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of Nisard's description of Madame de Sévigne's own preciousness as "one superfluous ribbon in a simple and elegant toilet "; or paraphrases without quoting, as where upon a well-known sentence of M. Sorel's he founds the remark that "Madame de Stäel's novels are old now, which means that they once were young"; or adds flowers of his own, as where he defines Hugo's vanity, "if it is vanity to take a magnified broken-shadow for oneself and admire its superb gesture on the mist "-is seldom disagreeable. We, at worst, doubt whether "M. de Climal -old angel fallen" is not a little grotesque, and whether in "He knew how to wing his verses with a volent (volant?) refrain," "flying" would not have done better than "volant." But these are small matters; and of matters smaller still we have only one thing against Professor Dowden or his printer, which is the adoption of the horrible Anglo-French contraction "Mdlle." instead of "Mlle." Fortunately we are spared "Mdme.," though it would have been only consistent.

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Those who have occupied themselves much with the history, politics, or literature of Russia must often have felt the want of a good biographical dictionary of distinguished Russians. The want was felt and publicly expressed by the late Emperor Alexander III. at a meeting of the Imperial Russian Historical Society, and his Majesty suggested that something of the kind might be undertaken by the society in question. The Imperial suggestion has borne fruit. First, a so-called sbornik was prepared and published in two volumes, but it was soon felt that such a brief summary, though useful enough in its way, was quite inadequate for the object in view. It was decided, therefore, that a greater effort should be made in the same direction, and the president of the society, M. Poloftsef, undertook the direction of the work. It promises to be of gigantic dimensions. The first volume, which is the only one hitherto published, is a quarto of 892 pages in double columns, and it includes merely, as the title-page shows, the names from Aaron to Alexander II. Of course the length of the articles varies considerably according to the importance of the personage whose life is described. In the great, highly centralized, autocratic Monarchy, the Autocrats entirely overshadow, and almost eclipse, ordinary humanity, and this peculiarity is reflected in the work before us. Out of the 892 pages no less than 751 are devoted to two Emperors-Alexander I. and Alexander II.-and only 141 to uncrowned mortals.

Fortunately, the lives of these two Sovereigns are very well written, the authors having in both cases examined and utilized not merely the best printed works relating to their subject, but also a considerable amount of hitherto unpublished material. It requires, however, a very intimate acquaintance with the previous literature to determine what is inédit, because the individual statements of fact are in no case authenticated by a reference to the ticular authority on which the statement is based. No doubt the initiated, by reading over the list of authorities, can generally be pretty certain as to the source, but it would have been much more satisfactory if the authorities had been cited for at least the more important statements. As it is, strong calls are sometimes made on our faith in the scrupulous accuracy and sound judgmen of the authors.

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Both of these are well known as careful historical investigators, and their articles contain internal evidence of the care they have taken to arrive at the truth, but the prudent reader would prefer to use his own judgment a little more, and be less frequently obliged to trust to that of others, however able and conscientious these others may be. At the same time he is frequently reminded in an unpleasant way that what he is reading was written under the vigilant eye of the Press-Censor-not, indeed, the Press-Censor of the ordinary type, but an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose duty it was to see that no political secrets were divulged, and no diplomatic indiscretions committed. We mention these things simply as facts, and not with any intention of complaining, because we are well aware that in all countries the privileged historian who is allowed to burrow in archives of comparatively recent date is always subjected to a control of this kind, and is obliged to keep for himself many delicious plums which he would gladly share with the general public. In a country like Russia, where the Emperor is theoretically responsible for all the sins of commission or omission of which his Government may stand convicted, and where it is one of the fundamental principles of Statecraft that the public veneration for the Autocratic power and the August personage in which it is for the moment incorporated should be most carefully preserved, the precautions taken against the possible indiscretions of semi-official and independent historians must be exceptionally rigorous. Taking all this into consideration, and remembering that the reigns of the two Sovereigns described belong to the present century, we are surprised not at the amount of restraint imposed, but rather at the amount of liberty accorded. We are agreeably impressed also by the effort the writers have. made to avoid, as far as possible, the use of that unctuous ceremonial language which is so frequently used in semiofficial articles regarding not only the Tsar, but all the members of the Imperial family. Though the customary stereotyped phrases occasionally appear, they are not obtrusive, and they are not accompanied by a straining after what is known in the Russian literary world as political" well-intentionedness" (blagonamêrennost)-a peculiarity which so often disfigures semi-official Russian literature.

