship of Books. Selected and chronologically arranged by PHILOBIBLOS. 32mo., pp. 307. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.

VOL. LXVII.-No. 399.-30.

stamped upon the cover, and it is a marvel that so much could be comprised in a volume that goes easily into the waistcoat pocket. The beautiful clearness of the type, however, makes the pages as legible as those of a three-volume novel, and a more companionable book for a country ramble, or the winter fireside of a reading man, could hardly be thought of. The compiler, who modestly hides himself behind a nom de plume, gives evidence of deep reading and accurate scholarship, and his annotations are not the least interesting part of the very charming little book.

MR. JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON never writes a dull book, as all will cordially testify who have read his entertaining chats about the clergy, about doctors, about lawyers, etc., or who may read his latest ingenious specimen of book-making, The Real Lord Byron.1 Quite as gossiping and anecdotal as its predecessors, but without their erratic discursiveness, this volume is a consecutive semi-biographical monograph, in which no new facts of Byron's life are revealed, but those already known are collated from all the different memoirs, and disposed in new and ingenious lights, and the author seems. to be inspired throughout by the fixed purpose of correcting the misconstructions and misrepresentations which he conceives to have prevailed concerning the character and actions of the poet, with a view to influencing a more lenient verdict. Mr. Jeaffreson is too astute to undertake the task of proving Lord Byron's innocence of the charges of immorality that have been made against him; but while admitting these with a show of frank disapproval, he sophistically pleads in extenuation of them the

elementary forces and the structure of Byron's mental and moral constitution," the "provocations," fancied or real, to which he was subjected, and the tone of the English society of his own class and day. But after exhausting all his casuistry and arts of special pleading, the utter insufficiency of Mr. Jeaffreson's excusatory pleas is patent-nay, the pleas themselves are a concession of Byron's wholesale and deliberate depravity. In a plain man, not gifted with Byron's genius, Byron's "eccentricities" would be called by the plain name of vices. The "provocations" which Mr. Jeaffreson

1 The Real Lord Byron, New Views of the Poet's Life.

By JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON. 12mo., pp. 556. Londou: Hurst & Blackett.

cites to soften the poet's vileness or his malignity are found upon scrutiny to have been of a purely negative kind, when they had any basis of reality, while for the most part they were either the fruit of his own distempered brain or the systematical coinages of his own unscrupulous disposition. With the single exception of its conclusive disproval of the particular infamy charged in Mrs. Stowe's brochure, Mr. Jeaffreson's excusatory monograph is the most scorching indictment of Byron that has yet been framed, distinctly conceding the poet's addictedness not only to the entire round of minor vices-that he was mean, vain, selfish, fickle, coarse, and tyrannical-but also his pre-eminence in the graver offences-that he was a sensualist, dishonest, a liar, and in his later years a glutton and a drunkard. One rises from the contemplation of Byron's unsavoury career, as set forth by Mr. Jeaffreson's friendly hand, with a feeling of pity for the man.

MR. BROWNING's Jocoseria is a collection of half a score of short poems whose paternity is unmistakably indicated by the eccentricity of their style and the obscurity of their story. Mr. Browning is incapable of, or disdains a straightforward narrative. Digression and involution are his second nature, and his chief art is to wrap a simple and beautiful thought or story, that might be told effectively in a few simple and expressive words, in an endless robe of dark or brilliant shreds and patches, so that all the ingenuity of the reader is taxed to the utmost to follow its thread or discover its intention. The mental attitude of his mystified reader is that of curiosity and conjecture, as if a riddle were to be guessed or a conundrum soived; and doubtless the admiration of many of his most enthusiastic disciples is due as largely to their perplexity over his drift and meaning as to the really fine bursts of imagination that occasionally illuminate the most inscrutable of his poems. After allowing full credit for the poetic passages that gleam upon us here and there amid the surrounding tangle of aphorism and mirthless pleasantry and abstruse subtleties of which the framework of these new poems consists, it is difficult to perceive in what save the melody and the great variety of their versification they differ from prose; and unlike some of the best prose, there is scarcely a line to be found in them that lingers in the memory, or is destined, in Milton's phrase, "to a life beyond life."

A SEDUCTIVE volume to while away a leisure hour, or to occupy intervals when one is indisposed to hard or continuous reading, has been prepared from the accu

1 Jocoseria. By ROBERT BROWNING. 12mo., pp. 117. London: Smith & Elder.

mulated recollections of a prolonged and active life, by the veteran author and editor S. C. Hall. The retrospect extends from 1815 to 1883, and his record of it is an inexhaustible repertory of anecdote and incident, both grave and gay, told in a pleasant gossipping vein, and with absolute freedom from asperity or malevolence, reviving memories of the men and women the author has met and the notable or forgotten things with which he has come in contact in the course of his long and diversified career, and reviving numerous engaging reminiscences of vanished celebrities, fashions, manners, customs, and institutions.

Mr. Hall is the doyen of the literary guild. He numbers his years with the century, and yet after more than sixty years of active service his pen shows no sign of rusting; indeed, at the age of eighty-three he writes with even more freshness and vigour than in his younger days. To give anything like a list of the celebrities who figure in the reminiscences would be simply impossible here, for his diversified career has brought him into contact with eminent characters of almost every type. In his early days as parliamentary reporter, beginning as far back as 1823, he listened to the eloquence of such men as Brougham and Canning, Cobbett, O'Connell, Macaulay, Lytton, and the Iron Duke. As a journalist he came to know other journalists and men of letters and publishers, and his recollections of Lamb, Hazlitt, Carlyle, Moore, Bulwer, De Quincey, Washington Irving, Hood, Dickens-in fact, of nearly all the literary celebrities of the past half-century, are intensely interesting. Finally, in connection with the Art Journal, which he founded and continues to edit, and the history of the Exhibition of 1851, which he had a share in organising, a new element is brought into his living panorama, and reminiscences of Wilkie, Flaxman, Turner, Cruikshank, Gibson Foley, and many leading artists of the century, are merged with those of his other famous contemporaries.

ON taking up Mr. Griffis's new volume upon Corea, the eye is greeted by the large gilt figure of a fabulous monster, stamped on the cover-like the dragon the Chinese paint on their banners to intimidate the there to frighten away the critics he might enemy. If Mr. Griffis's monster was placed have spared himself the trouble, for his book is an extremely valuable and eminently readable one, and the only serious defect to be found in it is one which he points out himself with entire frankness, viz., it is not written from personal knowledge of the

1 Retrospect of a Long Life. From 1815 to 1883. By S. C. HALL. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley & Son. 2 Corea, the Hermit Nation. By WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS. Post 8vo,, pp. 462. With maps and illustrations. London: W. H. Allen & Co.