The article on Alexander I. is written by M. Schilder. Of him it will be sufficient to say that he has already made for himself a well-merited reputation as a careful investigator, well acquainted with the personages and events he describes, and that he has not allowed his judgment to be seriously warped by patriotism or prejudice. Of M. Tatishtchef, the author of the long article of 507 pages on Alexander II., we ought, perhaps, to speak a little more in detail, for he was exposed to much greater temptations. A considerable portion of his life had been spent in the Russian diplomatic service, and he had played a part-albeit a subordinate one-in some of the events with which he has had to deal. Among those who played the most important diplomatic rôles he had his friends and he had his enemies, and he could hardly have forgotten the bad services rendered to him by some of the latter. Besides this, it is no secret that he has, with regard to the Eastern Question, certain very strong convictions which he would like to see adopted by the public and by the Government, but which were not in favour during the reign of Alexander II. He had, therefore, strong temptations to let his judgment as an historian be biased and distorted by personal feelings; but we must do him the justice to say that he has resisted such

temptations to a wonderful extent. The easy flow of his narrative is rarely disturbed by political reflections, and he never adopts a polemical attitude. Here and there the reader who is well acquainted with his diplomatic activity or his subsequent writings may perhaps detect the personal note, but it is nowhere obtrusive, and it cannot be said that the facts have been coloured or distorted to suit foregone conclusions. What we are inclined to complain of is that he sometimes whets our curiosity without satisfying it. Take, for example, the famous mission of General Manteuffel to St. Petersburg in 1866, when Napoleon III. was threatening to intervene in the peace negotiations between Prussia and Austria, and when M. Benedetti, referring to the Manteuffel mission, informed his Government that his efforts were fruitless because the Prussians had found support" elsewhere." It is well known that Bismarck on that occasion undertook certain engagements as the price of Russian diplomatic support, but these concessions have never been divulged, and consequently it is impossible to determine how far the accusations subsequently brought against him by Russia are well founded. In dealing with this incident M. Tatishtchef had evidently before him the diplomatic documents relating to it, for he gives a very detailed account of General Manteuffel's first interviews with Alexander II. and with Prince Gortchakoff, and he does not conceal the fact that the pourparlers at first brought out into strong relief the latent antagonism of the two Governments. Even the words of the Emperor are quoted verbatim. Then, to our disappointment, a hiatus occurs in the narrative, and we find the two Sovereigns once more in the most cordial relations. Evidently, in the interval, the foundations of that understanding which was to prove so useful to Prussia in her struggle with France had been laid, but the operation had taken place behind the scenes and we are told nothing about it. Nor is this by any means the only case in which a corner of the veil is raised and then suddenly dropped without any explanation. It would be unreasonable, however, as we have already admitted, to complain of reserve and reticence of this kind. A biographical dictionary is expected merely to summarize information already published. It is precisely because M. Tatishtchef writes as an historian rather than a mere summarizer that we frequently feel disappointed in reading his long and instructive article. It is hardly necessary to say that the great majority of the articles awaken no such feeling. They are merely dictionary articles of the ordinary type, and they will satisfy all ordinary requirements.

We cordially wish the undertaking all success, and we hope that the succeeding volumes may appear within a reasonable time, but we must confess that on this point we are not without apprehensions, for among Russian literary men it must be difficult to find the methodical perseverance required to bring to a successful termination a work of such gigantic dimensions.

William Blackwood and His Sons: Their Magazine and Friends. Annals of the Publishing House. By Mrs. Oliphant. 2 Vols. 9×6in., 522+514 pp. London, 1897. Blackwood. 42/No better historian of the house of Blackwood (the publishing house) could have been found than Mrs. Oliphant. She possessed the lively tradition of a firm always full of vitality and vivacity. From the beginning, the Magazine was regarded by the people concerned as a kind of immortal literary nymph, "Maga," whose contri

butors were her true knights. From the beginning the founder of the firm and his successors were the friends of their eminent hands; these early friendships were stormy and interrupted but unbroken. A kind of loyalty to the house was felt, such as Knox entertained for the Hepburns; the sentiment was Scottish, almost romantic, and perhaps unexampled among the clients of English publishers. Mrs. Oliphant, a truly veteran ally and contributor, had the Blackwoodian sentiment in the highest degree. Picturesque rather than accurate as an historian, in this case she had documents before her and her publisher to keep her in the right way. Her book is full of interesting literary anecdote, and it is not her fault that the early years have often been written of before. Her fault is an excess of her qualities. The firm and the Magazine are magnified in her eyes, but that is part of the humour of her book. She is also too copious about things unessential.

Of Blackwoodian genealogy we have none. The original Blackwood seems to have been descended from a burgess ruined by the Darien affair, but no links of pedigree are given, and, nearly alone among Scots, Mr. Blackwood claimed not to be "the King's cousin." He was born in 1776, and apprenticed at 14 to a firm of booksellers. We are told, more Oliphantico, what the boy "would do " in the way of diversion, but, of course, we know not what he did. He then became Glasgow agent to Mundell, the publisher of Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope." Part of his business was to hunt out old books for customers such as " The Disputation " of Nicol Burne (1581), who is so cheerfully frank about John Knox. For years later, publishers were also sellers of old books; we know "Longman's Catalogue." With a Mr. Cuthill, in London, " famous for his catalogues," Blackwood worked three years. In 1804 he established himself on the South Bridge, in Edinburgh, being then a handsome, well-dressed young gentleman, to judge by his miniature. Fifteen years later his aspect and manner did not please Lockhart, nor his friend Christie, both fastidious young Oxonians. Lockhart's familiar name for him is unpublished, and may so remain ; it is eminently disrespectful. In 1805 Blackwood married a young lady "with a king's name," Miss Steuart (of Carfin), whom he had long admired. The Scottish literature of the early century was blossoming, and Mr. Blackwood went into it, being "rash, but not so rash" as Constable. He alone, of these northern adventurers, made and kept a fortune by bookselling. Scott was buying old books from him as early as 1812; he wrote, with order, on that luckless day when he "flitted" from Ashestiel. When the Ballantynes and their bills frightened Mr. Murray, Mr. Blackwood became, for a time, not a pleasant time, his Edinburgh agent. He himself published M'Crie's "Knox," which Mr. Stevenson found so arid. In 1814 Hogg came into Blackwood's view. In 1816-17, Blackwood's adventure with Scott's "Black Dwarf ” occurred.

Mrs. Oliphant devotes much space to this affair. She thinks that Lockhart, perhaps designedly, told the tale of Blackwood's natural discontent with "The Black Dwarf" and offer of a hint for a new conclusion so as to leave "a disagreeable impression" of Blackwood. "Except the sons of the Edinburgh publisher there was nobody to be wounded." This is, indeed, to be sensitive! There is not a wounding word in Lockhart's anecdote (which is quoted textually) or, if any one had a right to be hurt, it was the descendants of Sir Walter. The sons of Blackwood themselves furnished Lockhart with documents on the subject for his second edition. Mrs. Oliphant calls Lock

hart's version "exactly the kind of skilful compound of truth and imagination which has ruined the character of many a man." Yet Mrs. Oliphant adds nothing, and disproves nothing, and nobody's" character" is harmed. Scott was amusingly touchy; Blackwood was amusingly tactless. Mrs. Oliphant offers a guess, that Scott himself wrote the words substituted by Ballantyne for the first furious note," God damn his soul !" Perhaps he did; nobody knows. And she says that Scott has been more intimate with Blackwood than Lockhart thought. At this date (1816) Lockhart had no acquaintance with Scott, and later an unpublished letter of Scott's to Laidlaw, about the bookseller, shows very hostile, though doubtless transitory feeling.

In business questions relating to the novel, which are given in detail, Blackwood had much to complain of on the part of the Ballantynes and, perhaps, of Sir Walter. But the "Black Hussar " and "Black Dwarf" anecdote remains exactly as Lockhart gave it, and could only "wound" a person suffering from emotional hyperesthesia. That Scott was irritated by the showing of his work to Gifford (which he had refused to allow), as well as by Blackwood's proposed new end to his novel, is already clear from Lockhart's narrative, and is no discovery of Mrs. Oliphant's. Blackwood's letter to Ballantyne is given by Lockhart himself (Vol. V., p. 158), and on the affair of Scott's wrath Mrs. Oliphant adds nothing whatever.

The early history of Blackwood's Magazine (1817) is familiar. Owing to some combination of causes it had a far from creditable youth. Mrs. Oliphant may, or may not, have worked out the series of savage libels, now obscure enough, for which Wilson, Lockhart, and Maginn were responsible. These go far beyond "rather cruel fun," and often are not funny at all. Wilson's ferocious article on Coleridge is, however, sufficiently reproved by the lenient Mrs. Oliphant, and Lockhart's "Cockney School" is justly styled "unpardonable." As to the Chaldee MS., except in a few disgraceful verses, it was innocent. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe had been grossly rude to Mr. Blackwood, and deserves what he got (Vol. I., p. 54).

Of Lockhart little is told that is new. His notes to Blackwood do not reveal the "inmost soul of him," which is, and will remain, undiscovered. He asks for a sight of a nox ambrosiana by Hogg, "that I may put in a few cuts at himself," but he shows a singular protecting care of Wilson's feelings. His butt, the Odontist, remonstrates in vain; it is clear that he did not like the fame which was thrust upon him-the "Jocks," as he spells it. There are two letters, obviously written after the ScottChristie duel. Lockhart was disinclined to write for the magazine. Scott absolutely disapproved of his doing so. Christie pressed him to abstain, and perhaps Blackwood should have left him alone. Lockhart knew, no doubt, that he could not trust himself to abandon satire, and it is much to be regretted that he did contribute a review of Patmore, John Scott's second in the duel. The relations with Lockhart were weakened, but remained friendly, and were continued to the successors with all Lockhart's unvarying kindness to young people. Blackwood, out of a laudable but mistaken tenderness for Scott, rejected an amusing skit of Lockhart's on Scott's imitators. We think that it appeared, as a review, in The Quarterly; and Scott must have been amused, for none of the banter touched him.

Wilson appears as a very sensitive author, and Mrs. Oliphant has not spared the tale of his terror lest Wordsworth should find out one of his caprices. After being

Wordsworth's guest, after a renewal of a broken friendship, Wilson instantly attacked him violently in Blackwood, and the fact was likely to be discovered. Wilson was reduced to a kind of hysterical fear of exposure, and his whole conduct is inexplicable. Till his death he loathed his early deity, Wordsworth; nobody knows why. "We understand," says Lockhart," these failures of one of the best-hearted men God ever put breath into." "The professor really seems to act on such occasions as if he was mad" is another observation which does not clear matters up. All this aspect of Wilson, his purposeless, ungenerous rabies of attack on Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Scott, is, necessarily, not to be found in Mrs. Gordon's "Life of Christopher North." Lockhart is not a character easily understood, but the bluff Wilson is even more puzzling. Wilson was excessively unpunctual with "copy," and Mrs. Oliphant confesses that the 20th of a month once came to herself, without a line written of her monthly instalment of her novel. "These were still the heroic days," says this lady, "at heart a rake" in literary matters, and gifted with a tenderness for the ancient erratic habits of scribbling mankind. Wilson appears later, like most of the heroes, as dilatory and energetic by turns; they all showed energy in writing vast letters of quarrel, excuse, and remonstrance, when they might have been at work.

The Shepherd appears in his usual character, ever in pursuit of a fugitive note for £50. Mrs. Oliphant rather underrates the Boar of Ettrick, who really was a man of genius, "the most extraordinary man that ever wore the maud of a shepherd," writes Lockhart, even when estranged. From James Blackwood endured many intolerable things, but from Maga (which gave the ideal Shepherd to the world) James had often much to endure. Ballantyne, as printer, went beyond his province in criticizing an attack on Hogg; he was tactless, here, but honest.

Maginn appears in his real colours, all but absolutely unscrupulous (he was sorry for having attacked Keats), lying, laughing, gossiping, versatile, and finally, broken utterly, and every way bankrupt. Blackwood's censures on his own refusal to sell "Don Juan" are manly and humorous. He thus retorted on Murray's moral refusal to be concerned in the magazine. But he was also disgusted by "that friend's " (Byron's)" attempt to degrade every tender and sacred feeling of the human heart," so he told Maginn. It is curious that Maginn long refused to take money for his articles. Maginn proposed that Lockhart should review his own "Spanish Ballads" for the Quarterly, or that Blackwood should get any scholar to do it, when Maginn would send in the criticism-as his own! Nobody reviewed the Ballads, Southey would not touch. poetry, and no competent hand could be found.

Coleridge appears in a light very Coleridgean. Wilson, after wishing to review him kindly in the Edinburgh, for some inscrutable reason libelled him in Blackwood. Coleridge consulted Crabb Robinson about an action for libel. Lockhart, however, won over S. T. C. by praise in "Peter's Letters," and then, more maladroitly than mischievously, published part of a letter of his. Communications were established, and Coleridge was invited to write. He replied by sending a theory of how to conduct a magazine, and offered "the whole weight of my influence, name, and character." Coleridge did contribute, in his vaporous, wandering way, but where is his "Lyrical Tale, 250 lines," with three or four equally important poems? To Scott's style he applies the phrase, "the oncarryingness of his diction." The pages of de Quincey's correspondence are almost too painful for publication. He sends a page or two of an

article, and needs a pound or two; he reveals old squalors, infinitely better left to oblivion; he wastes time and energy in elaborate, useless epistles; he insults Blackwood's feelings about "ma Maga" with intolerable want " with intolerable want of tact. The letter in Vol. I., p. 435, ought to have been omitted, for very conspicuous reasons. Mrs. Oliphant contrasts with de Quincey's ways the literary commercialism of to-day, with its prices "per thou." Of old they reckoned by "sheets;" that is all the unessential difference. We know enough about de Quincey, and his part of the book gives more pain than pleasure. Galt's also is melancholy, he had but one serviceable string; of that, the world wearied, and he laboured on sadly through a variety of failures. Samuel Warren appears with an ebullient vanity, but his prime successes were great, and most serviceable to the magazine.

From publishing Mrs. Oliphant turns, in a sympathetic manner, to Mr. Blackwood's domestic life, which was prosperous, his quiver being full of sons ready to speak with the Whigs in the gate. It is amusing to find young Alexander Blackwood, in London, congratulating his sire on the decrease in the number of Lockhart's contributions and the simultaneous increase in the magazine's "character for respectability " (1825). He does not assert a causal connexion between these facts. The lad was put through the routine of the trade from its lowest degrees, "with a blue bag on his shoulder," an ordeal unneeded, but never repined at by Alexander. A young man who cheerfully carries "heavy loads "through" long visty walks " is the right and rare sort of young man. The vast family letters, though highly creditable to every one concerned, are not of great general interest.

The elder Blackwood died in the autumn of 1834. Lockhart tells a curious anecdote of his deathbed. "He asked me to smoke a cigar." The brief manly page on Blackwood's character (II., 134) was from Lockhart's pen. No other estimate is needed of a man whose chief foible was "a sincerity that might be considered rough," and whose only obvious fault was concession to the excesses of three wild contributors. Mr. Blackwood, however, was wholly of the mind that Whigs were constitutionally "vile," and that he was rather an injured being in the ancient brawls. "Oh, professor, you will stand by the boys!" said the anxious widow to Wilson, who did stand by them with all of his eccentric vigour. John, who finally became his father's successor, did not like the "blue bag" and the long, muddy walks.

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The young Blackwoods rejected an early work of Thackeray's, and other pieces (1840), which they must have had reason to regret. Branwell Bronte's verses were not even returned to him; he was a mere boy, and his letters show that he had, at least, "the temperament of genius." "I appear to you to be writing with conceited assurance" (he thought he could supply the Shepherd's place), "but I am not You have lost an able writer in James Hogg, and God grant you may get one in Patrick Branwell Bronte "-aged fifteen. Branwell sent in a promising piece called "Misery, Scene 1." He also offered octosyllabics in Scott's manner, about "a wounded charger vast and white, all wildly mad with pain and fear." No notice was taken of the unlucky and undeniably precocious boy. He was not more absurd than Sterling with his offer to write, in thirty or forty numbers, on Goethe! Contributors are not only a fierce, but a crazy folk. Their vagaries are stereotyped, and are constantly illustrated here. "The extreme sensitiveness of George Eliot leaves its mark; she even meddled with the profound mystery of advertisements. These a publisher may be

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left to understand and manage, while the wise author keeps his "puzzled dissatisfaction" to himself.

The affairs of the Epigonoi are not of exciting interest, and there interest, and there are certainly far too many long letters which might have been reduced to a few paragraphs. This error has become common to all biographers the letters interest them, are their own discovery, as it were, and also fill space. But this book, like almost everything of the kind in recent years, would be better if it were terser. What could not be bettered is Mrs. Oliphant's short personal note, which concludes the second volume. Her courage" absolute foolish courage in life and Providence "-the melancholy which fate forced on her, her humour, her tenderness are all here,. and the last lines of her task are worthy of her genius in its freshest hour. Hers was an example of all manly and womanly virtues.

The interest of the Memoirs will doubtless revive with the reign, in the third volume, of Mr. John Blackwood, whose literary and social sense was powerful and popular. But this volume will not be from the hand of Mrs. Oliphant. Her earthly task is done. This portion of it was well worth doing, for Blackwood and his circle, though Time has overtaken much of their work, lighted and kept alive a vivid interest in literature, especially among the young. Many men of letters might repeat the confessions and acknowledgments of a great debt, which are rather prematurely offered by poor Branwell Bronte.

Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, based on PsychoAuthorized logy and History. By Auguste Sabatier. Translation by the Rev. T. A. Seed. Crown 8vo., xv.+348 pp. London, 1897. Hodder and Stoughton. 7/6

This is, on the whole, a striking book. It does not profess to be a systematic treatise. In form it consists of a series of short sections dealing with particular points in the history and philosophy of religion; but though these seem at first sight to be wanting in strict connexion, a certain sequence is observed in the treatment of the subject. The book is divided into three parts, first dealing with religion and its origin, the second with Christianity and its essence, the third with dogma and its

nature.

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The first part contains much that is suggestive and admirable. Throughout his treatment of the psychological conditions in which religion finds its origin, M. Sabatier writes with the lucidity, candour, and freshness of a man who has clearly thought out his own position and who has become conscious of the limitations under which thought addresses itself to religious problems. In his endeavour to account for the constancy and perpetuity of the religious sense, the writer betrays his dependence on Pascal. Thus he tells us that religion begins with the unsatisfied sense of contradiction between the data of self-consciousness and the experience of the external world, a contradiction leading to the recognition of a third term, in which the two opposites are reconciled. This term is "the sense of their common dependence on God" (p. 24). So far M. Sabatier's conception of religion appears to be that of Schleiermacher, but he is careful to correct this impression by pointing out that, in so far as religion implies "a conscious and willed relation" between the soul and the power on which it finds itself dependent, a relation expressing itself instinctively in the form of prayer, religion becomes "a movement of liberty” and a venture of faith. It becomes a free act as well as a feeling of dependence.

It is needless to illustrate in detail M. Sabatier's point of view. The application of a purely psychological or Cartesian method to the ultimate problems of religion appears to him to be the most hopeful line of treatment in view of the results of criticism and historical research. There are, of course, dangers involved in the too strict adherence to this method. There is danger of the content of religion being unduly narrowed; there is the tendency to subjectivity and arbitrariness in deciding problems of authenticity. Thus M. Sabatier tells us that there is only one criterion by which an authentic revelation may be recognized. "Every divine revelation," he says, "every religious experience fit to nourish and sustain your soul must be able to repeat and continue itself as an actual revelation and an individual experience in your own consciousness" (p. 62). That this kind of individualism leads to occasional arbitrariness in dealing with the records of revelation was sufficiently manifest in Dr. Martineau's Seat of Authority. It is not surprising indeed that M. Sabatier appears to overrate the function and value of historical criticism in relation to the Christian facts, and that he lays undue stress upon the right of individual judgment (p. 179).

The second and third parts of the book are less satisfactory, in spite of many suggestive and acute remarks. Christianity is the perfect religion, "the absolute and final religion of mankind," because it claims to reproduce in men the consciousness of filial relation to God which was manifested in Jesus Christ. The third part consists of an attempt to formulate a theory of religious knowledge; but M. Sabatier does little more than point out certain positive characteristics of religious knowledge as contrasted with the "knowledge of Nature." It is, he tells us, subjective in the sense that it finds its data within the soul of man-viz., in the immediate consciousness of relationship to God. It is teleological. "Every teleological affirmation respecting the universe is a religious affirmation " (p. 318), for it passes beyond the domain of mere scientific investigation. It affirms the sovereignty of spirit over matter, in which affirmation is implied an initial act of faith. Further religious knowledge is necessarily symbolical owing to the inadequacy of language as a vehicle of thought.

A certain one-sidedness is apparent in the last two parts of the book. The writer's view of Protestantism strikes us as too highly idealized, and his criticism of Catholicism as somewhat trite and barren. The optimistic tone of the book reaches a climax in the seeming paradox that "Not only has Christianity never been better understood than in our own day, but never were civilization or the soul of humanity taken in their entirety more fundamentally Christian" (p. 180). Lastly, it should be noted that as a study of Christianity the book does not adequately recognize the fact which gave to the teaching of Jesus its unique significance and power-viz., His incomparable moral authority. M. Sabatier regards Christ as the perfect pattern of religion—that is, of filial dependence, submission, and trust. "What was there that was so new and potent in the least of his discourses? The treasure of His filial consciousness" (p. 161). Had the writer entered more deeply into the essential characteristics of Christ as a teacher of mankind, he would probably have done more justice to those aspects of Catholicism which he ignores or misjudges.

With these limitations, the book may be recommended as likely to aid perplexed minds, though it will not guide them to a just estimate of historic Christianity. The translation is on the whole excellent, though it is here

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Recent and Coming Eclipses. By Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., F.R.S. 8vo., xii.+166 pp. London, 1897. Macmillan and Co. 6/- n.

It has always been held that an eclipse of the sun is an event of grand importance to mankind. The dawn of history shows us that one of the chief duties of the primitive astronomer was to predict the occurrence of such a phenomenon, not indeed that scientific expeditions might seek points of vantage to observe it, but that the nations might be warned in time, by prayer and penance, to avert the wrath so obviously proclaimed on the part of the gods. Forty centuries ago in China the official astronomers revelled, and neglected this duty; the moon's shadow took the land unawares, the Emperor was perplexed with fear of change, and the astronomers were put to death. Familiar anecdotes from Herodotus and Plutarch show how ready mankind has always been to accept the most awful effects that Nature can produce as a tribute to the interest which Providence takes in the affairs of this inconsiderable planet. The same spirit is still vigorous among the less civilized races. A recent traveller describes how, in the midst of the horrors of the siege of Plevna, an eclipse of the moon took place, and the Turks" were acting in accordance with an ancient superstition when they fired off every available gun, believing that in doing so they would scare away the monstrous animal which was endeavouring to devour the silver queen of night." Sir Norman Lockyer tells us that in India, in 1871, his observations" would certainly have been rendered impossible by the smoke of sacrificial fires to frighten away Rahu, the Dragon which is supposed to cause eclipses by swallowing the sun, if there had not been a strong force of military and police present to extinguish them; and in Egypt in 1882, without the protection of the soldiers, a crowd of Egyptians would have invaded the camp." As far as one can make out from history, the shepherds of the vast Chaldaean plains were the first to free themselves from this fear of an eclipse, and to calculate its approach without emotion. Perhaps the explanation of their superiority lies in the fact that not even the most anthropomorphic of theologians could easily suppose that the gods would take the trouble of darkening the sun in order to predict the death of a valuable ram or the advent of a bad lambing season. Yet any one who has seen a solar eclipseit is a rare experience amongst modern Englishmen, and none has been visible in Britain since 1715-can hardly wonder that this most striking of celestial phenomena should have excited awe and even worship in its beholders at all stages of the earth's progress. Even the modern astronomer, who has done much to pluck the heart out of the mystery, falls under the glamour of the spectacle. "There, in the leaden-coloured utterly cloudless sky," writes Sir Norman Lockyer of the eclipse of 1871, "shone out the eclipsed sun! a worthy sight for gods and men. There, rigid in the heavens, was what struck everybody as a decoration, one that emperors might fight for; a thousand times more brilliant even than the Star of India, where we then were a picture of surpassing loveliness, and giving one the idea of serenity among all the activity that was going on below; shining with a sheen as of silver essence.

The business of the astronomer, however, does not allow him much time for contemplation of the weird beauty of an eclipse. His mind runs chiefly on the fact that the advancement of our knowledge of the sun's constitution—and by analogy of that of the other stars-depends in great measure on the use he can make of the two or three minutes during which, twice or thrice in a decade, the moon veils the intolerable splendour of the solar disc and reveals its atmosphere and appendages to the myriad eyes of science at gaze. Into those few minutes has to be crowded a quantity of work whose very description with its tale of highly specialized instruments would appal the untechnical reader, to whom it hardly seems

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